Julie O'Reilly

Dr. Julie D. O'Reilly primarily teaches courses that focus on media effects and media literacy: How do the media affect us as individuals and as members of a society? What should we know about how the media operate? What are our reponsibilities as citizens of the digital age? She enjoys teaching and discussing all forms of media with her students, but television is by far her favorite, as it is her primary research area.

Dr. O'Reilly is the co-editor (with Dr. Curt Hersey of Berry College) of Making Thought Visible: Essays on Neurodiversity on Television (McFarland, 2025), the author of Bewitched Again: Supernaturally Powerful Women on Television, 1996-2011 (McFarland, 2013), and a 2013 Faculty Fellow of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation. She has published articles in the Journal of American Culture and Clues: A Journal of Detection and previously has served as the Popular Culture Association (PCA) Gender Studies Area Chair. She continues to be a regular presenter at the PCA national conference.

Additionally, at Heidelberg, she was the 2021-2023 Jane Frost-Kalnow Professor in the Humanities, the 2014 winner of the Distinguished Scholarship/Research Award, and the 2010 winner of the Ream-Paradiso Distinguished Teaching Award. From 2010-2017, she served as the Chair of the Department of Communication & Media, and, from 2017-2020, she served as the Dean of Humanities, Education, and the Arts. In Fall 2025, she began the part-time role of Coordinator of Online Programs while continuing to teach.

Courses Taught

MED 156: Media and Culture
MED 321: Social Media Studies
MED 323: Television Studies
MED 325: Popular Culture Studies
MED 351: Advertising and PR Campaigns
COM 100: Public Speaking and Engagement
GID 100: Introduction to Gender and Identity Studies

Expertise

Television studies, popular culture, feminist media studies

Research Interests

Television representation, stand-up comedy, generational identity