Staff
The following members of staff supervise MA Dissertations and PhDs in Film Studies and Film Making at Kingston.
Film Studies
Dr Will Brooker - Director of Research, Film and Television
Dr Will Brooker's research focuses on popular icons and media fandom. He has published three books on the cultural histories of popular texts - Batman Unmasked, Using the Force and Alice's Adventures - and edited or co-edited three collections, Postmodern Afterimages (Arnold), The Audience Studies Reader (Routledge) and The Blade Runner Experience (Wallflower). His most recent work is the BFI Modern Classics monograph on the first Star Wars film (2009). He has been an invited expert on various radio and television programmes, including Gloria's Full House with Adam West and Paul Daniels, The Culture Show with Mark Kermode, and Generation Jedi with Dermot O'Leary, and he has given papers internationally, including invited lectures at Oxford and Harvard.
Dr Simon Brown - Director of Studies, Film and Television
Simon Brown's research interests are predominantly in the field of Early Cinema, British Cinema in general, and Contemporary American Television. In 2004/05 he was Senior Research Fellow for the London Project, a year-long AHRC funded project on the development of the film industry in London before the First World War. He is currently part of a three-year AHRC funded project on the history of colour in British cinema, led by Professor Sarah Street of Bristol University. Simon's publications include an article on early colour for the prestigious journal Film History, and a book chapter on the American TV channel Showtime.
Dr Andrea Rinke - Course Leader, MA Film Studies
Dr Andrea Rinke's research to date has focused on European and East German cinema, and she is a regular contributor to the publications of the Defa library based at Amherst University Massachusetts, who are the sole international distributors of East German films. While continuing this work, she is currently exploring a new area of research, the depiction of addiction in the cinema; she organised the first international interdisciplinary conference on the topic of Addiction/Obsession in the UK in July 2008, and is planning publications on the subject.
Professor Martin McQuillan
Professor John Mullarkey
Professor John Mullarkey is the author of Bergson and Philosophy (1999), Post-Continental Philosophy: An Outline (2006), and Philosophy and the Moving Image: Refractions of Reality (2010), and is an editor of Film-Philosophy. His work explores variations of 'non-standard-philosophy', arguing that philosophy is a subject that continually shifts its identity through engaging with (supposedly) 'non-philosophical' fields such as film. He is currently working on a book-film project dealing with the representations of animals in film and philosophy. John welcomes research proposals in the areas of Film Theory, Film and Philosophy, Film Practice as Research, Animals and Philosophy, Animals and Representation (especially in film), François Laruelle and Non-Philosophy, Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, Alain Badiou, Michel Henry, Contemporary French Philosophy, Philosophy Of Diagrams.
Professor Matthew Pateman
Professor Matthew Pateman is the prize-winning author of Julian Barnes and The Aesthetics of Culture in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as numerous articles on Joss Whedon, television, aesthetics, literature, popular culture, music video and others. He is on the editorial board of Slayage: The Journal of the Joss Whedon Association and The International Journal of Scottish Theatre and Film. Matthew welcomes research proposals in the areas of popular aesthetics, Joss Whedon, cultural theory, Jean-Francois Lyotard, televisual narrative, contemporary French philosophy, literature and television, and David Bowie.
Professor Simon Morgan Wortham
Professor Scott Wilson
Dr Catherine O'Brien
Dr Catherine O'Brien's main interest is in French and Hollywood cinema. Recent research has focused on intersections between film and theology, including a book (entitled The Celluloid Madonna) about images of the Virgin Mary in Hollywood and European cinema, and she has published widely in the area of Marian studies. She is now developing a new project on the theme of 'sacred spaces' on screen.
Dr Corin Depper
Dr Corin Depper's PhD research was on Ezra Pound and Jean-Luc Godard, and he maintains a strong interdisciplinary focus, with a particular interest in film, philosophy, and the visual arts. At present, he is working on a monograph that takes a phenomenological approach to exploring the relationship between cinematic space and gallery space, developing ideas around the American artists Matthew Barney and Dan Flavin. His further research concerns twentieth century modernism, including papers on Robert Graves and David Jones.
Dr Matt Melia
Dr Matt Melia is currently researching issues of space, politics and identity in 1950s and 1960s British television comedy and Science Fiction. His own PhD research focused on issues of architecture, cruelty, space and modernity in post-war French drama and writing (specifically Antonin Artaud, Jean Genet and Samuel Beckett).
Dr Tom Whittaker
Dr Tom Whittaker's research focuses on three key areas: the relationship between cultural geography and film, soundscapes and the role of the producer. His doctoral thesis explored the representation of space in the work of the Spanish producer, Elías Querejeta, and forms the basis of his forthcoming book The Films of Elías Querejeta: A Producer of Landscapes, which will be published in 2011 by University of Wales Press. Elsewhere, Tom has published widely on Spanish and British film, and his articles have appeared in journals such as Jump Cut, International Journal of Cultural Studies and Journal of British Cinema and Television.
Dr Ian Smith
Dr Ian Smith previously lectured at the universities of Oxford, London, Boston and Warwick. His publications include the books Pinter in the Theatre (Nick Hern Books, 2005) and The Pope of Russell Square (a major study of T.S. Eliot, in press for Enitharmon. 2009). As a musician, arranger, and composer, Ian has performed and recorded with major artists including Bryan Ferry, Shirley Bassey, Stan Tracey, and most recently Hank Wangford. He devised and was principal interviewee for the major Channel 4 documentary 'Ashes Fever' (2005) and has worked on a range of other television programmes in a range of creative and performing capacities.
Film Making
Dr Mick Kennedy
Dr Mick Kennedy's doctoral research was on non-actors in narrative cinema. His current research interests relate primarily to the process of film production, with a particular commitment to collective and collaborative Film Making practices. He is a consultant for the Natural History Museum 'New Perspectives' project.
Abbe Fletcher
Abbe Fletcher's current research is a practice-based investigation of experimental editing practices informed by the filmic avant garde. She is undertaking an MPhil by project at the Royal College of Art, supervised by A.L. Rees. Taking Dziga Vertov's theory of intervals (1919) as its foundational starting point, the project investigates experimental editing practices and their development through avant-garde film (in the work of Stan Brakhage and Rose Lowder) in order to develop a practical understanding of editing, distinct from the established conventions of traditional continuity style. She is a founder member of w.inc, the women's independent collective, which produced the documentary The Road to Gibara (2009).
Fiona Curran
Fiona Curran has worked for over twenty years in television and film in the UK and has been involved in every type of programme from news and current affairs, through documentary to award-winning drama. She was employed as both an editor and a sound designer in these fields for C4, BBC, Granada, LWT, Working Title, Film 4, Hallmark, HBO and Kudos Production amongst others. She is part of the sonic partnership Curran & Gershon under the name of 21%, and is currently working on a sound series of classical Mash-Ups. Her first poetry collection, 'The Hail Mary Pass', was published by Wreckingball Press in 2006, and she performs poetry extensively across the UK.
Nelson Douglas
Roy Perkins
Roy Perkins' research interests relate primarily to the process of film/TV production, specifically the interrelationship between editing and directing, and theories of film authorship. He co-authored British Film Editors: The Heart of the Movie (BFI, 2004), which included interviews with twenty-two leading British and American cinema editors, and his documentary work has been screened at the Imperial War Museum, London. Roy's broadcast experience includes editing and directing factual and drama programmes for Thames, Anglia, Central and BBC TV, and for the Central Office of Information, and he continues to work as an independent producer through his own production company.
