Sarah LeBlanc
Sarah Symonds LeBlanc (Ph.D., 2012, University of Missouri) is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW). She specializes in family and health communication, in particular identity negotiation. Her research has been published in Death Studies, Journal of Loss and Trauma, and as chapters in edited volumes.
Sarah interests in pop culture stem from using the Harry Potter series in her family communication course and her avid love of Star Wars. Sarah ventured into combining pop culture and communication research when the word “princess” was being used to describe her daughters. She sat down, watched countless hours of Star Wars, and wrote, Taking Back the P-Word: Princess Leia Feminism, An Autoethnography, winner of the 2017 Michael T. Marsden Paper Award for the Midwest Popular Culture Association journal, Popular Culture Studies.
Sarah is interested in exploring how family, health, and gender is communicated through television shows. Since a lot of her “mom time” is spent watching PBS Kids and Disney Junior, Sarah hopes to explore gender roles among animated shows and how the Disney Princess is evolving. She also hopes to one day write how using Harry Potter has influenced how her fan-students communicate within their families.
