Mia Du Plessis

Mia Du Plessis is an Associate Professor (Teaching) in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from USC (1993), alongside multiple advanced degrees including an MA in Professional Writing (USC, 2014) and prior degrees from South African institutions. Her work bridges literary analysis with visual and cinematic studies.

Research interests include modernist aesthetics, Gothic literature, posthumanism, and the interplay between narrative and visual culture. She has presented at prominent venues like the Modernist Studies Association and &Now Conference, focusing on topics such as decadent commodities in Meyrink’s work and occult networking in fin-de-siècle modernism.

Her publications span book chapters on posthuman Gothic identities and peer-reviewed essays on cinema and globalization. She has mentored undergraduate thesis projects on topics ranging from detective fiction to postmodern historical narratives. Beyond academia, she contributed creative works like the poetry chapbook Songs Dead Soldiers Sing and an installation piece for the Highways Gallery exhibition WITNESS: Veteran Activists Remember ACT UP/LA.

Active in university service, she organized events like Too Human: Law, Humanity, Limits and delivered orientation sessions on visual culture analysis. Her teaching extends to innovative workshops such as Reading Animals in Comic Books during USC’s Welcome Week.