Current PhD Students and topics (with summary of research)
NAME
Nandana Bose
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail: aaxnb1@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2004
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
2007
The Cultural Politics of the Hindu Right in Hindi Cinema
(1992-2002)
Prof Roberta Pearson
Dr Peter Urquhart
My research looks at the increasing interventions of the
Hindu Right in Hindi Cinema throughout the decade of the
1990s in terms of censorship, gender and national
identity at a time of intense cultural contestation and
socio-economic flux. I ask the question how and to what
extent was the Right able to articulate its Hindu
nationalist discourse in aesthetic and industrial terms and
what were the implications on the representation of
gender and sexuality, national/communal identity and the
nation.
Conference report: Media Comes To Miri, Media and
Identity in Asia, Curtin University of Technology, Miri,
Sarawak, Malaysia, 15 – 16 February 2006, Scope: An
Online Journal of Film Studies, Issue 5, June 2006
1) June - July 2006 - The Moral Policing of Hindi Cinema
in Contemporary India, Screen Studies Conference,
University of Glasgow
2) June 2006 – Censorship and Sexuality in 1990s Hindi
Cinema, Gender and the Nation: A Postgraduate
Conference, University of East Anglia
3) April 2006 – Making the Cut: Censoring Hindi Cinema
in Contemporary India, Annual Conference & AGM of the
British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS),
Birkbeck College, University of London
4) February 2006 – The Cultural Politics of Matrimonial
Representations in Contemporary Popular Indian Cinema,
Media and Identity in Asia, inaugural conference of the
Media and Asia Research Group (MARG) at Curtin
University of Technology, Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia
5) January 2006 – Playing with Fire: The Moral Policing of
Hindi Cinema in Contemporary India, 2nd Joint Annual
MeCCSA & AMPE Conference, Leeds Metropolitan
University
6) November 2005 - National Postgraduate Event in
Creative Arts, Film and Media, University of Portsmouth
7) June 2005 - MeCCSA 2nd Annual Postgraduate
Conference, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and
Cultural Studies, Cardiff University
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
International Office, University of Nottingham: PostGraduate Scholarship for the Arts, 2004-2007
Graduate School Travel Prize 2006
British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS)
conference bursary award for 2006
NAME
Bouchra Benlemlih
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail: bbenlemlih2001@yahoo.com
Telephone:
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2001
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2007 (following full- and part-time study pattern)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Douglas Tallack
Prof Asma Agznay
Prof David Murray
The American writer Paul Bowlessettled in Morocco from
1947 until his death in 1999. My dissertation is a close
reading of Bowles’ writings. For example, in a chapter on
translation, I focus my argument around narrative
ambivalence and on Bowles’ relationship with the
Moroccan storytellers whose stories he translates into
English. In this way, subalternity, speech and orality are
the major issues. In a chapter on autobiography I employ
the concept of the ‘exotic’ as a frame for reading Paul
Bowles’ representations of Morocco in his autobiography,
Without Stopping (1972). Tangier is Bowles’ exotic and I
study the inscription of Tangier as a topography of the
exotic in Bowles’ writing; the mapping of Paul Bowles’
scopic desire on the city of Tangier, and Fez as a magical
city for the flaneur. The core of Bowles’ fiction that most
interests me consists of five short stories ‘A Distant
Episode, ‘A Friend of the World’, ‘The Eye’ and ‘Here to
Learn’. And the dissertation also includes discussion of
the novel Let It Come Down (1952).
‘The Memory of that Memory : Tangier as the Exotic in
Paul Bowles’ Autobiography, Without Stopping’
Morocco in Western Art, an International MultiDisciplinary Conference convened by the Moroccan
Fulbright Alumni Association with the collaboration of the
Universiy Caadi Ayyad and the Moroccan American
Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange;
Marrakech; Morocco; November 6-7. 2006
Mixed Mode of Study Scholarship
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Paul Bowles’ Representations of Morocco
NAME
Keith A Nottle
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
keith.nottle@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PHD American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
2006
2009
‘James A. Baker III, three term President?’
Prof Matthew Jones
Dr David Milne
This research project represents the continuation of my
analysis of U.S. domestic and foreign policies most
recently pursued through my MA in Politics and
Contemporary
History
(University
of
Nottingham
2004/05), where my dissertation topic was ‘Clinton: ‘New
Democrat’ or Political Chameleon?’ With the Republican
Baker at its core, my research simultaneously highlights
the election campaign strategies, internal politics, media
relations and constitutional politics of the Republican
Party to bring balance to my existing knowledge of the
Democrats.
My thesis focuses on James Baker because as key advisor
to Reagan, Secretary of State (1989-1992), Republican
legal advisor during the contested U.S. 2000 election,
and former GOP Presidential campaign manager, Baker is
arguably one of the principal architects of modern
American politics. The primarily aim is to evaluate Baker,
aka ‘The Velvet Hammer’, as the ‘hidden hand’ behind
1980s/90s Republican Presidencies and explore his
ambiguous relationship with the Republican Party to
determine the extent and nature of his influence and
power in late twentieth-century American political
history.
With its emphasis on Baker my thesis aims to fill a
significant gap in the current literature written on this
period, insomuch as literature focusing on 1980s
American politics largely portrays Baker as a peripheral
figure. Additionally, this evaluation of contemporary
American history through the prism of Baker’s career
allows for critical engagement with current political
discourse (i.e. revisionist evaluations of the American
right and of 1980s America) due to Baker being a key
component in shaping both U.S. foreign and domestic
policies in the 1980s.
NAME
Sue Peng Ng
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail: aaxspn@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B59
PhD in American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2006
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
24 September 2009
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Matthew Jones
Dr David Milne
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Richard Nixon and the Sino-American Rapprochement
(1946-1974)
The research focuses on the role and contributions of
Richard Nixon in the Sino-American rapprochement. It
explores his pre-presidential China thinking and aims to
demonstrate that his China policy had its roots in the
1950s and 1960s when his attitude towards the Chinese
underwent a gradual change, as opposed to a sudden one
in 1969. It aims to show that Nixon was considering the
merits of having a less adversarial relationship with the
Chinese prior to 1969. Changes to the China policy were
not on his agenda in 1969. Yet, in that same year, Nixon
began to make overtures towards the Chinese indicating
his desire for better relations. What factors prompted him
to do that during the first year of his presidency? By
linking his pre-presidential thinking of the Chinese with
the immediate factors which prompted him towards
rapprochement, the research hopes to portray a more
complete picture of his decision to rapprochement with
the Chinese. The research will look into the partnership of
Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the implementation of the
rapprochement. It delves into Nixon’s role in the lead up
towards rapprochement and during the discussions with
the Chinese. It endeavours to investigate the extent to
which the new China policy was his work and if he was
the main architect of the rapprochement. Lastly, it will
account for Nixon’s diminishing role in the American
China policy in the last years of his administration which
subsequently led to Kissinger’s increasing freedom in
shaping China affairs.
Postgraduate Scholarship for the Arts (University of
Nottingham International Office)
NAME
Malgorzata Laskowska-Camastra
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
2006
September 2009
Representation of Men in Carol Shields’s Novels
Dr Susan Billingham
Prof Judith Newman
“Masculinity is as much a fabrication as femininity” (C. A.
Howells). Men in Shield’s works are surprisingly feminine.
And my thesis considers the ways in which they are
represented in Shields’s fiction. Women are typically
providers; they work professionally and run their
households. Male characters in this context become
weaker; they are not necessary for any sphere of life
anymore (Larry’s ex-wife from Larry’s Party even gets
pregnant in vitro). In my dissertation I examine the
gender paradoxes at the heart of Shields’s fiction.
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
“The Untold in Susanna Moodie – Story as Seen by
Margaret Atwood”
Focus on Canada. European Perspectives vol.3
Masaryk University Press, Brno:2003
“Reinterpretations of Susanna Moodie by Margaret
Atwood As an Example of Creative Recycling of the Past”
Place and Memory in Canada: Global Perspectives
Polska Akademia Umiejetnosci, Krakow:2005
The same titles as above
2002 -11th European Seminar for Graduate Students in
Canadian Studies, Berlin, Germany
2004 – 2nd International Conference of Central European
Canadianists, Krakow, Poland
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
International Office award towards either fees or stipend
NAME
Euan Gallivan
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxetg@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2006
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
September 2009
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Judith Newman
Prof Sharon Monteith
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
School of American and Canadian Studies PhD
Studentship, University of Nottingham
Arthur Schopenhauer and the literature of the modern
American South.
My PhD thesis consists of a reading of contemporary
Southern fiction using the idealist philosophy of Arthur
Schopenhauer as a critical framework, the primary focus
on Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will as it relates to the
Southern novel’s traditionally-perceived tropes of
violence and the grotesque. Although there has been
some critical work which purports to show the relevance
of Schopenhauer’s thinking to individual writers, it is my
contention that his pessimistic idealism is a useful tool
with which to examine the larger arena of southern
fiction. Drawing upon the assertion of Flannery O’Connor
that the grotesque figure exists in fiction as an emblem
of our essential displacement, I further contend that in
addition to the thematic relevance of the metaphysics,
Schopenhauer’s anti-mimetic aesthetic theory may be
used to elucidate certain generic traits of the literature
outside of a purely realist-regionalist context. While initial
research focuses upon the work of Cormac McCarthy, it
will eventually extend to the inclusion of authors such as
Harry Crews and Lewis Nordan.
NAME
Rebecca Janicker
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxrjj@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD American Studies (part-time)
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2005
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2011
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Peter Messent
Half-way Houses: Liminality in the Haunted Spaces of
Popular American Gothic Fiction
Prof David Murray
My thesis builds on my MA dissertation at the University
of Nottingham, which examined the role of regionalism in
the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. I
analysed how these authors turned authentic place into
fantastic bad space to communicate fears about their
native land. My current research represents a
continuation of this study of gothic space in examining
the haunted house motif in American popular fiction with
reference to the interplay between space, liminality and
haunting.
Drawing on the notion of liminality, I explore how
haunted space in American Gothic fiction can be
conceptualised as a place apart from the ordinary – a
physical and metaphorical place in which conflict occurs,
contradictory forces meet and test one another, and the
reader is given insight into their struggle. Although
events occur in a manner and setting outside the realm
of accepted reality in such fiction, the forces involved can
still be acknowledged as real enough. In characterising
haunted space as liminal, I explore how its use allows
readers to engage with key American themes; the
personal experiences of the characters provide access to
areas of wider relevance to American history and
experience. In closely following the experiences of the
protagonists, readers of such fiction share their journeys
and use the trope of haunting to cross boundaries
normally impossible to cross. My research so far has
included examinations of personal and societal growth in,
for example, King’s Christine (1983) and of race and
community in Bag of Bones (1998).
