Jim McKelly

Education

PhD, Indiana University

About Me

Jim McKelly received his PhD from Indiana University in 1990. He specializes in 20th-century American modernism, cultural studies, and film studies. He has published work in a range of journals, including Arts & Letters, Screen, African American Review, and Profession; his award-winning creative work in drama has been performed theatrically in Georgia and Pennsylvania. In more than 35 years and counting at Auburn, Jim has offered a wide variety of courses, from "Ways of Being Wild: the Culture of Rebellion in American Fiction and Film" to “Screening the Real: Truth, Identity and Strategies of Representation in Contemporary American Cinema.”

In the course of his career, Jim has been honored with various commendations for excellence in teaching from an array of campus organizations, including the Panhellenic Council, the Omicron Delta Kappa honorary, Lambda Sigma, Mortar Board, the Beta Chi Chapter of Delta Zeta, the Golden Key International Honor Society, the Plainsman, the College of Liberal Arts, and the English department. He has been named Professor of the Year by the Honors Congress three times, most recently in 2022, and was a finalist for that distinction in 2025.

Research Interests

20th-century American cultural studies, film studies, modernism

Publications

• "Youth Cinema and the Culture of Rebellion: Heathers and the Rebel Archetype," in Pictures of a Generation on Hold, Pomerance and Sakeris, eds. Toronto: Media Studies Working Group (1996): pp. 107-14.
• "Raising Cain in a Down Eden: Menace II Society and the Death of Signifyin(g)," Screen, Spring (1998): pp. 36-52.
• "The Double Truth, Ruth: Do the Right Thing and the Culture of Ambiguity," African American Review, 32, 2 (1998).

Films

• A Promised Land: Rushmore and America (2002). Director and Co-Producer. Broadcast December 2002, Tennessee Public Television.

Plays

• "The Joy of Theft" was performed on September 9-12 as part of the Pittsburgh Festival of New Works.