Karen M. Bowdre

Karen M. Bowdre received an MS from the Communication Department at Cornell University and a PhD in Critical Studies from the University of Southern California, School of Cinema-Television. She ​has published on African American media, theatre, and romantic comedies in Black Camera: An International Film Journal, the Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Falling in Love Again: The Contemporary Romantic Comedy, The Politics and Poetics of Black Film: Nothing But a Man, and Cinema Journal.

Her research interests include race and representation, gender, early African American theatre history, adaptation, romantic comedies, telefantasy, and telenovelas. Her book Shades of Love: African Americans and the Hollywood Romantic Comedy is forthcoming from the University of Illinois Press. She is also the co-editor of From Madea to Media Mogul: Critical Perspectives on Tyler Perry which was released on July 1, 2016 with University of Mississippi Press.