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
Chapters in Books
“Playing Hard to Get: Game-Playing and the Search for
Humanity in Star Trek and Red Dwarf.” Co-author with
Lincoln Geraghty. In Pawel Frelik and David Mead, eds.
Playing the Universe: Games and Gaming in Science
Fiction, Lublin, Poland: Maria Curie-Sklodowska
University Press, in press.
Articles
“New England Narratives: Space and Place in the Fiction
of H. P. Lovecraft.” Extrapolation, forthcoming.
“’Now That’s What I Call a Close Encounter!’: The Role of
the Alien in Science Fiction Film, 1977 – 2001.” Coauthor with Lincoln Geraghty. Scope: An On-line Journal
of Film Studies, November (2004).
Book Reviews
Impossible Bodies: Femininity and Masculinity at the
Movies by Chris Holmlund, Scope: An On-line Journal of
Film Studies, May (2003).
Shakespeare in Space: Recent Shakespeare Productions
on Screen by H. R. Coursen, Scope: An On-line Journal of
Film Studies, November (2003).
Costume and Cinema: Dress Codes in Popular Film by
Sarah Street, Scope: An On-line Journal of Film Studies,
November (2003).
Dracula by Peter Hutchings, Scope: An On-line Journal of
Film Studies, February (2004).
Hollywood’s Stephen King by Tony Magistrale, SFRA
Review #267 Jan/Feb/Mar, (2004): 10-11.
Readings on Stephen King edited by Karin Coddon, SFRA
Review #268 Apr/May/June, (2004): 15-16.
Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Films and the
American Movie Business, 1953-1968 by Kevin
Heffernan, SFRA Review #271 Jan/Feb/March (2005):
12-14.
The Vampire as Numinous Experience: Spiritual Journeys
with the Undead in British and American Literature by
Beth E. McDonald, SFRA Review #271 Jan/Feb/March
(2005): 16-17.
H. P. Lovecraft in Popular Culture: The Works and Their
Adaptations in Film, Television, Comics, Music and Games
by Don G. Smith, SFRA Review #276 April/May/June
(2006): 16-17.
The Cult of Alien Gods: H.P. Lovecraft and Extraterrestrial
Pop Culture by Jason Colavito and H. P. Lovecraft in
Popular Culture: The Works and Their Adaptations in
Film, Television, Comics, Music and Games by Don G.
Smith, Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 33 (2006): 553-554.
Film Reviews
Bringing Down the House, Scope: An On-line Journal of
Film Studies, May (2004).
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
Conference Reports
“Past, Present and Future: The Many Faces of SF.” A
Report on the 34th Annual SFRA International Conference,
26th-29th June 2003, University of Guelph, Ontario,
Canada. Scope: An On-line Journal of Film Studies, May
(2004).
“New England Narratives: Space and Place in the Fiction
of H. P. Lovecraft.”
- Presented at the 36th Annual SFRA Conference,
23rd – 26th June 2005, Las Vegas, NV, USA.
“The Horrors of Maine: Space, Place and Regionalism in
Stephen King’s Pet Sematary.”
- Presented at PCA/ACA 36th and 28th Joint Annual
Conference, 12th-15th April 2006, Atlanta, GA,
USA.
“Liminality and Space in H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Dreams in
the Witch-House’.”
- Presented at the 37th Annual SFRA Conference,
22nd – 25th June 2006, White Plains, NY, USA.
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
“The Horrors of Maine: Space, Place and Regionalism in
Stephen King’s Pet Sematary.”
- Presented at “America(s): Representations and
Negotiations” the BAAS Annual Postgraduate
Conference, 18th November 2006, University of
Nottingham.
Winner of the Science Fiction Research Association
(SFRA) 36th Annual Conference Graduate Essay Award
(2005), for my paper “New England Narratives: Space
and Place in the Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft”
NAME
Matthew Thomson
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxmimt@Nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD Film Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2005
2008
Military Transformation and Computer Games
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Roberta Pearson
Prof Matthew Jones
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
‘Computer Games and the Afghan Model of Conflict’,
MeCCSA Postgraduate Conference, University of Ulster,
June 2006.
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
AHRC-funded Doctoral Award
My research investigates the relationship between
computer games and American military policy –
specifically the policy of military transformation which
was played out in both Afghanistan and Iraq. It
incorporates two separate but interconnected strands: on
the one hand, an interrogation of the policy of military
transformation which investigates how it has played out
in reality and which traces its origins and supports; and
on the other, an analysis of how the logic and supports of
military transformation are represented in computer
games. This in turn raises questions concerning the
ideological influence of games in relation to both military
and popular culture. How do games affect actual military
policy? And how do they affect popular conceptions of the
utility of a force? My research will also consider the
extent to which computer games reproduce
neoconservative and evangelical beliefs which act as cosupports for military transformation in terms of
promoting a form of American militarism; but also, the
extent to which the ‘games for change’ movement acts as
a counterpoint to these influences in questioning the logic
of military transformation and the utility of force, and
promoting non-violent solutions to global socio-political
issues.
NAME
Rachel Walls
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
Masters of Research in American and Canadian Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
2006
September 2007
Douglas Coupland and West Coast Canadian Regionalism
Dr Susan Billingham
Dr Graham Thompson
My research explores the potential (and problems) of
placing Douglas Coupland in a regional context, in order
to find meaning in his work other than the previously
documented themes of post-modern disillusionment,
commoditized society and alternative spirituality. I will
argue that Vancouver is the most suitable geographical
and cultural location within which to understand the
writer, and examine three of his Vancouver situated
novels in order to prove my thesis. I plan to look in detail
at themes in his work that I believe stem from
geographical or cultural elements unique to Vancouver.
These include the fear of apocalypse, Vancouver as a “City
of Glass”, representation of sex drugs and rock and roll,
and a tendency towards living beneath one’s means. I
will also consider how Vancouver’s position in the larger
regions of the Pacific Rim, the Pacific Northwest, British
Columbia, and Western Canada affect Coupland’s work,
and in doing so evaluate whether there could be a place
for him in the canon of Canadian Literature, despite
common presumptions that he is of U.S. origin and
reflects only global and commercial culture in his work.
NAME
Lin FENG
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
Institute of Film and Television Studies
E-mail:
aaxlf@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD Film Studies
DEGREE
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2006
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2009
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Dr Julian Stringer
Dr Mark Gallagher
CONFERENCE
PAPERS
DELIVERED
TERRITORIES OF IDENTITIES: CHOW-YUN FAT, CHINESE
STARDOM AND MASCULINITY
Although more and more film and cultural studies scholars
recognise the contribution of Asian cinema, Asian stars
have been generally ignored. In this thesis, I focus on the
stardom of Chow Yun-Fat, one of the top Chinese male
stars in the global film industry and market. Tracing
Chow’s career path, I investigate how his star image
reflects or subverts the conventional social reception of
Chinese masculinity. In particularly, explore how his
image is negotiated across different places and spaces. In
the first part of my thesis, I examine his career in Hong
Kong before his move to Hollywood in 1995, and
investigate how his image has been used to deliver a
Hong Kong local identity. In the second part of the thesis,
I move on to his “global career.” Placing my research in a
transnational context, I look at the negotiation process
involved in formulating his image as a Hong Kong star,
Chinese star and global star.
“Negotiating Transnational Stardom: Hollywood, Markets
and Crosscurrent of a Global Star”—Conference for
Identities: Negotiations in Contemporary Space(s)
(Warwick University: 2nd December 2006)
NAME
Serena Formica
CONTACT
DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION
DATE
RESEARCH
TOPIC (working
title)
E-mail:
aaxsf@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD Film Studies
2004
2007
Peter Weir’s Australian and American films: divergences or convergences?
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words
maximum)
Dr Gianluca Sergi
Dr Mark Gallagher
PUBLICATIONS
(if any)
In print
What happens when a contemporary foreign filmmakers goes to Hollywood? My d
thesis investigates Peter Weir as a case study of a director moving from his origin
production context (Australia) to Hollywood. I investigate the Australian productio
the time of Peter Weir, and consider the situation of Hollywood in the 80s to iden
reason of the director’s passage and of his success in Hollywood. I consider the e
other filmmakers’ contributions to Weir’s films, through an examination of a serie
interviews with the director himself and other collaborators. Ultimately, through a
to his most significant movies, I examine how this passage influenced the directo
looking at changes and similarities in the sound and aesthetic of his films.
The Media World: A New Collaboration Was Born. Report of the MeCCSA and AMP
Annual Conference. 5- 7 January 2005, University of Lincoln (1660 words), Scope
Journal of Film Studies,
(http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/confreport.php?issue=3&id=77&q=serena+
November 2005
Book review of The Films of Peter Weir. Second Edition Jonathan Rayner (2200 w
Scope: an Online Journal of Film Studies,
(http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/bookreview.php?issue=5&id=138&q=seren
June 2006
Film review of Kim Soyoung’s Women’s History Documentary Trilogy (2575 word
Mediascape. An online journal of University of California, Los Angeles, n.2 Spring
(http://www.tft.ucla.edu/mediascape/reviews/formica.html)
In press
Women History Trilogy (1000 words), Iodo (1000 words), To The Starry Island (
entries to be published on Frances Gateward, (Ed.), Critical Filmographies of Wor
Korea
CONFERENCE
PAPERS
DELIVERED
Peter Weir. The Director of the Two Worlds Second Annual Conference of MeCC
24th of June 2005 Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies
Screen Impressions. The influence of Dutch paintings on the photography of Pe
Witness (1985) National Postgraduate Conference. Creative Arts, Film and Med
27th November 2005 University of Portsmouth
How Does it Sound when you are Living Dangerously? MeCCSA Third Annual Po
Conference, 22nd and 23rd of June 2006 University of Ulster
NAME
Alexander Leicht
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxal@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD (part-time)
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2001
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2007
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Douglas Tallack
Prof Richard King
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
The Search for a Democratic Aesthetics
The main purpose of my project is to explain the
democratic character of a number of works of twentiethcentury American art and literature by establishing
parallels between the aesthetic structure of these works
and key issues of democratic theory. The project is thus
located at the intersection of contemporary political
philosophy, aesthetic theory, and the interpretation of
visual artworks and literary texts. I am undertaking this
interdisciplinary exploration in two steps: First, I engage
with political philosophers like John Rawls, Robert Dahl,
and Will Kymlicka in order to acquire a sufficiently
complex understanding of relevant dimensions of
democratic theory, namely, egalitarianism, pluralism, and
the procedural nature of democracy. Subsequently, I look
for aesthetic manifestations of these dimensions in the
work of one figure each from twentieth-century American
painting, photography, and poetry (Robert Rauschenberg,
Walker Evans, William Carlos Williams), and thus attempt
to reach at a number of general conclusions regarding a
democratic aesthetics. The theoretical basis for the link
between dimensions of democracy and aesthetic
structure is developed out of Arthur Danto’s theory of art.
