Karen J Renner (she/her/hers)

Associate Professor
Department of English
Also associated with
College of Arts and Letters

Contact

Building: Liberal Arts (18)
Room: 331

Biography

https://www.karenjrenner.com/

Karen J. Renner teaches classes in American literature and popular culture, with a particular focus on horror.

Degrees

B.S. Math/English
State University New York College At Brockport
M.A. English
State University New York College At Brockport
Ph.D. English
University Of Connecticut

Scholarship and Creative Activity

Book
Renner, K. J. (2023). Emerging Trends in Twenty-First-Century Horror (p. 163). LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory vol. 33, no. 2 & 4.
Renner, K. J. (2016). Evil Children in the Popular Imagination (p. 274). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Renner, K. J. (2012). The 'Evil Child' in Literature, Film and Popular Culture (p. 198). New York: Routledge.
Renner, K. J., & Masters, J. M. (2012). Representations of the Apocalypse in Literature and Film (p. 191). LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory.
Co-edited double volume special issue of LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory. https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/glit20/23/2?nav=tocList https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/glit20/23/3?nav=tocList
Chapter
Renner, K. J. (2022). Violence in the School Shooter Film. The Palgrave Handbook of Violence in Film and Media (p. 187-205). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Renner, K. J. (2022). “As Literature” Approaches and the Academic Canonization of Television Studies. Television Series as Literature: From the Ordinary to the Unthinkable (p. 19-36). Palgrave Macmillan.
Renner, K. J. (2020). Racial Innocence. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Childhood Studies (p. 1394). Thousand Oaks: SAGE.
Renner, K. J. (2020). Degeneration through Violence and Stephen King’s _Rage_. Children and Childhood in the Works of Stephen King (p. 15-34). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Essay nominated for the long ballot for the Stoker Award in Best Short Nonfiction.
Renner, K. J. (2020). Youth Violence. Violence in American Society: An Encyclopedia of Trends, Problems, and Perspectives (p. 573-92). Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.
Renner, K. J. (2019). Poe and the Contemporary Serial Killer Narrative. Psychology in Edgar Allan Poe (p. 13-40). Berlin: Logos Verlag.
Essay appeared on the long ballot for the Stoker Award for Best Short Nonfiction.
Renner, K. J. (2019). The Evil Aging Women of _American Horror Story_. Elder Horror on Screen: Hermits, Harbingers, and Hags (p. 189-201). Jefferson: McFarland.
Nominee for the Bram Stoker award for Best Short Nonfiction.
Renner, K. J. (2019). Representing Mononormativity. Gender, Sexuality, and Queerness in _American Horror Story_: Critical Essays (p. 43-55). Jefferson: McFarland.
Renner, K. J. (2018). 'Child Psychopath' Films of the 1980s and 1990s. Cruel Children in Popular Texts and Cultures (p. 193-216). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Renner, K. J. (2018). Dreadful Girl Diaries and the Promise of Transparent Girlhood. Terrifying Texts: Essays on Books of Good and Evil in Horror Cinema (p. 145-53). Jefferson: McFarland.
Renner, K. J. (2015). Monstrous Newborns and the Mothers Who Love Them: Intensive Mothering in Twenty-First-Century Horror Films. Monstrous Children and Childish Monsters (p. 27-41). Jefferson: McFarland.
Renner, K. J. (2015). Grading. How to Build a Life in the Humanities (p. 41-49). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Renner, K. J. (2015). Afterword. Around the World in Eighty Days (p. 239-47). New York: Signet Classics.
Renner, K. J. (2015). Conquering the Frontier Gothic in _Red Dawn_. War Gothic in Literature and Culture (p. 245-56). New York: Routledge.
