Margaret M. Quinlan

Margaret M. Quinlan (Ph.D., Ohio University) is a Professor of Communication and a Core Faculty Member of the Interdisciplinary Health Psychology Ph.D. Program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Quinlan is the Director of an Interdisciplinary Minor, Health/Medical Humanities and received the Bonnie E. Cone Early Career Professorship in Teaching (2015-2018). She explores how communication creates, resists and transforms knowledges about bodies. She critiques power structures in order to empower individuals who are marginalized inside and outside of healthcare systems. Additionally, her scholarly work explores the organizing of health care resources and work opportunities for people with lived differences. Dr. Quinlan authored approximately 40 journal articles, 17 book chapters and co-produced documentaries in a regional Emmy award-winning series (National Distribution with PBS and available on Amazon).

Dr. Quinlan has published in Health Communication, Text & Performance Quarterly, Disability Studies Quarterly, Communication Education, Women & Language, Women’s Reproductive Health, Qualitative Research in Medicine and Healthcare, International Journal of Health and Media Research, Sexuality & Culture, Journal of Research in Special Education Needs, and Journal of Holistic Nursing.

She co-authored a book with Bethany Johnson: You’re doing it wrong! Mothering, media, and medical expertise with Rutgers University Press. You’re Doing it Wrong! investigates the storied history of expertise around mothering in the media, from the newspapers, magazines, doctors’ records and personal papers of the nineteenth century to today’s websites, Facebook groups, and Instagram feeds. Johnson and Quinlan find surprising parallels between today’s mothering experts and their Victorian counterparts, but they also explore how social media has placed unprecedented pressures on new mothers wrestling with familiar concerns and crises from pre-conception through early toddlerhood.

Documentaries on Amazon:

Creative Abundance: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Abundance-Patty-Mitchell/dp/B07HNW1GFM/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=creative+abundance+harter&qid=1626089655&s=books&sr=1-1

Beautiful Remedy: https://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Remedy-Lynn-Harter/dp/B07KFVZS86/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=harter+lynn+beautiful+remedy&qid=1626089771&s=books&sr=1-1

Documentaries on YouTube:

The acoustics of care: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK-4e0I70PI

1 in 8: Communicating (In)fertility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z9jfZjoS04

Research website: https://johnsonquinlanresearch.com/

University website and CV: https://pages.uncc.edu/margaret-quinlan/

Psychology Today- Medical Humanities Mamas: https://johnsonquinlanresearch.com/

Areas of Interest:

Health, Organizational and Performative Communication

Ethnography, Narrative/Interpretive/Rhetorical/Feminist Analyses

Social justice issues that affect marginalized populations including disability-rights and gender inequities

Women’s Reproductive Health

Social Media, Medical Expertise, Motherhood

Public Perceptions of Science, Medicine and Technology

Intersectional Feminism

Practitioner-patient communication

“sex-selection,” infertility, infant loss, childbirth, breastfeeding, postpartum issues, premature birth, maternal mortality, and developmental milestones