Rev. of Multikulturalismus und Demokratie, by Will
Kymlicka. Zeitschrift für Kulturaustausch [Journal for
Cultural Exchange] 1/01 (2001): 139-40.
Rev. of Writing the Radical Center: William Carlos
Williams, John Dewey, and American Cultural Politics,
by John Beck. Amerikastudien/American Studies 48
(2003).
Rev. of Republicanism and Liberalism in America and the
German States, 1750-1850, ed. Jürgen Heideking
and James A. Henretta. Comparative American
Studies 1 (2003): 528-529.
In addition, I have published a number of articles and
book reviews not directly related to my PhD-project,
mainly on UNESCO’s policies in the field of culture,
education and sustainable development.
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
“Robert Rauschenberg’s Democratic Aesthetics,” paper
presented at the conference American Visions:
Images and Representations of the Modern United
States, University of Kent at Canterbury (May 2002).
“A Theory of Poetic Justice: Assessing Martha
Nussbaum’s Rehabilitation of the Aesthetic,” paper
presented at the annual conference of the German
Association of American Studies, Munich (June 2003).
“The UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity,” paper
presented at the conference Globalization,
Americanization and Contemporary Popular Culture,
Bacesehir University, Istanbul (May 2004).
In addition, I have given numerous presentations on
UNESCO’s policies in the field of culture, education
and sustainable development.
Fellow of the Salzburg Seminar, American Studies Center
Session 30, The Politics of American Popular Culture:
Here, There, and Everywhere (October 2002).
Research grant from the John F. Kennedy Library, Free
University, Berlin (November-December 2003).
NAME
CONTACT DETAILS
DEGREE
Donna Peberdy
Institute of Film and Television Studies
School of American and Canadian Studies
E-mail:
aaxdp2@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD Film Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2004
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
2007
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
Male Angst: Discourse, Performance and Masculinity in
Contemporary American Film
Prof Sharon Monteith
Dr Paul Grainge
In the 1990s and 2000s, films such as Falling Down
(1993), The Fisher King (1991), American Beauty (1999)
and American Psycho (2000) have foregrounded the
melancholic or tormented male and been promptly
dismissed as “tired narratives about the crisis of
masculinity.” “Masculinity crisis” has itself become a
ubiquitous buzz-phrase in both the media and critical
discourse. Quests for definitions and concrete answers
have dominated academic studies of “masculinity crisis,”
often at the expense of addressing what are, in my
opinion, more pertinent issues, such as why male crises
become more discursively visible at particular times, why
certain actors are more associated with male instability
than others and what is it about their persona or
performance style that makes scholars, reviewers or fans
associate a particular actor with “crisis.”
My research explores a number of socio-cultural events
or moments in which definitions and perceptions of male
identity were brought to the fore and how such
discourses have been taken up by contemporary actors
and films through the performance of male angst.
Specifically, chapters investigate the contemporary
imaging of aging men and the performance of declining
manhood by Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt and
Something’s Gotta Give; “deadbeat dads,” failing fathers
and the “problem” of fatherhood in John Q and He Got
Game; Mythopoetic masculinity, Robert Bly and the “deep
male” in Fight Club and Magnolia.
“Physiognomy and the (Non) Performance of Male Angst:
Bill Murray’s Midlife Crisis,” in Timothy Shary, ed.
American Movie Masculinity, forthcoming.
“Michael Douglas: Performing the Zeitgeist,” in Anna
Everett, ed. Screen Decades: The Nineties (Rutgers
University Press). Forthcoming.
“Tongue-tied: Film and Theatre Voices in David Mamet’s
Oleanna,” Screening the Past, Special Issue:
Cinema/Theatre, forthcoming 2007.
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
“Lethal Weapons, Die Hards and Terminators: Exploring
Action-Adventure Cinema,” Senses of Cinema, No. 37,
(October-December 2005).
“Performing the Wild Man in 1990s Masculinity Crisis
Narratives”
Presented at Society for Communication and Media
Studies (SCMS) Annual Conference, 2-5 March 2006,
Sheraton Wall Centre, Vancouver, BC.
“From Wimps to Wild Men: Performing “Deep Masculinity”
in Masculinity Crisis Narratives”
Presented at Association for Research into Popular
Fictions (ARPF) Annual Conference, “Open to View:
Popular Fiction and Visual Narrative,” 19-20 November
2005, Liverpool John Moores University, UK.
“Primer: Science Fiction/Science Fact”
Presented at Primer Screening, 17 November 2005,
Broadway Cinema and Media Centre, Nottingham.
“Donnie Darko: ‘A Cult Movie in the Making’…Literally”
Presented at “Science Fiction(s): A Study Day on Science
Fiction Film, Television, Literature and New Media,” 19th
August 2005, School of American and Canadian Studies,
University of Nottingham, UK.
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
“‘All this…has something to do with a girl called Marla
Singer’: Fight Club and Femininity”
Presented at Media, Culture and Communications
Association (MeCCSA) Annual Postgraduate Conference,
23-24 June 2005, University of Cardiff, UK.
School of American and Canadian Studies Studentship
BAAS (British Association for American Studies) Short
Term Travel Award 2006.
University of Nottingham Graduate School Travel Prize
2006.
PROFESSIONAL
ACTIVITIES
Andrew Hendry Award, University Endowed Scholarship
Award in recognition of progress made in research, 2005.
Articles Editor, Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies
January 2006 – November 2006-11-27
Book Reviews Editor, Scope: An Online Journal of Film
Studies
June 2005 – January 2006
(Deputy Editor December 2004 – June 2005)
Teaching Assistant – Film History
October 2005 – January 2006
NAME
Iain Robert Smith
CONTACT DETAILS
Institute of Film Studies
School of American and Canadian Studies
E-mail:
arxirs@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B59
PhD Film Studies
DEGREE
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
Jan 2006
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
Jan 2009
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Roberta Pearson
Dr Paul Grainge
Appropriating America: Transnational media flow and the
politics of appropriation
Theories of globalisation often position American culture
as a hegemonic force, travelling through different
countries, dominating indigenous cultures and effacing
cultural diversity. What exactly happens, however, when
these American products are appropriated by other
cultures?
My research examines the ways in which non-Western
cultures appropriate and make use of American popular
culture in their own popular film industries. The thesis
explores issues of globalisation, transnational media flow,
cultural hybridity & mimicry in such films as Turist Omer
Uzay Yolunda (Turkey, 1973), Pembalasan ratu pantai
selatan (Indonesia, 1988), Alyas Batman en Robin
(Phillipines, 1993), and Kaante (India, 2002); films which
appropriate plot, characters and sometimes even footage
from American media (Star Trek, Terminator, Batman,
and Reservoir Dogs respectively). Drawing on the work of
Arjun Appadurai on the cultural dimensions of
globalisation, and Rosemary Coombe on the politics of
appropriation, my objective is to complicate prevailing
notions of American cultural domination and suggest a
more nuanced model of transnational flow and
interaction.
Ultimately, this dissertation seeks to challenge the binary
oppositions made between Eastern and Western cultures.
Rather than the so-called clash of civilisations, it is time
to pay attention to the overlapping, intersecting nature of
cultures and the hybrid, symbiotic relationship between
them. Opposing the essentialist positions which envision
cultures as ‘pure’ and under threat of being tainted by
the ‘other’, it is my intention that this research shall draw
attention to the intricate processes of borrowing and
exchange through which cultures adapt and evolve.
RESEARCH
Globalisation and Cross Cultural Analysis; Lowbrow &
INTERESTS
marginal cultural forms; Censorship & Cultural Policy;
Copyright & Intellectual Property; Cultural Value &
Distinction; Alternative/Independent Cinema(s)
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
Book reviews in Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies
 More Dirty Looks – Pamela Church Gibson
(forthcoming Feb 2007)
 New Punk Cinema - Nicholas Rombes (forthcoming
Feb 2007)
Conference Report in Film International (forthcoming)
 Cinema at the Periphery (University of St
Andrews, June 15-17 2006)
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
Cinemas, Identities & Beyond, University of St Andrews.
10 Nov 2006
“An Islamic Exorcist? : Transnational processes of
exchange and hybridisation in Turkish popular cinema”
Screen Conference, University of Glasgow. 30 June – 2
July 2006
“Turkish Star Trek: Transnational media flow and the
politics of appropriation”
MeCCSA Postgraduate Conference 2006, University of
Ulster. 22 – 23 June 2006
“Appropriating America: Transnational remakes, parodies
and transformations of US film and television texts”
Slash Fiction Study Day, DeMontfort University. 1 March
2006
“When Spiderman becomes Spiderbabe: Pornographic
appropriation and the economics of the softcore parody
genre”
Guest Lecture, DeMontfort University. 22 February 2006
“Transnational Trash: How cultures around the world
have appropriated and used plots, characters, and
footage from American cinema and television”
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
AHRC-funded Doctoral Award
Bursary received to attend ‘Cinema at the Periphery’
conference (University of St Andrews, June 15-17 2006)
OTHER
PROFESSIONAL
ACTIVITIES
Teaching Assistant on Approaches to Film & Television.
06/07
Member of Executive Committee (MeCCSA postgraduate
network) – Deputy Communications Officer
Member of Editorial Board (Scope: An Online Journal of
Film Studies) – Deputy Articles Editor
Member of the Cult Media Research Group
Member of FWSA (Feminist & Woman’s Studies
Association)
NAME
Helen Bralesford
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail: aaxhmb@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2006
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
30 September 2009
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Judith Newman
Prof Sharon Monteith
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
“Death or Seamus Heaney? The difficulties surrounding
poetry publication.” Staple magazine 2001
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
IAAS Postgraduate Symposium 20th January 2007
“French Connections to Desperate Housewives: Seeking
the Residues of the Second Wave in Contemporary
Popular Culture”
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Ede & Ravenscroft award for achievement in the
intermediary stage of the combined subject programme
at undergraduate level at The University of Derby 2002
Getting Read, Going Green: Female environmentalists’
strategies.
An examination of the strategies employed by twentiethand twenty-first-century female environmentalists
incorporating grass-roots activism, photography and
literature with particular emphasis on the work of Terry
Tempest Williams.
