PhD Supervision Interests

Film theory

Film and philosophy

Hollywood cinema

Romantic comedy

French film

Politics and film

Current Teaching

I currently teach on the following courses:

CULT334: Ideology and Politics in the Cinema

CULT311: Film Theory

Cult 212: Film, Modernism and the Avant-Garde

Cinema and History (MA course)

Research Interests

My research focuses on the intersections between theory, culture and the image, with a particular focus on film. I have just published a book called 'Cinema After Deleuze' which offers something of an introduction to Gilles Deleuze's writings on cinema. I'd also like to think the book offers a version of Deleuze's film-philosophy which is quite distinct. Last year I published 'The Reality of Film' which examines theories of film by Andre Bazin, Christian Metz, Stanley Cavell, Gilles Deleuze, Slavoj Zizek and Jacques Ranciere. I am currently finishing off a book which charts the intersection between contemporary political philisophy and some classical Hollywood films. The focus of the book is on theories of democracy, and I examine some classic films, such as 'Mr Smith Goes to Washington', 'Born Yesterday', 'The Sound of Music' and 'On the Waterfront'. In 2010 I published What is Film Theory?' which I co-wrote with my colleague, Gary Bettinson. I have published articles on Douglas Sirk's "Imitation of Life", on Demme's "The Silence of the Lambs", on "Gladiator", on Hitchcock's "Spellbound", and others. I recently co-organised a conference on the films of Catherine Breillat, held in London, April 2008.

PUBLICATIONS:

Cinema After Deleuze, (Continuum, 2012)

The Reality of Film: Theories of Filmic Reality(Manchester University Press 2011) - you can read a short review here:http://www.filmireland.net/2011/01/17/the-reality-of-film-theories-of-filmic-reality/; or find details here:http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/catalogue/book.asp?id=1204740

What is Film Theory? An Introduction to Contemporary Debates (co-authored with Gary Bettinson), Open University Press / McGraw-Hill (2010) - for more information see:http://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/html/0335234232.html

A New Politics of Cinema: Film and contemporary political theory (Palgrave-Macmillan, forthcoming)

Special Issue on Catherine Breillat (co-edited with Lynsey Russell-Watts) of the Journal for Cultural Research (January 2010) - contents listed at:http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g918677714

- 'The Rebirth of the World: Cinema According to Baz Luhrmann' in Deleuze and Film (edited by D. Martin Jones and W. Brown), Edinburgh University Press, 2012.

'Acknowledgement and Unknown Women: The Films of Catherine Breillat' in theSpecial Issue onCatherine Breillat(co-edited with Lynsey Russell-Watts) of theJournal for Cultural Research(January 2010) [see above]

'Deleuzian Spectatorship', Screen Vol. 50, No. 1 (2009) - here:http://screen.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/1/45.short?rss=1&ssource=mfc

'Passions and Actions: Deleuze's Cinematographic Cogito', Deleuze Studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2008.

Review of Filmosophy by Daniel Frampton and The Real Gaze by Todd McGowan, in Screen 49:2, Summer 2008, pp. 222-227.

'Absorption and theatricality in the cinema: some thoughts on narrative and spectacle', Screen Vol. 48, No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 109-112.

'The New Film Studies and the Decline of Critique', CineAction 72, 2007, pp. 2-7.

'Three Modes of Terror: Transcendence, Submission, Incorporation', Nottingham French Studies 46:3, 2007, pp 109-120.

'Douglas Sirk's Theatres of Imitation', Screening the Past 21: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/21/douglas-sirk-theatres-imitation.html

'The perversion of The Silence of the Lambs and the dilemma of The Searchers: on psychoanalytic "reading"', Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 10 (3), December 2005.

'Review of Ronald Bogue, Deleuze on Cinema; Patricia Pisters, The Matrix of Visual Culture: Working with Deleuze in Film Theory', Screen 46:2, Summer 2005

'Response to Mark B.N. Hansen's "Affect as medium, or the 'digital-facial-image'"', journal of visual culture, 3 (3), December 2004, pp. 353-357; online at: http://vcu.sagepub.com/content/vol3/issue3/

'Early, classical and modern cinema: absorption and theatricality', Screen 45: 3, Autumn, 2004.

'The Psychoanalytic Structure of Trauma: Spellbound', Journal for Cultural Research 8: 3, July 2004.

'Filmic Realization', Journal for Cultural Research, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2003.

'Cinema's double: some reflections on Metz', Screen 43:2, Summer 2002.

'What Can a Face Do? On Deleuze and Faces', Cultural Critique 51, Spring 2002; online at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cul/toc/cul51.1.html

'Narrative and Spectacle in Gladiator', CineAction 56, 2001.

'Reading Three Colours: Blue', Senses of Cinema online journal, November 2000; available online at: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/10/blue.html

'Capital Women', Theory & Event 6.1; available online at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/tae/toc/archive.html#6.1