Samantha Freeman is a PhD candidate in Northwestern University’s Screen Cultures program and holds dual certificates in Teaching and Gender & Sexuality Studies. She received her BA in Film and Media from the University of California Berkeley and an MA in Screen Cultures also from Northwestern. Her dissertation traces how television has represented sexual violence since the 1950s, with a particular focus on the medium’s narrative conventions and aesthetics. Her dissertation illuminates the role of seriality, genre and melodrama in navigating and representing the complexity of sexual violence and survivorship in television series like Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC, 1999-), Big Little Lies (HBO, 2017-2019) and Unbelievable (Netflix, 2019).