Renner, K. J. (2014). Generational Conflict, Twenty-First-Century Horror Films, and _The Cabin in the Woods_. The Millennials on Film and Television: The Politics of Popular Culture (p. 110-25). Jefferson: McFarland Press.
Renner, K. J. (2012). Hawthorne's Pearl: The Origins of Good and Evil in _The Scarlet Letter_. Critical Insights: Good and Evil (p. ). Ipswich, MA: Salem Press.
Renner, K. J. (2010). Literary Character and Character Types. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Language Sciences (p. 453-54). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Creative Performance
Renner, K. J. (2022). Special Investigation: The Haunting of Flagstaff. The Dead Files Flagstaff, AZ: The Travel Channel.
Appeared on an episode of Travel Channel's television show The Dead Files entitled "Special Investigation: The Haunting of Flagstaff" (season 14, episode 12) as a "local expert" and attended the "reveal."
Renner, K. J. (2021). Everything You Never Wanted to Know about Children of the Corn. Nebraska Wesleyan University's Spooky Evenings series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP3vN9HnyAA.
Renner, K. J. (2020). The New Child Psycho. Nights of Horror Series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsHSQHODcQ4&t=1689s.
Renner, K. J. (2019). Haunted Flagstaff. Local Legends. Flagstaff, AZ: Flagstaff Public Library.
Renner, K. J. (2019). Evil Children in the Popular Imagination. Invited Interview for the Society for the History of Children and Youth https://www.shcy.org/features/books/evil-children-in-the-popular-imagination/.
Renner, K. J. (2018). How Zombies Reflect Modern Fears. Interview with host of The Show, Steve Goldstein. KJZZ, NPR Member Station, Phoenix, AZ: https://theshow.kjzz.org/content/716150/how-zombies-reflect-modern-fears.
Renner, K. J. (2017). What Is Lost. Narrow Chimney Reading Series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH1uOE4XT2Y&t=15s.
Renner, K. J. (2017). Horror Genre Seems To Be Bleeding Into Other Genres. Interview with host of The Show, Lauren Gilger. KJZZ, NPR Member Station, Phoenix, AZ: https://kjzz.org/content/455337/horror-genre-seems-be-bleeding-other-genres.
Renner, K. J. (2017). Spine Chillers: Why We Seek the Scary. Public Presentation. Flagstaff, AZ: Flagstaff Public Library.
Renner, K. J. (2015). Second Wife. Narrow Chimney Reading Series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9V_aSTlZTo.
Creative Production
Renner, K. J. (2022) Afterword: Debunking the Myths. Haunted Flagstaff. Arcadia Press.
Renner, K. J. (2021) Solving for X. Bards & Sages, vol. 13, no. 2 (April): pp. 10-12.
Renner, K. J. (2017) Kids' Stuff in Contemporary Horror Film. H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Online. https://networks.h-net.org/node/2602/discussions/587410/kids-stuff-contemporary-horror-film.
Renner, K. J. (2017) Exploited Exceptionals and Stranger Things’s Eleven. Palgrave Macmillan Author Perspectives. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/campaigns/halloween/halloween-karen-renner.
Renner, K. J. (2016) Second Wife. The Sharpened Quill : New Voices in Modern Short Fiction, edited by Steve Schwartz, Shadow Press, pp. 73-81.
Renner, K. J. (2016) The Archive. The Sharpened Quill: New Voices in Modern Short Fiction, edited by Steve Schwartz, Shadow Press.
Renner, K. J. (2011) The Cocktail as Fashion Accessory: A (Very) Brief Personal History Told Through Drink. Make Mine a Double: A Celebration of Women and Drink, edited by Regina Barreca, University Press of New England, pp. 47-52.
Journal Publication
Renner, K. J. (2023). Psychoanalysis and the Politics of Prestige Horror. LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, 33(4), 296-316.
Renner, K. J. (2021). Zombie Desire, Queerness, and Race in _The Girl with All the Gifts_. Revenant: Critical and Creative Studies of the Supernatural, 7 165-89.
Renner, K. J. (2013). The Apocalypse Begins at Home: The Antichrist-as-Child Film. Frame, 26(1), 47-59.
Renner, K. J. (2013). Negotiations of Masculinity in American Ghost-Hunting Reality Television Shows. Horror Studies, 4(2), 225-43.