NAME
Mark Storey
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxms1@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD in American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2006
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
September 2009
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Peter Messent
Prof Douglas Tallack
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
Rural Fiction and the Rise of Modern America, 1865 1905
My thesis examines the impact of modernisation on the
literature of rural America during the latter part of the
nineteenth century. The writers I examine are usually
understood within the critical categories of ‘local color’ or
‘regionalism’, but I want to negotiate the familiar and
potentially limiting debates surrounding these genres by
emphasising the ways in which these writers represented
rural space – both geographically and imaginatively – as
fundamentally implicated in the emergence of a modern,
urban America. Some of the writers I will consider include
Hamlin Garland, Edward Eggleston, Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Sarah Orne Jewett and Mark Twain. I discuss key
texts by tracing the developments and changes within
certain aspects of modern American life – criminality and
the law, science and medicine, urbanisation,
mechanisation, language and dialect – and how these
changes are reflected, represented and interrogated in
rural spaces.
‘“And as things fell apart”: The Crisis of Postmodern
Masculinity in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and
Dennis Cooper’s Frisk’ in Critique: Studies in
Contemporary Fiction, 47.1 (Fall 2005), 57-72.
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
2006: Dean of Arts’ Postgraduate Award and School of
American and Canadian Studies PhD Scholarship
2003: University of Manchester MA Fees Award
NAME
Daisy Waked
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail: aaxdw2@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD in American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2004
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2007
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof. Douglas Tallack
Dr Graham Thompson
Dr Paul Jahshan
My dissertation on contemporary representations of New
York City, in both fiction and non-fiction, examines the
multiplicity and openness of urban narratives and draws
on critical theory to investigate the irregularities of the
urban panorama. The dissertation also explores ways in
which relationships between the contrasting dimensions
of the city can be “un-settled.”
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
“E. L. Doctorow’s New York and the Experience of a
Multipl-I-city” to be given in July 2007 at the 5th
International Conference on New Directions in the
Humanities, Paris.
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Mixed Mode of Study studentship
Rhizomatic New York: Narrative and Urban Discourse in
Contemporary Representations of the City.
Winner of the 2003 ESU one–week Cultural Seminar
scholarship held at Oxford University, England.
NAME
Yomna M. Saber Ismail
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail: aaxys@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: 07983446911
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2004
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2007
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof David Murray
Dr Celeste-Marie Bernier
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Hybridity and Polarisation, Shifting Positions in the Poetry
of Gwendolyn Brooks
My thesis looks at the three different stages in the career
of Gwendolyn Brooks as an African American poet. I
compare her with two African American writers at each
stage. For example, I examine her first published volume
A Street In Bronzeville (1945) and explore it alongside
including Richard Wright and works such as Native Son,
Black Boy, and 12 Million Black Voices together with
Margaret Walker’s For My People which were all published
during the same decade andcan be viewed as part of the
Chicago Renaissance. In her second stage I am working
on Annie Allen (1949) and I am comparing Brooks’s
integrationist views with Ralph Ellison in Invisible Man
and Shadow and Act, and Lorraine Hansberry’s play A
Raisin in the Sun. In her third and final stage, I explore
In the Mecca, Riot, Beckonings, Family Pictures, In
Montgomery, and other late publications. I compare her
with Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez and their
nationalist works in this period.

A trip to Europe (Germany – Austria – France) in
1993 as a reward from the Egyptian Ministry of
Education in collaboration with Al
Jumhuria
Newspaper for the outstanding achievement in the
final year of high school.

A scholarship to Germany (Bonn) in 1997 as a
reward from Das Goethe Institut in Cairo for two
months to attend a course in Das Goethe Institut for
the good performance on courses held in Cairo.

A member of the Egyptian delegation sent to Japan
to be on the Program of Ship for World Youth in 1999
with other participants from seventeen different
countries. After staying in Japan for almost two
weeks, the ship started its voyage from Tokyo visiting
different ports (Singapore- The Seychelles Islands –
South Africa – Tanzania – UAE). On board, various
cultural activities took place and the slogan of the
program was “Sailing in solidarity for a better world”.

Selected to participate as a member of the group
of the Egyptian university teachers chosen by the
Integrated English Language Program II (IELP II) to
go to Oregon University in July 2000 to carry out
projects that enhance teaching English for adults
through computers.

Fully-funded PhD scholarship from the Egyptian
Government
NAME
SooJeong AHN
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD Film Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2004
2007
The Pusan International Film Festival and South Korean
Cinema (working title)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Dr Julian Stringer
Dr Mark Gallagher
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
Bibliography work on Korean Cinema: New Korean
Cinema (2005) eds. Julian Stringer and Chi-yun Shin,
Edinburgh University Press, 2006.
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
1) "Cinemas, Identities and Beyond: St. AndrewsGlasgow Postgraduate Conference" (10 Nov 2006)
By looking specifically at one particular film festival in
South Korea - the Pusan International Film Festival
between 1996 and 2005— my thesis aims to demonstrate
how a film festival engages and interacts with the
local/global film industry in a global economy through
particular institutional marketing strategies.
2) “What a difference a region makes: Cultural
Studies/Cultural Industries in East Asia” organised by
the Programme in Japanese Cultural Studies (Birkbeck
College) and the Pacific and Asian Cultural Studies Forum
(Goldsmiths College, 17-18 March 2006)
3) Organised a panel titled Travelling Films: film
festivals in global economy & presented a paper
‘Contemporary South Korean Cinema and Pusan
International Film Festival’ at Society for Cinema and
Media Studies (SCMS), March 2-5, 2006 in Vancouver,
Canada
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Postgraduate Scholarship for the Arts
Research Fellow of the Korean Film Council's 2006 Grant
for Overseas Research into Korean Cinema with Dr Julian
Stringer
“Producing and Consuming Short Films in South Korea”
Travel Prize awarded in 2006 by the University of
Nottingham’s Graduate School for SCMS conference,
Vancouver
NAME
Frances Eames
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
Telephone:
Fax:
Room:
PhD Film and
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
N/A
0115 9514270
Trent B57/B59
Television Studies
2005
2008
Normative Narratives: Identity in Regional Television
News
Prof Roberta Pearson
Dr Peter Urquhart
My thesis explores the representation and construction of
the ‘ordinary’ and the ‘normal’ in ITV Midlands regional
news (1960-1980). I intend to look at the ideological
work that takes place in the ‘familiar’ texts of regional
news, with the aim of looking at how ‘common sense’ and
shared knowledge is both echoed in, and constructed by,
ITV Midlands regional news. I argue that regional
television news performs a key function as it repeatedly
distinguishes what is ‘acceptable’ from what is
‘unacceptable’.
The material for my thesis is provided by the Media
Archive for Central England (MACE) and I am funded by
the AHRC to undertake the first scholarly investigation of
what the regional news archive holds. The collection
consists of the regional news programming output from
ATV, part of the ITV franchise, which later became
Carlton.
I am interested in the language of television news; how
meaning
is
communicated
by
the
way
shots
are
constructed, how the camera moves, what it focuses on
as well as what is said by the journalists, how they frame
the story, who is interviewed, what they are asked and
why. My three case study chapters include:



The coverage of the 1972 migration from Uganda
The construction of normality in ‘and finally’
hobbies stories
The representation of travelling communities
This research ultimately seeks to argue that whilst
regional news appears to focus on ‘trivial’ human interest
stories, it in fact creates much larger and significant
discourses concerning acceptability, conformity and the
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
PROFESSIONAL
ACTIVITIES
normative narrative of social life.
‘Negotiating transgression in local media: the
representation of travellers in ITV Midlands regional news
(1965-1975)’, Quest Online Journal, forthcoming
‘Freak or Unique? Hobbies stories on ITV Midlands
regional news’, MeCCSA Postgraduate conference, June
2006, University of Ulster.
‘Travellers’ Truths: Constructing unsavoury identities on
ITV Midlands regional news 1960-1970’, Negotiating
Identities in Contemporary Spaces conference,
Postgraduate conference, University of Warwick,
forthcoming Dec 2006
‘Contesting the news genre’, MeCCSA/AMPE, University of
Coventry, forthcoming Jan 2007
AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award
Scope Online Journal of Film Studies –
*Articles Editor (present appointment)
*Deputy Articles Editor (Nov 2005 – Oct
2006)
Media Archive for Central England (MACE) - film handling
and archival/cataloguing training
Teaching assistant for ‘Approaches to Film and Television’
on BA Film Studies
NAME
James Burton
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
University of Nottingham
Nottingham
NG7 2LD
DEGREE
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
E-mail:
aaxjab2@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD American Studies
2003
2007
Cultural Memory, Popular Film, and the Negotiation of the
Sixties in Culture Wars Hollywood.
Prof Sharon Monteith
Dr Paul Grainge
My thesis examines cinematic representations of the
Vietnam War era (1963-1975) produced in the late 1980s
and 1990s in the context of a fluid and negotiated
cultural memory. During the ‘hot’ culture wars (more
specifically 1987-1995), in which the meaning of ‘the
Sixties’ was very much ‘up for grabs,’ Hollywood
produced many films (for example Forrest Gump, Apollo
13, Malcolm X and the films of Oliver Stone) that directly
engaged with and perpetuated such debates. I argue
that disagreements among historians and commentators
concerning the (mis)representation of history on screen
are either stymied by an over-emphasis on factual
infidelity, or in dismissing such concerns as erroneous
through an invocation of Hayden White’s work on the
equality of narrative texts as ‘histories.’ Ultimately, these
debates ignore the cinema’s shaping of conceptions of
national identity based on a shared past that an analysis
of a specific group of films, and the reception of those
films, can provide. I propose that a solution to the ‘dead
ends’ of historical intervention may be found in memory
studies. I argue that the consumption of popular films
becomes part of a vast intertextual mosaic of
remembering and forgetting that is constantly redefining,
and reimagining, the past. Representations of history in
popular film affect the industrial construction of cultural
memory, but Hollywood’s ‘inter-textual relay’ of
promotion and accompanying wider media discourses
also contributes to a climate in which film impacts
collective memory.
“Editor’s Introduction,” 21st Century Film Studies: A
Scope Reader, ed. James Burton. February 2006.
http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/reader/index.php
“Editorial: War on Film.” Literature/Film Quarterly 33.4
(2005). As Guest Editor.
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
“Defending the Legacy of the Sixties: Re-Presenting the
Anti-War Movement During a Period of Culture War,”
Proceedings of the Film and History League Conference
entitled “War in Film, Television and History,” eds. Peter
Rollins, John E. O’Connor and James Knecht (Cleveland,
OH: Film & History Center, 2005).
“‘We won’t be like them’: Masculinity and 1960s Hong
Kong in Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love and 2046,”
Gender and East Asian Cinema International Conference,
University of Nottingham, October 21, 2005.
“The Future of Television?: Cyberpunk, Scientology and
Dystopian LA in ‘Oliver Stone’s’ Wild Palms,” Science
Fiction(s): A Study Day on Science Fiction Film,
Television, Literature and New Media, School of American
and Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham, August
19, 2005.
