Teaching
Over the past decade, Dr. Ellcessor has taught a range of undergraduate and graduate courses and has done extensive work in curriculum design for the Indiana University Media School and the University of Virginia MA in Media, Culture & Technology.
She has also served as a committee member on over 20 thesis or dissertation committees, has advised multiple Masters theses, and has mentored undergraduate research through the UVA Distinguished Major Program and the McNair Scholars.
Undergraduate Courses

- Media & Disability (Syllabus)
This course at UVA is open to majors and non-majors, and offers an overview of disability representations in film, television, and digital media as well as considerations of disability and media industries, media accessibility, and disabled audiences. - Media Bodies
In this course, students study media’s relationships to bodies’ abilities, movements, measurements, differences, and norms. It is an interdisciplinary course–drawing from the medical humanities, technical literatures, film and media studies to feminist theory, and disability studies, and history of science and technology–with a focus on learning feminist in-depth interviewing methods. - Celebrity Studies
Dr. Ellcessor has taught multiple undergraduate courses related to celebrity, integrating star studies with studies of online celebrity (influencers) and modes of celebrity as they apply in politics, activism, and entrepreneurship. - Media
A large lecture class (200), required of all undergraduates majoring or minoring in the IU Media School, which introduces all of the available major tracks and a range of approaches to studying and producing media. Developed in collaboration with faculty from film and media studies, journalism and public relations, telecommunications, and game design.
Graduate Courses
- Media, Culture & Technology (Syllabus)
This required graduate course surveys key and innovative texts in the study of media, including the Frankfurt School, Marxist and cultural studies approaches, political economy, science and technology studies, and new media theory. - MA Thesis Development & Writing
These required MA courses guide students through the intellectual and practical processes of producing an original thesis. In addition to learning research skills, refining writing and communication skills, and giving and receiving peer feedback, students are also given professionalization opportunities geared towards helping them to chart a future path in academia, industry, or elsewhere. - Digital Media Access
This mixed MA and PhD course taught at Indiana University offered students a variety of approaches to the study of digital media access, including policy (common carriage, net neutrality), digital divide literatures, circuits of cultural studies, and disability studies understandings of access.
Several former students have published work begun in this class:
– CJ Reynolds & Blake Hallinan, “The Haunting of GeoCities and the politics of access control on the early Web,” New Media & Society 2021
– James N. Gilmore, “Circulating The Square: Digital Distribution as (Potential) Activism” in The Age of Netflix, Cory Barker & Myc Wiatrowski, eds. McFarland. 2017.