My new (and first!) article 'Between agency and victimhood: "Adult Material" and screening the female porn performer in the #MeToo era' is now out on @pornstudiesjournal.bsky.social. Available on open access! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Between agency and victimhood: Adult Material and screening the female porn performer in the #MeToo era

The porn star figure has typically occupied a polarizing position within media and feminist discourses, being a symbol of either agency or victimization. This article explores the way the televisio...

tandfonline.com

Non academics always ask whether looking closely at a film 'ruins' it. I have never had that experience until writing my monograph chapter on Suspiria (2018), a film I (honestly!) did used to like. Pleased that I have written the final line of it today. Goodbye, cursed object, I am so over you!

a woman in a red tank top has her arms up

ALT: a woman in a red tank top has her arms up

media.tenor.com

My book, The Superhero Blockbuster: Adaptation, Style, and Meaning, is out today in ebook format, published by @upmississippi.bsky.social! You can buy the ebook from the usual vendors and if you're affiliated with a university you may already have access at JSTOR here: doi.org/10.2307/jj.2...

Dad's been told he's got to have an insta for his fruit and veg biz and I have to say the images of kiwis and radishes are quite a soothing addition to my timeline

Take note: what is happening in the USA could easily happen here if we don't vocally, definitively resist

Byline Times@bylinetimes.bsky.social · 2y ago

🔴Nigel Farage Teams Up With Extreme Anti-Abortion Group and Calls for Debate on Restricting Abortion Rights in UK The Reform Leader is joining forces with a US-based Christian legal group, which campaigns for abortion to be outlawed around the world bylinetimes.com/2024/11/29/n...

Thank you to @baftss2025.bsky.social for facilitating my dream (talking about Charli XCX at length with 2 brilliant scholars). The female pop doc (edited by @profkirsty.bsky.social) coming soon!

Presenting as part of the Comedic Aesthetics panel at #BAFTSS2025 tomorrow! My paper is called ‘It’s Not TV, It’s A24’ and will be looking at how A24 have positioned themselves as a producer of televised stand-up comedy and the ways in which this reinforces their strong brand identity.

@baftss2025.bsky.social is go! Building on my work on resilience discourse & pop music on friday I'll be presenting on Charli XCX's Alone Together & how the film responds to & exceeds resilient formations of the recent female pop doc through an emphasis on LGBTQ fandom & digital space building

Really looking forward to delivering this paper on a fascinating film that sunk without a trace with the brilliant @havasjulia.bsky.social as part of Friday's Genre Hybridity panel @baftss2025.bsky.social

How can a little-known French Hitchcock pastiche help us rethink the ideology of the Holocaust drama? Come to our @baftss2025.bsky.social paper, presented with @ggergely.bsky.social on the "Genre Hybridity" panel on Friday, to find out. #BAFTSS2025

James MacDowell’s new article, ‘Breaking (and making) the Fourth Wall on YouTube’ is now published (and is open access) in the Quarterly Review of Film and Video. Read below: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Breaking and Making the Fourth Wall on YouTube: Direct Address and Audiovisual Narration in Online Video

Published in Quarterly Review of Film and Video (Ahead of Print, 2025)

tandfonline.com

Nice to be on home (Warwick!) turf for @baftss2025.bsky.social this week. I'll be presenting on the Performance & Stardom SIG sponsored panel, sharing research on the female pop doc alongside @profkirsty.bsky.social. Come for the screenshots of my Instagram feed, stay for the hyperpop bangers!

Looks like a preview of my book - The Superhero Blockbuster: Adaptation, Style, and Meaning - is now available on Google! It's a clumsily formatted ebook version with no images but still good for a sneaky peek. books.google.co.uk/books/about/...

The Superhero Blockbuster

The Superhero Blockbuster: Adaptation, Style, and Meaning builds an innovative framework for analyzing one of the most prominent genres in twenty-first-century Hollywood. In combining theories of adap...

books.google.co.uk

Come join us for BAFTSS 2025! We've got so many great papers scheduled.

Warwick Film & TV@warwickfilmtv.bsky.social · 2y ago

BAFTSS 2025 is coming to Warwick in just under a month! Find the programme alongside all regsitration and accommodation info, at the following address: sites.google.com/view/baftss-...

"But is it fascist?" My book A NAZI WORD FOR A NAZI THING has the answer: yes it is. So is endlessly classifying shit, which is eugenics. What do we do about it? My book also has the answer: make & love messy queer anarchist art to keep each other alive. peninsulapress.co.uk/products/a-n...