“‘This Country where Culture means Pornography and
Slasher Films’: Oliver Stone, Talk Radio, and the Popular
Fiction of 1980s America,” Popular Fiction of the 1980s
Colloquium, Liverpool John Moores University, April 23,
2005.
“Defending the Legacy of the Sixties: Re-Presenting the
Anti-War Movement During a Period of Culture War,” War
in Film, TV and History Conference, The Film and History
League, Dallas, Texas, November 11-14, 2004.
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
“Straddling 9/11: Spike Lee, David Benioff and New York
Citizenship at the 25th Hour,” Subjects/Citizens
Symposium, School of American and Canadian Studies,
University of Nottingham, December 6, 2003.
School of American and Canadian Studies studentship
British Association of American Studies Short-Term Travel
Grant, 2005.
Universitas 21 Prize Scholarship, 2005 (research trip to
the University of Virginia)
Heymann Scholarship, Endowed Postgraduate
Scholarship for Progress in Doctoral Research, University
of Nottingham, 2005.
Dean Moore Scholarship, Endowed Postgraduate
Scholarship for Progress in Doctoral Research, University
of Nottingham, 2005.
Andrew Handry Scholarship, Endowed Postgraduate
Scholarship for Progress in Doctoral Research, University
of Nottingham, 2005.
Graduate School Travel Prize, University of Nottingham’s
Graduate School, 2004.
NAME
Clare Russell
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD: American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2006
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
September 2009
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Peter Ling
Prof Richard King
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
“Natural Disasters in America: Hurricane Katrina (2005),
the Northridge Earthquake (1994) and Relationships
between human societies and the ‘natural environment’,
U.S. Studies Online, forthcoming
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
“Healthier babies and healthier mothers- happier more
prosperous families”: Promoting family stability in Birth
Control policy, 1964-1968”, In the Shadow of the Great
Society: American Politics, Culture and Society since
1964 (Postgraduate Interdisciplinary Conference
forthcoming April 2007)
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
2006 BAAS (British Association of American Studies)
Postgraduate Essay Prize
Social Capital and the SCLC’s Citizenship Education
Programme in South Carolina
I am working on an AHRC-funded project researching
social capital within the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference’s citizenship education programme in South
Carolina. This will involve undertaking network analysis
to measure social links and ties between and among the
schools’ teachers and students. I will also be conducting
interviews and compiling oral histories in South Carolina
in 2007. I am also interested in how women participants
in the citizenship schools developed social capital that
may have facilitated their involvement in the feminist
movement, particularly in groups concerned with
women’s health issues.
AHRC-Funded doctoral award
NAME
Michael Collins
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2006
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2009
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
'A Multitude of Gaudy Appearances: Melodrama and the
Performance of Tradition in the short work of Melville,
Hawthorne and Poe.'
Prof Judie Newman
Dr Graham Thompson
My PhD investigates the various ways in which performed
traditions from American freemasonry to theatre and
melodrama, were adapted and explored in mid-Victorian
America through the short work of three canonical
writers. By looking at how these writers utilise the
‘melodramatic mode’ in their tales I intend to offer a new
reading of the relationship between Hawthorne, Melville
and Poe, nascent theatrical traditions and the
development of the short story in antebellum America.
By focusing on theatre and the traditions of ritual
performance I intend to show how the short story
developed as a means to investigate a burgeoning culture
based on symbol, gesture and overt visual codes found
most apparently in American melodrama of the period. I
will show how this ‘mode’ helped to galvanise ideas of
American nationhood through the adaptation of European
systems of theatricalised exchange to a new political and
social climate.
‘Sloughing of the old skin: Ideology, Folklore and the
Invention of Tradition in the Tales of Washington Irving’
(forthcoming U.S Studies Online)
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
‘Old Skin, New Scene: Ideology and the Invention of
Tradition in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Denis Weland Prize (2004)- shared
AHRC-funded Research Preparation Masters
BAAS (British association of American Studies)
Ambassador’s Award Postgraduate Essay Prize 2006
School of American and Canadian Studies studentship
NAME
Natalie Edwards
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxne@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD Film Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
2006
2009
Gay and lesbian representation on British terrestrial
television since 1997
Dr Mark Gallagher
Prof Roberta Pearson
My studies involve an assessment of television production
contexts, including:
-Analysis of the impact of New Labour policies on LGB
media representation
-Investigation of BBC/ITV/Channel 4 purposes and values
regarding the production of gay-themed programmes
-Consideration of the role of Channel 5.
NAME
Francisca Fuentes
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxff1@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
MRes American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2006
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2007
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Sharon Monteith
Dr Paul Grainge
RFK Funeral Train: The cultural life of a memory text
Following Robert Kennedy’s assassination at the 1968
Californian presidential primary, his body was transported
from New York to Washington by train. Paul Fusco, a
Look staff photographer assigned to the funeral train,
took a series of memorable images of the thousands of
mourners that lined the tracks. The collection was
released in book form in 2000 and travelled the country
to much media attention.
I am using RFK Funeral Train as an entry point to
discussions of collective memory and national identity,
with a particular focus on funerals and commemoration.
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Arts and Humanities Research Council: Postgraduate
Award 2006, Research Preparation Masters Scheme
AHRC-funded Research Preparation Masters
NAME
Saiqa Anne Qureshi
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxsaq@exmail.nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B60
PhD American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2006
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2009
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Peter Ling
Prof Richard King
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Social Capital in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi:
The SCLC and The Citizenship Education Programs
The thesis will provide a detailed examination of the
Citizenship Education Program at the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference 1961-1968 with special reference
to the CEP’s operation in Mississippi. The CEP was
originally devised by the Highlander Folk School, whose
model of community organizing has been seen as integral
to civil rights activity in Mississippi. Existing studies have
stressed the role of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi and have seen its
grassroots organizing efforts as more important to the
civil rights movement’s development than the dramatic
short term mobilizing efforts of SCLC. The thesis will
question this dichotomy and consider the relationship of
the CEP to major local developments such as the
Freedom Summer campaign and the emergence of the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. It will explore the
relations between older activists associated with the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People and younger insurgents linked to SNCC. It will
examine how the curriculum of the CEP evolved to
address the material concerns of its students including
economic issues such as consumer cooperatives and
credit unions, and social issues such as family planning,
health care, and pre-school childcare. In doing so, it will
consider the significance of female activism in the
movement.
AHRC-funded doctoral award
NAME
Qiong Yu
CONTACT
DETAILS
School of American and Canadian
Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
arxqy@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD in Film Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2004
2008
EXPECTED
COMPLETION
DATE
RESEARCH
TOPIC (working
title)
The Changing Meanings of Jet Li:
Masculinity, Stardom and Transcultural Reception
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Dr Julian Stringer
Dr Mark Gallagher
PUBLICATIONS
(if any)
1, “Can a Wuxia Star Act? Martial Arts,
Acting and Critical Responses to Jet Li’s
Once Upon a Time in China”, Entertext,
Vol.6, No.1, Autumn, 2006
My thesis on the kungfu/action star Jet
Li and his audience(s) examines how
Chinese masculinity is constituted and
transformed in trans-national contexts.
2, Book review of “Chinese National
Cinema”, Scope: An Online Journal of
Film Studies, Issue 6, October, 2006
3, “Hero: How Chinese Is It?” (co-write
with Julian Stringer), in Paul Cooke
(ed.), World Cinema’s ‘Dialogues’ with
Hollywood, Palgrave Macmillan
(forthcoming)
4, “Transnational Success, National
Disgrace: National Imaginings of Jet Li
and Chinese Critics in Hero (2002)”,
compiled in “Centennial Celebration of
Chinese Cinema and the 2005 Annual
Conference of ACSS” conference
proceeding, 2005
CONFERENCE
PAPERS
DELIVERED
(1) Transnational Success, National
Disgrace: National Imaginings of Jet Li
and Chinese Critics in Hero (2002),
delivered at an international conference
entitled “National, Transnational, and
International: Chinese Cinema and
Asian Cinema in the Context of
Globalization -- Centennial Celebration
of Chinese Cinema”, June 6-7, 2005,
Beijing, China; June 9-10, 2005,
Shanghai, China
(2) From Father’s Son to Mother’s Son:
Reconstruction of Chinese Masculinity
in Jet Li’s Fong Sai-yuk (1993),
delivered at Gender and East Asian
Study Day, 21st Oct., 2005, University
of Nottingham
(3) An Escape from Gender Trouble:
Mainland Chinese Fans’ Reception to
Jet Li and SwordsmanⅡ, delivered at
Queering
East
Asia
Postgraduate
Colloquium, 26 Nov., 2005, University
of York
(4) Be Good Only as A Villain? Jet Li,
Western Reception and Orientalism,
delivered at Cinema Audiences: A
Symposium, 27 May, University of
Newcastle Upon Tyne
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
NAME
Alper Mazman
CONTACT
DETAILS
School of American and Canadian
Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxam2@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD in American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
2005
COMPLETION
DATE
RESEARCH
TOPIC (working
title)
2008
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof. David Murray
Prof. Richard King
PUBLICATIONS
(if any)
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Jazz Talks: Representations of African
American Music and Musicians
My purpose in this project is to study the
representations of jazz music and musicians in
the U.S. from 1945 to 1965. I argue that
European and African Americans (critics,
scholars, hobbyists, writers etc.) differ
fundamentally in their understanding of jazz as
an African American cultural resource and this
difference is closely linked to the issue of race
and the changing perspectives on it in the social,
economical and political spheres during these
eras. Here the system of representation works not
only one way. It is not all about what is
represented but also most significantly who
represents; to put it differently, it is not all about
'what' is observed, seen or read as much as who
observes, sees and reads. In this respect, I am
now making a comparative study of the
difference between European Americans’
representation of jazz as a source of personal
freedom and individual self-fulfilment (such as
Beat writers and more specifically Norman
Mailer's "The White Negro,") and African
Americans’ representation of jazz as a form of
group memory and source of communal values
(such as in James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues.")
“Cuneyt Sermet’in Agiz Tadiyla Cazin
Icinden” (“Cuneyt Sermet’s Discourse
on Jazz (in his book, In Jazz)” (in
Turkish scholarly periodical “Santral
Music”) 2006
Postgraduate Scholarship for the Arts –
50% towards tuition fees for each year
of PhD
NAME
Catherine Mills
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail: aaxcam1@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
Doctor of Philosophy
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
2003
Spring 2007
Narratives of Home: National and transnational belonging
in the recent works of Toni Morrison and Dionne Brand.
Dr Susan Billingham
Dr Graham Thompson
My thesis is a comparative study of African-American
writer Toni Morrison and Caribbean-Canadian writer
Dionne Brand. Focusing on their novels and poetry of the
last fifteen years, my study explores the extent to which
Morrison and Brand challenge and re-write dominant
discourses of national and transnational identity. The
relationship between race, gender, and the experience of
belonging for those of African descent within the United
States, Canada and the Caribbean is at the heart of my
thesis. Consequently, I explore in detail issues of racial
and gender equality, multiculturalism and changing
understandings of national and transnational community
in the twenty-first century.
