Cailin Roles

Lecturer, English and Media Studies
Ph.D. in English, Northeastern University
M.A. in English, Kansas State University
B.A. (Hons) in English Literature with Creative Writing, University of East Anglia

croles@bentley.edu

Teaching Interests

Contemporary Literature and Film, Animation Studies, Comics Studies, Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Queer Studies, Gender Studies

Research Interests

Animated Film, Comics and Graphic Narratives, Cultural Studies, Aesthetics, Performance Studies, Labor and Embodiment

Bio

Cailin Flannery Roles researches cultural representations of gender, class, and race in contemporary visual media, particularly animated film and graphic narratives. Their writing can be read in Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Animation Studies 2.0, and Digital Humanities Quarterly. They also serve as a member of the English Term Development Board of the Homosaurus International LGBTQ+ Linked Data Vocabulary.

Professional Memberships

Society for Cinema and Media Studies Present

Society for Animation Studies Present

Scholarly Contributions and Creative Productions

Journal Articles

Roles, C. F. (2024). Visual Metamorphosis and the Struggle for Subjectivity in Kon Satoshi’s Paprika. Animation Studies 2.0 (Link)

Schlotterback, E., Roles, C. F., Rawson, K. (2022). Investing in Project Maintenance: Auditing the Digital Transgender Archive. Digital Humanities Quarterly, (16) 1 (Link)

Roles, C. F. (2021). 'The surface on which you work': Self-Alienation and the Culture of Narcissism in Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman.. Texas Studies in Literature and Language, (63) 3 276-298. (Link)

Presentations

Roles, C. F. (2025). “Structures of Memory and Witnessing in Yuri Norstein’s Tale of Tales”

Roles, C. (2024). “A Comic 'For All Of Us': Rewriting the Legacy of Walt Disney Studios through Bennie Nobori’s Jankee Reporter and Zootsuo”

Bentley University Faculty