A Nazi Word for a Nazi Thing

by So Mayer An essay on art, bodies and fascism In an era where identity politics is being weaponised against the very people it has sought to make visible, how can we reclaim complexity? In 1937 the ...

peninsulapress.co.uk

Speechless with rage that our greedy capitalist overlords want to destroy a rare thriving cultural hub and beloved cinema landmark in central London because…..why? They don’t have enough money already? Sign this petition.

Prince Charles Cinema@princecharlescinema.com · 2y ago

#SaveThePCC Some of you may have read about the situation regarding our new landlord wishing to add a new redevelopment break clause, with only 6 months notice to our lease. For now, we're simply asking you all to share & sign the petition below; you.38degrees.org.uk/p/princechar...

Here's a link to my article which discusses this in relation to Vox Lux, pop music & neoliberalism www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10....

Inauthenticity as a Disruption of Neoliberal Resilience Discourse in Brady Corbet's <i>Vox Lux</i> | Film-Philosophy

Brady Corbet's Vox Lux (2018) depicts school shooting survivor Celeste's transformation into a singing superstar, connecting the trauma of a terrorist attack to the phenomenon of musical celebrity. In...

euppublishing.com

This got absolutely no traction, but if you (like me) loved The Brutalist here is a link to my article on Brady Corbet's Vox Lux, a film that I find even more interesting as a take on American politics & neoliberalism & discuss through the lens of its focus on pop stardom

Alice Pember@alpember.bsky.social · 2y ago

Here's a link to my article which discusses this in relation to Vox Lux, pop music & neoliberalism www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10....

It strikes me the Corbet is one of our foremost chroniclers of capitalist realism- something I explore in my article on Vox Lux. One of his tools is tone: the sense of inevitability & foreboding that pervade films about 'plucky' individuals is a reckoning with history but also late stage capitalism

🏳️‍🌈 Ms. Marya E. Gates 🦩@oldfilmsflicker.bsky.social · 2y ago

👀

It strikes me the Corbet is one of our foremost chroniclers of capitalist realism- something I explore in my article on Vox Lux. One of his tools is tone: the sense of inevitability & foreboding that pervade films about 'plucky' individuals is a reckoning with history but also late stage capitalism

🏳️‍🌈 Ms. Marya E. Gates 🦩@oldfilmsflicker.bsky.social · 2y ago

👀

Excited to share that i'll be a keynote (!!) at the first British Popular Culture(s) Conference at Falmouth Uni in June. Probably banging on about British woman filmmakers, dance, new realism (and of course Andrea Arnold). It's on 5th-7th of June and a nice excuse for a little excusion to Cornwall!

Reflecting on last year and all the cool stuff that happened, professionally...one of the coolest being hosting @laurastaab.bsky.social Guilia Rho & Yaya Azariah Clarke for this discussion about short films made by women of the LA Rebellion, which can be viewed at the link below!

The only journal I *rush* to read as soon as it comes out is Liquid Blackness. There is always a gem. This time Jillian Hernandez's 'Ca$h App Connectivities: High-Maintenance Feminism and Payment as Praxis' - the analysis of City Girl's 'Jobs' we all needed 👏

I truly believe that car dependency and sprawl help create the sort of superfluous, alienated public that Arendt wrote about in Origins of Totalitarianism

Robin Mazumder, Ph.D@robinmazumder.bsky.social · 2y ago

“In a typical week, relying on a car more than 50% of the time for out-of-home activities is associated with a decrease in life satisfaction. This implies that at high levels of car dependence, there are negative implications that outweigh the benefits of car-based travel.” ssti.us/2024/12/09/t...

Our AHRC project Women’s Screen Work in the Archives Made Visible has 2 postdoc research associate jobs. One will work mostly with me & @helenexeter.bsky.social with hands-on archives work on collections of women filmmakers at the BFI National Archive jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...

Birmingham folks - I am hosting this event for Disability History Month this Thursday! Subtitled screening of The Little Mermaid (1989 animated version) + reading and conversation from Creative Writing researchers on disability and fairy tales. Free to attend.

Undergrad interviews today...as an ex school & sixth form teacher, I often well up when I get a glowing, detailed reference for a student from a comp. I know how time pressed teaching staff are (& remember staying up late into the night writing similar references for students dreaming of university)

Niche London celebrity spotting edition #56: Bobby Seagull was in my Body Pump class (and complimented my form)

Adapted from a short story by Joyce Carol Oates, i'm delighted to be screening Joyce Chopra’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning SMOOTH TALK (featuring a breakout performance fromLaura Dern!!) as part of TRAILBLAZERS this Sunday!