Kevin Cooley Creates Things

I am a Professor of Liberal Arts at the Ringling College of Art and Design, where I teach courses on media studies, animation studies, visual culture, and writing for audio drama. I earned my PhD in English from the University of Florida, and I received my M.A. from St. Bonaventure University. 

My academic work is featured in Modernism/Modernity, The Journal of Postmodern Culture, iNKS, Animation: an interdisciplinary journal, Horror Studies, and more. I am particularly excited about my essay “Drawing Queerness Forward,” in the first edited collection on Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe, created by Rebecca Sugar. I have served as the managing editor of ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, and as a guest editor for Synoptique's special issue “Animating LGBTQ+ Representations: Queering the Production of Movement.” 

When I'm not teaching or publishing, I am creating audio drama. I am the showrunner and creator of the fiction podcast The Backrooms: Silverfish, distributed by Bloody FM, and debuting in October of 2026.