Morrison and Brand take different approaches to this
issue of belonging and community for those within the
African diaspora. Whilst acknowledging the nation's
violent history of slavery and exclusion, Morrison is also
deeply committed to the United States. She, therefore,
seeks to reconstruct the United States as a space of
belonging for African Americans, proposing inclusive
models of national belonging and calling for an
understanding of national identity which transcends
categories of race, gender and class. Brand, on the other
hand, takes a more cosmopolitan approach. Seeking to
challenging what she views as exclusionary forms of
multiculturalism, while also celebrating the increasingly
multi-national and multi-racial Canadian population,
Brand proposes a sense of belonging built on an
acknowledgement of both the national and transnational
interactions performed daily by these individuals. Thus
despite their differences, in their latest works both
Morrison and Brand illustrate alternative, more positive,
forms of belonging.
Conference report for the British Association of American
Studies Annual Conference 2004, April 15th-18th, to be
featured in the February 2005 edition of SCOPE: an online journal of film studies.
“‘Standing in the middle of the world cracking’: the
Search for Community in Dionne Brand’s At the Full and
Change of the Moon and Toni Morrison’s Paradise”
published in the form of a European Studies Research
Institute (ESRI) working paper, in conjunction with the
University of Salford.
Review of Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For for the
British Journal of Canadian Studies.
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
“A Geography of Self: Space, Place and the Body in
Dionne Brand’s In Another Place, Not Here” presented at
the “Subjects/Citizens” Symposium, School of American
and Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham,
Saturday 6th December 2003.
“‘Standing in the middle of the world cracking’: The
search for community in Dionne Brand’s At the Full and
Change of the Moon and Toni Morrison’s Paradise”
presented at “The Future of Identity: An Interdisciplinary
Conference,” University of Salford, 9th-10th September
2004.
“‘Nothing in a city is discrete. /A city is all interpolation’:
The construction and transformation of identity in Dionne
Brand’s Thirsty” presented at the British Association for
Canadian Studies Annual Conference, University of Kent,
Canterbury 11-14 April 2005.
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
“Transnational American Studies: A New Hope Or A Case
Of The Empire Strikes Back?” presented at the Inaugural
International Seminar: Engaging the "New" American
Studies, University of Birmingham 11-13 May 2006.
School of American and Canadian Studies PhD
Studentship
Foundation for Canadian Studies UK Doctoral studentship
NAME
Joanne Hall
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxjeh2@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD in American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2003
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2007
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Judie Newman
Prof Maggie Walsh
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
● “The Wanderer Contained: Issues of 'Inside' and
'Outside' in relation to Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie
and Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping.”
Critical Survey 18.3 (2006).
Gender Traitors and Masculine Travesties:
Representations of the Female Hobo
From an interdisciplinary base – which includes the
exploration of literary, sociological, journalistic and
historical materials - the thesis explores twentieth
century representations of female hoboes in a variety of
storytelling mediums including autobiography, comic
strips, children’s literature and literary fiction.
● Reviews of Mark Merlis’ Man About Town and Art
Spiegelman’s Maus for Cercles <www.cercles.com>
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
● “The Wanderer Contained: Issues of 'Inside' and
'Outside' in relation to Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie
and Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping.”
“Subjects and Citizens” postgraduate symposium, School
of American and Canadian Studies,
The University of Nottingham, U.K. Nov 2003.
● “The Wanderer Contained: Issues of 'Inside' and
'Outside' in relation to Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie”
BAAS annual conference.
Hosted by The University of Manchester, U.K. Apr 2004.
● “Searching For The (Female) Hobo.”
“Culture of Travel” conference.
The University of Glasgow, U.K. Oct 2004.
● “A Sedentary Journey of Transformation and the
Unreadable Acts of Travel Co-Existing in Marilynne
Robinson’s Housekeeping.”
The Travel Writers’ Association postgraduate conference.
Nottingham Trent University, U.K. Jan 2006.
● “Passing as Hobo, Passing as Feminist: The Complex
Negotiations of Female Hobo Autobiography between
Daring and Deviance.”
“Passing and Questions of Legitimacy” conference.
University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.A. Feb, 2006.
● “Gender Traitors and Masculine Travesties: The
Underlying Desire of Female Hobo Autobiography to Write
Back against Bodily Inscription.”
Popular Culture Association and American Culture
Association (PCA and ACA) joint annual conference.
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. Apr 2006.
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
● Fee Bursary awarded by The School of American and
Canadian Studies, The University of Nottingham, Sept
2002 for duration of MA American Studies
● Sir Francis Hill Scholarship.
A full PhD scholarship awarded by The University of
Nottingham, U.K. Sept 2003 for duration of PhD.
● Sir Marcus Cunliffe BAAS Travel Prize: for the Best
Proposal in American Studies.
Awarded by BAAS, Aug 2003.
● U21 Travel Scholarship for one month of study,
research and PhD supervision at The University of
Virginia, U.S.A as a part of the international Universitas
21 scheme.
Awarded by The University of Nottingham, U.K.
Universitas 21, Apr 2004.
● University of Nottingham Graduate School Travel Prize.
Awarded by The University of Nottingham Graduate
School, Jan 2005.
● Honourable mention in BAAS 2005 Postgraduate Essay
Competition for “‘I’ Hobo: Textual Travels and Apocryphal
Autobiographies.”
April, 2005.
NAME
Alex Symons
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxas@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD in Film Studies (part-time)
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2005
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2011
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Dr Julian Stringer
Dr Peter Urquhart
Producing and Consuming Comedy: Mel Brooks and the
Changing Politics of Popular Taste
This study charts the reputation of Mel Brooks between
1961 and 2005. Typically, when Brooks’s The Producers
(1968), Blazing Saddles (1974) and Young Frankenstein
(1974) were released, they were described by the New
York Times as “vile and inept,” “terribly tiring” and
“riotously poor.” Over the years, Brooks’s films have
increasingly become critical and commercial disasters.
Yet at the same time, these early works have become
prestigious, and are today canonized by the American
Film Institute as the 11th, 6th and 13th best comedies of
all time. This history begs the question; how did Mel
Brooks become the epitome of ‘bad taste’ as well as a
legitimate figure of American comedy?
This diachronic study contributes to the predominantly
textual field of comedy theory by applying a sociological
method, as used by Pierre Bourdieu, to examine the
reception of Brooks’s films in the popular press. This
study examines changing political attitudes towards
Brooks’s brand of controversial jokes about race, gender,
and his own Jewish identity. Since most of Brooks’s films
have been ‘spoofs’ and have employed the same gang of
‘stars,’ this study also examines critical judgement of
parody and the performance of comic actors. To better
understand Brooks’s approach to comedy, this
investigation also draws on production and reception
insights gained from study of his lesser-known work
through his company Brooksfilms, his television projects,
and his audio comedies including The 2000 Year Old Man
(1961).
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
“An Audience for Mel Brooks’s The Producers: The Avantgarde of the Masses” The Journal of Popular Film and
Television. 34.1 Spring 2006. p24-32.
NAME
Ceri Gorton
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail: aaxcmg1@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
2004
30 September 2007
Critical Literary Analysis of Barbara Kingsolver’s Fiction.
Prof Sharon Monteith
Prof Judie Newman
My thesis offers a critical literary analysis of Kentucky
born Barbara Kingsolver’s fiction, while also taking into
account her poetry, essays, non-fiction, and scientific
journalism. It examines Kingsolver’s position as a popular
writer with a self-proclaimed political agenda. By
unpacking her narrative techniques and contextual
influences, my thesis explores both Kingsolver’s
commercial acclaim and relative critical obscurity.
Research interests: Ecofeminism, contemporary American
women writers, Southern nature writing, Appalachian
studies, the popular, regional identities, postcolonialism.
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
‘Conflicting Voices and the Unitary Self in John Updike’s
S’ in Working with English, October 2006.
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Patagonia: Reimagining Welsh Identity and Celtic Colonialism in the
fiction of Malcolm Pryce’ to be delivered at the American
Comparative Literature Association conference in Puebla,
Mexico, April 2007.
‘Finding Her Selves: The Familiar Voices and Challenging
Words of Barbara Kingsolver’s Southern Women’ to be
delivered at the Popular Culture Association / American
Culture Association conference in Boston, April 2007.
‘“The things we carried”: Transplanting the South to
African soil in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible’
at the Re-mapping the American South conference at The
University of the West of England, September 2006.
‘Environment as Identity: Where Native American religion
and Southern Agrarianism collide’ at the Identities
conference at Edge Hill College, March 2005.
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
‘Conflicting Voices and the Unitary Self in John Updike’s
S’ at the Literary Fads and Fashions conference at The
University of Nottingham, November 2004.
AHRC-funded doctoral award
University of Nottingham Graduate School Travel Prize for
a research visit to the USA.
NAME
Anthony T. McKenna
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD Film Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2004
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2007
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
By Magic Numbers and Persuasive Sound: Industrial
Practice, Reputation and Cultural Legitimacy in the
Cinema Of Joseph E. Levine
Dr Julian Stringer
Dr Peter Urquhart
Focussing on the film producer/distributor/showman
Joseph E. Levine, my research examines the impact of
Levine’s career on the practices of the film industry from
the 1940s to the 1980s. I analyse the process of
reputation building and how matters such as reputation
and industrial models influence and affect taste cultures.
The Industrial Politics of Harlow(Gordon Douglas, 1965).
MeCCsa, 2006, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland.
Exposing the Showman.
Film and History conference, 2006, Dallas Texas
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
School of American and Canadian Studies studentship
Graduate School Travel Prize, September 2006.
NAME
Simon Justice
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD Film Studies (part-time)
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2005
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2010
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Dr Julian Stringer
Dr Gianluca Sergi
“The Road to Success or Failure – Troy as a Case Study
of Contemporary Hollywood Cinema”
My thesis is a case study of the 2004 blockbuster Troy,
with the overarching concern being the reasons for its
consideration as a failure. My research is centred on the
revival of the historical epic and its importance to
Hollywood history and also possible reasons for the
several life cycles of the epic genre. The later sections of
thesis consider the performance of the film at its various
platforms of distribution, and how the various value
judgements on the film were made, who by and in which
context.
