Rate My Professor Anna Michelson

Michelson's research interests encompass culture, gender, sexuality, theory, and qualitative methods, with a focus on how advances in publishing technology and organizational changes have diversified romance fiction into categories like erotic romance, LGBTQ+ romance, and multicultural romance, attributing political significance to the genre as readers and writers identify subversive potential in 'happily-ever-afters' for marginalized groups. Her peer-reviewed publications include 'The Politics of Happily-Ever-After: Romance Genre Fiction as Aesthetic Public Sphere' in the American Journal of Cultural Sociology (2021) and, co-authored with Wendy Griswold, 'The Outsider’s Edge: Geography, Gender, and Sexuality in the Local Color Movement' in Sociological Forum (2020, 35(3): 628-647). She has received the Weinberg College Teaching Fellowship (2019), an Academic Research Grant from Romance Writers of America ($2000, 2018), multiple Northwestern research grants, and honors such as Honorable Mention for the Robert F. Winch Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Lecturer (2019). At McPherson College, she teaches Introduction to Sociology, Sociology of Culture, Marriage and Family, Criminal Justice, and Sociology Theory, and chairs the Institutional Review Board while contributing as a reviewer for Poetics. Her scholarship has been presented at American Sociological Association meetings, including Sociology of Culture Roundtables.