Michaela Frischherz, Ph.D.

Biography

Dr. Michaela Frischherz earned her Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa in 2015. She also holds a M.A. in Cultural Analysis from the Universiteit van Amsterdam and a B.A. in Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs from Miami University, Ohio. Michaela specializes in cultural and rhetorical theory/criticism with an emphasis on feminist and queer ways of knowing. Her research focuses on the meaning-making practices forged by women and other historically disenfranchised genders communicating pleasure and sex in various public spheres. Her latest article, published in QED: A Journal of Queer Worldmaking, explores the possibilities of pleasure in the time of COVID-19. Michaela teaches rhetorical theory and criticism, sexual communication, research methods, queer/lgbt communication studies, and a study abroad experience in Amsterdam, Netherlands. When she’s not studying the communicative dimensions of sex, Michaela enjoys spending time with her partner, two cats, two bunnies, and a dog named Holly.

Forthcoming Publications

Michaela Frischherz and Desirée Rowe, “Faking it, Finishing, and Ambivalence: Women’s Negotiations of (Sexual) Failure in Conversation,” Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, (2023), Forthcoming.

Publications

Desirée Rowe and Michaela Frischherz, “Focus Groups as Critical-Cultural Method within Communication Studies,” Western Journal of Communication, 86:5 (2022), 483-502.

Michaela Frischherz, “Pleasure and Queer Communication Studies,” in Oxford Encyclopedia of Queer Studies & Communication, eds. Isaac N. West and E Cram, 20 June, (2022), https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.1158

Michaela Frischherz, “Pleasure and Anxiety in the Time of COVID-19,” QED: A Journal of Queer Worldmaking, 7:3 (2020): 179-184. 

Michaela Frischherz, “Bodies and Pleasures in Feminist Publics: The Rhetorical Effectivities of Fifty Shades of Grey,” in Communication in Kink: Understanding the Influence of the Fifty Shades of Grey Phenomenon, ed. Jessica M.W. Kratzer (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020), 155-176.

Michaela Frischherz, “Queer Adventures in the Forum and the Archive: Or, The Flood Made Immersion Possible,” Cultural Studies ó Critical Methodologies 20:2 (2020): 167-175.

Michaela Frischherz, “Listening to Orgasm: Hearing Pleasure’s Affects in the Normative Noise,” Argumentation and Advocacy 54:4 (2018): 270-286. Lead Article.   

Michaela Frischherz, “A Slowness to Judge the Acronym’s Orientations: Objectum-Sexuality and the Rhetorical Politics of Giving an Account,” Women & Language 41:1 (2018): 62-78.

Michaela Frischherz, “Cosmo Complaints:  Reparative Reading and the Possibility of Pleasure in Cosmopolitan Magazine,” Sexualities 21:4 (2018): 552-568.

Michaela Frischherz, “Affective Agency and Transformative Shame: The Voices Behind The Great Wall of Vagina,” Women’s Studies in Communication 38:3 (2015): 251-272.  Lead Article.

Isaac West, Michaela Frischherz, Allison Panther, and Richard Brophy, “Queer Worldmaking in the ‘It Gets Better’ Campaign,” QED: A Journal of GLTBQ Worldmaking, Inaugural Issue (2013): 49-86.