Renner, K. J. (2012). The Appeal of the Apocalypse. LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, 22(3), 203-11.
Renner, K. J. (2012). Monstrous Schoolgirls: Casual Sex in the Twenty-First-Century Horror Film. Red Feather: An International Journal of Children's Visual Culture, 3(2), 34-50.
Renner, K. J. (2011). Evil Children in Film and Literature: Notes Toward a Genealogy. LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, 22(2), 79-95.
Renner, K. J. (2011). Evil Children in Film and Literature: Notes Toward a Taxonomy. LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, 22(3), 177-96.
Renner, K. J. (2010). Seduction, Prostitution, and the Control of Female Desire in Popular Antebellum Fiction. Nineteenth-Century Literature, 65(2), 166-91.
Renner, K. J. (2006). Repeat Viewings Revisited: Emotions, Memory, and _Memento_. Film Studies, 8(1), 106-15.
Review
Renner, K. J. (2025). <p>Review of <em>Hollywood's Monstrous Moms</em> and <em>The Sinful Maternal</em>.</p> : Journal of Popular Film and Television.
Renner, K. J. (2023). Global TV Horror, edited by Stacey Abbott and Lorna Jowett. : Comparative Literature Studies, vol. 60, no. 1.
Invited to review book for Penn State's Comparative Literature Studies journal.
Renner, K. J. (2022). Affective Intensities and Evolving Horror Forms: From Found Footage to Virtual Reality : Journal of Popular Film and Television, vol. 50, no. 2: 95-96.
Renner, K. J. (2022). From Dead Ends to Cold Warriors: Constructing American Boyhood in Postwar Hollywood Films : Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 15.1: 159-61.
Renner, K. J. (2022). Vivarium (2019) : Gothic Nature, Issue 3.
Renner, K. J. (2019). Girl Meets Shark: The Shallows (2016) and 47 Meters Down (2017) : Gothic Nature, Issue 1.
Renner, K. J. (2019). What's Eating You? Food and Horror on Screen : Screen Bodies 3.2.
Renner, K. J. (2019). Fashionable Childhood: Children in Advertising. : Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 42, no. 1.
Renner, K. J. (2017). Making and Remaking Horror in the 1970s and 2000s: Why Don't They Do It Like They Used To? : Journal of Popular Film and Television 45.4.
Renner, K. J. (2015). The Ambiguous Role of Agency in Childhood Studies : WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly 43.1-2 (Spring/Summer 2015): 304-07.
Renner, K. J. (2014). The Politics of Childhood by Anne Kordas : Journal of American Culture 37.3: 370-71.
Renner, K. J. (2014). Getting Inside Your Head: What Cognitive Science Can Tell Us about Popular Culture, by Lisa Zunshine. : Journal of Popular Romance Studies 4.2: 1-3.
Renner, K. J. (2014). Folklore Rules: A Fun, Quick, and Useful Introduction to the Field of Academic Folklore Studies : Journal of Popular Culture 47.6: 1330-32.
Renner, K. J. (2014). A Companion to American Gothic. : Journal of American Culture 39.1: 78-79.

Program Affiliation

  • English
    Bachelor of Arts
  • English - Literature
    Master of Arts
  • English
    Minor

Interests

Teaching
  • American literature, popular genres, American gothic.
Research
  • Horror, childhood studies, popular culture.

Honors

Educator of Influence (2023)
Northern Arizona University
Presidential Distinguished Teaching Fellow (2022)
Northern Arizona University
Educator of Influence, Gold Axe Awards (2021)
Northern Arizona University
Bram Stoker Award® nomination for "The Evil Aging Women of _American Horror Story_" in Short Non-Fiction (2020)
Horror Writer's Association
Commission on the Status of Women Faculty Diversity Award (2020)
Northern Arizona University
Member, Phi Kappa Phi (2020)
Phi Kappa Phi
Excellence in Liberal Studies (2017)
Northern Arizona University
CAL Teacher of the Year (2016)
Northern Arizona University

Courses

Spring 2025
ENG 230: Introduction To Literature
ENG 368: Studies In Speculative Literature
Horror
ENG 364W: Topics In Popular Literature
Cultural Criticism
ENG 497: Independent Study

Advising Degrees

English - Major (BA)
Literature - Certificate