NAME
Simon Turner
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail: aaxsjt1@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2003
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
August 2007
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Sharon Monteith
Prof Richard King
The man in the valley: American literature of the Vietnam
War and the limits of experience
My thesis considers the American literature of the
Vietnam war, focusing upon the discourse of authenticity
that has dominated both production and reception of the
literature for some years. This discourse of authenticity
is characterised by a scepticism towards grand narratives
of conflict and the jargon-heavy language of the
politicians and officers who prosecuted the war, favouring
instead a subjective narrative approach, which
concentrates upon the immediate bodily and emotional
experiences of the ‘grunt’. As such, I concentrate
primarily upon veteran-authored accounts – memoirs,
novels and poetry – as it is around the figure of the
veteran that this discourse can be seen to crystallise.
The thesis considers the various ‘narratives’ of the
Vietnam War – liberal and conservative takes on the
conflict; the war as national ‘trauma’; the war as
postmodern event; and the excluded Vietnamese reading
of the war – and the way in which the discourse of
authentic experience operates in each instance. The
literature I am focusing upon is necessarily broadranging, taking in established figures such as Michael
Herr and Tim O’Brien; relatively neglected figures such as
John Clark Pratt and Stephen Wright; and writers
comparatively new to the Vietnam literary landscape,
such as Albert French and Lan Cao, who offer alternative
narrative and experiential approaches to a subject long
dominated by white American authors.
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
“Pieces of a man: considering Shifting Landscape as
Autobiographical Critique” Journal of the Short Story in
English, vol. 44, 103-11, Spring 2005.
“Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam, we’ve all been there”:
Vietnam combat literature and the limits of authenticity’,
U.S. Studies On-line, Issue 8, Spring 2006.
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
‘“All Brave Soldiers”: The role of the African American
Serviceman in the US Armed Forces, 1941-48’, delivered
at the Subject/Citizenpostgradaute symposium, School of
American
and
Canadian
Studies,
University
of
Nottingham, October 2003.
‘Patternless paths, mis-shapen memories: History,
karma, and the aesthetics of uncertainty in Lan Cao’s
Monkey Bridge’, delivered at the Politics of Cultural
Memory conference, Manchester Metropolitan University,
November 2004.
‘“A Look of Agony”: Memory, trauma, and bodily
authenticity in Larry Heinemann’s Paco’s Story’, delivered
at the Transforming Bodies study day, School of
American
and
Canadian
Studies,
University
of
Nottingham, August 2005.
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
“Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam, we’ve all been there”:
Vietnam combat literature and the limits of authenticity’,
delivered at the BAAS postgraduate conference, America
Actually, University of Sheffield, November 2005.
AHRC-funded doctoral award
NAME
Lyndsie Prosser
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD in American Studies (part-time)
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
1999
(completion 2008)
Britain, America and the Atomic Bomb, 1940-1946
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Dr Peter Boyle
Prof Matthew Jones
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
June, 2005: “Britain, America and the Atomic Bomb,
1940-1946”. Paper given to a postgraduate conference
arranged by the international history group at the
University of Nottingham.
My thesis examines the Anglo-American nuclear
relationship within the context of the Manhattan Project
and in the immediate postwar period. It attempts to
argue that the relationship operated at a number of
levels and that an appreciation of these contributes to a
fuller understanding of the meaning of the atomic bomb
in international history.
NAME
Alexander Hinchliffe
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail: aaxah1
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD Film Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2005
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2008
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Sharon Monteith
Prof Matthew Jones
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Diagnosing the Other: Early Cold War Hollywood and the
Delineation of “Diseased” Identities.
My thesis examines the cinematic representation of
domestic groups who, during the early years of the Cold
War (from 1947 and throughout the 1950’s) failed to live
within newly prescribed boundaries of identity. In effect
these “groups,” either through personal choice or by their
very nature, challenged the strict binary character of the
Cold War United States. Specifically, I examine closely
the representation of those groups whose difference was
configured as a disease and who were thus viewed and
treated as a threat to the vitality and health of the
nation.
Groups identified and explored thus far include working,
feminist and sexually aggressive women, homosexuals
and juvenile delinquents.
AHRC-funded Library of Congress Research Scholarship. I
was a Kluge Fellow at the LoC, Washington DC from
March to October 2006.
AHRC-funded doctoral award
NAME
Kiranmayi Indraganti
CONTACT DETAILS
Institute of Film and Television Studies
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxki@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD Film Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2006
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2009
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Dr Gianluca Sergi
Prof Roberta Pearson
Playback singing tradition in Indian sound cinema- early
developments and the role of women in it.
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
My PhD studies the contribution of women playback
singers in the early years of Indian sound cinema.
When cinema became a sound medium (in 1931), actors’
singing talent was rated highly because a film without
songs was unimaginable due to the demands of theatrical
practices preceding the new medium. Between 1932 and
40, film song became critical to a movie's success. An
early Telugu film had about 100 songs!
The singing-actress’ position had changed by the 1940s
when the studios realised they could pre-record the song
in some one else’s voice and ‘play back’ on location for
the actor to lip-synch the words. This brought actresses
with no singing talent to the fore, making playback
singing a serious profession for others. In a noteworthy
way, women complemented each other's limitations and
gained a common strength out of the medium to create a
new space for themselves in the industry.
My research will focus on the south Indian film scene
particularly, Telugu cinema, between 1940 and 1950s.
‘The Female Wonder of Indian Cinema- A Velcro between
Music and Images’- Cinemaya April 2005
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
1) New York University, Music and Images Conference,
June 2001
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
2) Anveshi Resource Centre for Women, Hyderabad and
CSCS (Centre for the Study of Culture and Society,
Bangalore), at Hyderabad, India- Conference on Telugu
Cinema: History, Culture, Theory- 1999
Postgraduate Scholarship for the Arts, University of
Nottingham
International Student Scholarship, York University
Canada-1999
CASA Scholarship for Thesis Film, York University,
Canada-2000
NAME
Sinéad Moynihan
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxsbm@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
Ph.D. in American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2003
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
December 2006
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Fictions of Law and Custom: Passing Narratives at the
Fins des Siècles
Prof Sharon Monteith
Dr Celeste-Marie Bernier
My dissertation examines narratives of passing of the
nineteenth- and twentieth-century fins de siècle. My
central thesis is that passing narratives of the 1990s and
beyond evidence symmetry between the tropes of
passing that occur at plot level and passing strategies
surrounding the production of the texts themselves. I
argue that the connections between passing and
authorship that emerge in contemporary stories invite us
to reconsider extant interpretations of earlier passing
stories, specifically those published at the turn of the
twentieth century. The Introduction challenges the
historiography of the passing narrative traced in existing
studies of passing. It also suggests the ways in which
authorship and passing are inextricably linked via the
arbitrary standard of “authenticity,” both authorial and
racial. In Chapter One, I examine the relationship
between the African American body-as-text and the
African American author who produces a text. Chapter
Two takes the self-reflexive detective genre and traces
the changing roles of the passing character within the
conventions of the form, from femme fatale to hardboiled detective. In Chapter Three, I examine texts
whose protagonists’ gender and/or racial ambiguity serve
to destabilise analogously the religious categories under
interrogation in those texts. Chapter Four examines
tropes of passing in relation to three contemporary
novels of adolescence. Finally, the Conclusion discusses
recent controversies of authorship and authenticity in the
U.S., particularly as these pertain to the ambiguous
literary category of “memoir.”
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
“‘Kissing the rod that chastised me’: Scarlett, Rhett and
Miscegenation in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the
Wind,” Irish Journal of American Studies, December
2006.
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
31 March-1 April 2006
Worlding the Text –
Graduate Conference (University of
Virginia)
“The Way of the Cross(-dresser):
Passing and Catholicism in Two
Louise Erdrich Novels”
28 January 2006
Declarations of Independence (Irish
Association for American Studies
Postgraduate Symposium, TCD)
“Not Black Enough”: Passing,
Authenticity and Percival Everett’s
Erasure.”
11-14 July 2005
Transatlantic Studies Association
Conference (University of
Nottingham)
“In Ireland? Race, Immigration and
Citizenship in Jim Sheridan’s In
America.”
14-18 April 2005
British Association for American Studies
Annual Conference (Robinson College,
Cambridge)
“Textual Transgressions:
Representations of Brandon Teena.”
17-19 March 2005
Louisiana Historical Association
Annual Meeting, Lafayette,
Louisiana.
“Sleuthing Racial Ambiguity: Robert
Skinner’s New Orleans Fiction.”
6 January 2005
[boundaries], British Comparative
Literature Association Graduate
Conference,
Goldsmiths College, University of
London.
“Pass(ing)over: Jewishness in
narratives of African American
passing.” [on The Human Stain]
15 October 2004
Conjuring Difference (Tufts
University, Boston).
“Pass(ing)over: Jewishness in African
American passing narratives.” [on Caucasia]
9-10 September 2004
The Future of Identity: An
Interdisciplinary Conference
(University of Salford).
“Reading Race, Writing Race:
Passing for Black(er) in Percival
Everett’s Erasure.”
10-11 July 2004
Political Fictions and the
Poetics of Faith – Postgraduate Conference (University of
Leeds).
“Seeing is Believing: Bodily
Transformation(s) in Louise
Erdrich’s The Last Report on the
Miracles at Little No Horse.”
7-8 May 2004
Europe, America and the Transatlantic
Bridge (Irish Association for American
Studies, UCD)
“‘Kissing the rod that chastised me’:
Scarlett, Rhett and Miscegenation in
Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the
Wind.”
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
March 2006
Universitas 21 Scholarship, awarded
by the Graduate School at the
University of Nottingham, to fund a
month’s research at the University
of Virginia in Charlottesville.
September 2005
Andrew Hendry Scholarship
awarded by the Research
Committee, University of
Nottingham in recognition of
progress with research.
July 2005
N.A.T.O. Scholarship to attend
Transatlantic Studies Association
Conference at the University of
Nottingham.
March 2005
British Association for American
Studies Ambassador’s Short-Term
Travel Prize to fund a research trip
to Louisiana.
October 2003 National University of Ireland Travelling
Studentship to fund three years of doctoral research in
American Studies at the University of Nottingham.
NAME
CONTACT DETAILS
Áine Kelly
School of American and Canadian Studies
E-mail:
aaxkel@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
DEGREE
PhD American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2006
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
01/10/09
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
“Wallace Stevens: A Phenomenology of the Imagination”
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
Prof Dave Murray
Prof Douglas Tallack
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
My research takes as its starting point the prose writings
of Wallace Stevens, primarily the collected essays of The
Necessary Angel. Initially, I intended to focus on
Stevens’s conscious choice of form; exploring how the
logical rigour of his prose compared with that of his
philosophical poetry (this formal emphasis opening up the
research to a critical engagement with corresponding
developments in the visual arts). However, the project is
now broadening out into a possible “three-figure” study,
incorporating an American philosopher and visual artist.
