Dr. Linda Beail teaches courses in American politics, political theory, and gender & race politics. Her research interests include theorizing about postfeminism, the politics of popular culture, and gender & religion in American politics. Her most recent book is entitled Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America. Her current research is on pleasure and anxiety in the pop culture representations of political women, with recent book chapters on Black Widow and gender in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and gender in presidential elections. Beail has organized two national conferences on gender in Christian higher education, and has served as an NGO delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. She has appeared on podcasts, television & radio commenting on politics, popular culture, and elections. Beail regularly travels with students — from a week immersed in the New Hampshire presidential primaries and PLNU's Civil Rights Pilgrimage to visiting Washington, D.C. for presidential inaugurations and teaching political theory in Paris, Heidelberg, and Florence, Italy.
Education
- Ph.D., Political Science, University of Iowa
- B.A., summa cum laude, English Literature and Political Science, Wheaton College (IL)
Courses Taught
- Politics of Race, Class and Gender – POL 1090
- American Government – POL 1065
- Western Political Thought – POL 3021
- Campaigns and Elections – POL 3041
- Development of Feminist Thought – POL 3030
- Women and Politics – POL 4015
Professional and Community Involvement
Interviewed on New Books Network Podcast, “Post Script: Kamala Harris as Vice President,” August 13, 2020.
Invited panelist, "Women in the Political Arena: 2016 and Beyond," St. John's University, Queens, New York, October 18, 2016
Founding director, Margaret Stevenson Center for Women’s Studies, 1998-2018.
Co-editor, Politics and Popular Culture book series, University Press of Kansas
Member, American Political Science Association, Western Political Science Association, and Association for Political Theory
Served on several student honors committees and serves as faculty advisor to Pi Sigma Alpha (political science honor society)
Awards and Honors
R.I.S.E. (Resilience Ignited for Strength and Equality) Award, inaugural annual recipient, from Point Loma Nazarene University gender equality club B.R.E.A.K., March 20, 2019
Wesleyan Center Research Fellow 2019-2020, “Political Women on Television: Power, Pleasure and Anxiety,” August 2019- July 2020
President, Politics, Literature and Film section of the American Political Science Association, 2018-2019
Participant, CIEE International Faculty Development Seminar, “Women, Tradition and Revolution,” Amman, Jordan, May 2013
"Puritan or Pitbull: The Framing of Female Candidates at the National Level,” with Rhonda Kinney Longworth in Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics, eds. Lilly Goren and Justin Vaughn, University of Kentucky Press, 2013; winner of the Susan Koppelman Award for Best Anthology, Multi-Authored, or Edited Work in Feminist Studies in Popular Culture published in 2013 from the Popular Culture Association/American Cuture Association
Dissertations, Presentations, and Publications
Publications
“Women, the Presidency and Popular Culture,” with Lilly J. Goren, in Madam President? Gender Politics on the Road to the White House, edited by Lori Cox Han and Caroline Heldman, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2020.
“Madam President? Female Candidates and Masculine Norms in the Fight for the Oval Office,” with Lilly J. Goren and Mary A. McHugh, in The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2020, edited by Jonathan Bernstein and Casey B.K. Dominguez, Rowman & Littlefield, October 2019.
“‘Better in Stereo’: Doubled and divided representations of postfeminist girlhood on the Disney Channel,” with Caroline Beail and Lindsey J.H. Lupo, Visual Inquiry 7.2, 2018.
Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America, edited with Lilly J. Goren, Bloomsbury Press, 2015.
Results May Vary: Christian Women Reflect on Post-College Life, ed. with Sylvia Cortez Masyuk, Point Loma Press (an imprint of Wipf & Stock), 2013.
Framing Sarah Palin: Pit Bulls, Puritans and Politics, with Rhonda Kinney Longworth. Routledge, 2013.
Presentations
- “Gender and Power: Constructions, Structures, and Constraints,” with Lilly J. Goren, European Conference on Gender and Politics, University of Amsterdam, July 4-6, 2019.
- “The Political Uses of Time and Light: Theorizing Nostalgia via Postfeminist Girlhood,” annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association, San Diego, CA, April 18-20, 2019.
- “’Better in Stereo:’ The Disney Channel’s Doubled and Divided Representations of Girlhood in the 21st Century,” with Caroline Beail, “Let’s Hear It For The Girls”: Girlhood, Media and Popular Culture, 1990-Present, University of Warwick, United Kingdom, March 12, 2016.
- “Precarity in the Field of Vision: Mad Men’s Imagined Feminisms,” Roundtable, National Women’s Studies Association annual meeting, Milwaukee, WI, November 14, 2015.
- Invited presenter/participant, “Gender, Faith and Development,” conference co-sponsored by Wheaton College Gender Studies Program and Bread for the World, Wheaton, IL, October 2-3, 2015.