Stevens’s essays will still provide the intellectual
framework, but will now function more as a starting point
than a primary focus. At this stage of the research, I am
focusing on the pragmatist philosophy of William James
and John Dewey and, curiously, the neo-pragmatism of
Richard Rorty. On the visual arts side, my focus is on the
Abstract Expressionist painters; possible figures include
Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper and
Robert Motherwell. Stevens’s essays, I hope, will provide
the common intellectual framework for poet, philosopher
and painter; working ideas at this stage include Stevens’s
theory of the imagination (possibly comparable with
Rorty’s theory of aesthetic re-description?) and
abstraction (an obvious connection with the expressionist
painters). By situating Stevens in this intellectual and
artistic context, I hope to illuminate previously neglected
areas of his thought and to situate him more firmly within
the American artistic tradition. While Stevens’s poetry
and its engagement with epistemology have elicited
much critical attention, the attention paid to the prose
has been minimal. My research aims to address this
critical gap. It proposes that a detailed engagement with
Stevens’s prose – illuminating the richness of its
aesthetic theory when viewed from both a philosophical
and visual art perspective – offers an innovative critical
framework within which to approach his work.
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
AHRC Research Award (2006-09)
NAME
Jack Newsinger
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
aaxjn1@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
PhD Film Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2005
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2008
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Roberta Pearson
Dr Peter Urquhart
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
Book Chapter: ‘Identity Policies: Culture, Commerce and
Identity in Regional Film Cultures in England’, Cheung,
Ruby and Fleming, David eds. (Cambridge Scholars
Press, Forthcoming)
From the Grass Roots: Regional Film Production in
England
My research examines the development of regional film
policy and practice in England from the 1970s. In
particular, I am interested in the construction of
regionally-based film practices as distinct from the
“mainstream” commercial industry. Other interests
include short film; the films of Shane Meadows; and the
film workshop movement.
Book Review for the Journal of British Cinema and
Television (Forthcoming): Peter Miskell, A Social History
of the Cinema in Wales.
Book Review for Scope (Forthcoming): James Chapman,
Past and Present: National Identity and the British
Historical Film.
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Book Review for Scope (Forthcoming): Paul Dave, Visions
of England.
‘Identity Policies: Culture, Commerce and Identity in
Regional Film Cultures in England’, Cinemas, Identities
and Beyond Postgraduate Conference, St. Andrews,
November 2006
‘Gender and Authorship in Regional Film Production’,
Gender and National Identity Postgraduate Conference,
UEA, June 2006
AHRC-Funded Doctoral Award
NAME
Daniel Smith-Rowsey
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
Telephone:
Fax:
Room:
PhD
N/A
0115 9514270
Trent B57/B59
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2005
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2008
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Roberta Pearson
Dr Gianluca Sergi
“Representing Rough Rebels: Star Performers in the
Hollywood Renaissance”
What was the role of actors in what is alternatively called
the New Hollywood or the Hollywood Renaissance? What
did they do, and how was it perceived at the time?
The Hollywood Renaissance does not suffer from underscrutiny. In my estimation, the collapse of censorship,
the waning of the studios, the rise of film schools, the
shifting American zeitgeist, and especially the role of
ostensible auteur directors (the three most common
examples being Altman, Coppola, and Scorsese) have
already received their due credit. I propose that the
onscreen and offscreen choices and perceptions of actors
deserve equal scrutiny.
By common consensus, the Hollywood Renaissance had
certain salient characteristics. Three of the most
significant, I suggest, are a certain sense of nihilism and
alienation; an ideologically leftish libertarianism; and a
sort of “impure” style of realism that has been variously
described as deviant, gritty, aberrant, or gutsy. To these
three characteristics I add a fourth, not as commonly
recognized, which is actor privileging itself. How, then,
did actors contribute to these characteristics?
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
“Quien es Menos Macho?” in Star Studies: The Sixties,
ed. Pamela Wojcik Rutgers University Press, 2007.
“Whose Middle-earth is it?” in How We Became MiddleEarth ed. Adam Lam University of New Zealand Press,
2007.
“Mr. Know-It-All” on E!online, published September 3,
2004.
Various book reviews
“Hollywood’s Primary Colorism” at MeCCSA, University of
Ulster, Northern Ireland, June 2006
“The Reality of Reality TV,” Southwest Pop Culture
Association, April 2004
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
“How Mexico Achieved Post-Colonial Realism with the
Help of Some Dogs and Your Mom” at Subaltern Studies
Conference, Harvard University, February 2004
“What the Rocky Horror Picture Shows,” Riverside
Disjunctions Conference, April 2003
“Top 10 Reasons The Simpsons is the Best Show Ever,”
Southwest Pop Culture Association, February 2003
Postgraduate Scholarship for the Arts, University of
Nottingham
North American Scholarship, University of Nottingham
Incentive scholarship, University of Southern California,
2002-2004
NAME
Jenny Woodley
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail:
Telephone:
Fax:
Room:
PhD
aaxjbw@nottingham.ac.uk
N/A
0115 9514270
Trent B57/B59
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
2005
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
2008
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
Prof Peter Ling
Prof Richard King
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
The Cultural Work of the NAACP, 1910-1950
My thesis examines the cultural work of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People from
1910 to 1950. The NAACP both promoted African
American culture and depictions of black life, and
challenged racist images in American culture. My
research so far has looked at two areas. The first aspect
was the organisation’s attempts to promote positive
images of African Americans pre-World War II. The
NAACP’s focus was on “high culture”, particularly
literature. It helped to shape the Harlem Renaissance
through its magazine, The Crisis, and through the work of
staff members, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Walter White and
James Weldon Johnson. The second aspect considers the
NAACP’s relationship to film, with an emphasis on the
Second World War and post-War years. The NAACP
protested those films it found offensive and attempted to
persuade Hollywood to remove derogatory black
stereotypes from the movies.
Through its work, the NAACP wanted to influence both
white and black Americans. It wanted to show whites that
the racist stereotypes in much of American culture were
untrue and that African Americans were in fact worthy of
full citizenship and equal rights. It also wanted to instil
racial pride amongst African Americans, to teach them
about their race and show them what they could achieve.
My project seeks to question the traditional view of the
NAACP as cautious and conservative with limited
objectives and to recast it as a multi-faceted institution
with a far-reaching impact on American society.
BAAS Postgraduate Conference, School of American and
Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham, 2006. “The
Hollywood Front: The Battle Over Race in the Movies
During World War II.”
School of American and Canadian Studies, University of
Nottingham Postgraduate Symposium, Transforming
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Bodies 2005. “‘This is the barbeque we had last night’:
the use and abuse of the black body in lynching
photographs.”
AHRC–Library of Congress Scholarship, August – October
2006
AHRC-funded Doctoral Award
NAME
Will Smith
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail: aaxwls@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57/B59
M.Res Canadian Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
2006
2007
The Representation of Atlantic Canada within
contemporary Canadian film and literature
Dr Susan Billingham
Dr Peter Urquhart
My research looks at the ways in which the identity of
home is created and remapped at the local and national
levels, with reference to contemporary Atlantic
narratives. Little critical attention has been paid to
Atlantic Canada, a region currently producing much
interesting, varied film and literature. Though
traditionally mapped as a margin, Stephen Henighan has
argued that “By the late 1990s it seemed that only
writers from Atlantic Canada – Wayne Johnston, Alistair
MacLeod, David Adams Richards – still wrote Canadian
novels; this may help explain the surge in these writers’
popularity”. How does this duality of being Canadian and
exploring a regional social identity co-exist in context
with an evolving global community? What does the
regionalist thematic criticism of Canadian film and
literature add to an understanding of the contemporary
work from Atlantic Canada? How do narratives from
Atlantic Canada show residue of their situation? What
strategies are employed in regional representation? How
do these works resist, or perpetuate regional
stereotypes?
Works being addressed include those by Lynn Coady,
Christy Ann Conlin, Daniel MacIvor, Lisa Moore, David
Adams Richards and Michael Winter. The research
addresses the recent survey of Canadian Literature
conducted by Noah Richler and pays particular attention
to writing groups such as the Burning Rock Collective.
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
School of American and Canadian Studies Studentship
NAME
DONNA-MARIE TUCK
CONTACT DETAILS
School of American and Canadian Studies
DEGREE
E-mail: aaxdmt@nottingham.ac.uk
Telephone: N/A
Fax:
0115 9514270
Room:
Trent B57
PhD in American Studies
YEAR OF
REGISTRATION
EXPECTED
COMPLETION DATE
RESEARCH TOPIC
(working title)
NAMES OF
RESEARCH
SUPERVISORS
SUMMARY OF
RESEARCH (250
words maximum)
2004
February 2008
The political and literary writings of Herbert G. de Lisser (18781944)
Professor Judith Newman
Dr Celeste-Marie Bernier
My thesis examines the intellectual significance of Jamaican-born,
conservative black writer Herbert G. de Lisser. A prominent figure
in Jamaican society, de Lisser’s influence was far-reaching. He
edited the leading newspaper The Daily Gleaner (1904-1944),
wrote 26 novels, and was one of the first to attempt to attract a
popular readership for locally produced fiction through the pages
of his annual magazine Planter’s Punch (1920-1944). He received
the Musgrave Silver Medal for Literary Work in 1919 and was
awarded the C.M.G of the British Empire for Journalistic and
Literary Achievement in 1920. He was on the Board of the
Jamaica Imperial Association and was Chairman of the Board of
Governors of the Institute of Jamaica from 1922 to 1937.
However, because his brand of political conservatism became
unpopular both at home and abroad, his creative work has been
under researched.
Labelled an ‘arch conservative’, ‘a bourgeois nationalist’ and
simultaneously ‘progressive and reactionary’, there is evidence to
suggest that de Lisser has been misinterpreted. I would argue
that he was a pioneer in the field of West Indian literature
establishing the foundations for future West Indian writers. He
was amongst the first West Indian writers to offer a realistic
treatment of contemporaneous society and wrote a local literature
in order to create a national status for locally situated black
subjects.
PUBLICATIONS (if
any)
To date, there has been no biography or widespread scholarly
research completed on de Lisser and therefore my thesis aims to
recover him, for while his politics may be uncomfortable, he is a
very significant writer.
“Blurring the Boundaries: The Sexuality of Little Women,”
Working With English: Medieval and Modern Language,
Literature and Drama 2.1: Literary Fads and Fashions
(2006): pp. 82-88
CONFERENCE
PAPERS DELIVERED
‘Blurring the Boundaries: The Sexuality of Little Women’,
presented at Fads and Fashions Conference, University of
Nottingham, November 2004.
‘The Racial Body as Performance in Edna Ferber’s
Showboat’ presented at Transforming Bodies Conference,
School of American and Canadian Studies, University of
Nottingham, August 2005.
AWARDS AND
PRIZES
Graduate School Travel Prize Award, University of
Nottingham. Awarded October 2005 for research trip to
Jamaica.