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....

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!

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

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

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....

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/...

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

"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...

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Overjoyed to receive my Goethe Institute A1.1 German test back with ticks and smiley faces! Can we please intitute this in peer review processes? (I remember that during PhD @boltonsmotors.bsky.social ticked things and sometimes even offered an enthusiastic underlined 'YES!!' - I miss those days!).

Me and my partner have premium duo but it looks like we have premium trio

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!

Second marking student screenplay outlines, which I haven't done since I worked for the IB. So interesting to see how this type of writing develops between tertiary and higher education! And how brilliant that my work for the day entails reading a bunch of absolutely delightful little stories!

If you are wondering what the amazing music is that accompanies the first bit of the Trailblazers trailer, its from A Different Image by Alile Sharon Larkin, one of the films screening as part of the LA Rebellion Shorts Programme on Wednesday: www.thegardencinema.co.uk/film/l-a-reb...

Having such a wonderful couple of months celebrating Trailblazing female filmmakers. V. difficult to pick highlights but the guest feedback from discussion of Union Maids has to be one: 'in the week that Trump has been elected I needed this really hopeful narrative that you can change things'

If you’re in London today, don’t miss this great event #trailblazers #LARebellion #JulieDash #SharonLarkin #ZeinabuIreneDavis #WomenMakeFilms #FemFilmHist

this Sunday, films by Julie Dash, Alile Sharon Larkin, and Zeinabu irene Davis with a post-screening discussion @TheGardenCinema chaired by @laurastaab.bsky.social – come along! www.thegardencinema.co.uk/film/l-a-reb...

The Traitors (UK) will return on New Year's Day at 8pm on BBC One.

Today's the day

My dad is in the greengrocer trade and have heard word this morning that he is 'rejoicing' at the downfall of Gregg Wallace 'along with the rest of the fruit and veg world'

Once again in research and writing, I am chasing a shiny new thing. 🦅

For those of you who write and publish, especially if you are UK-based, remember to register your items with ALCS. They collect money paid for copying/distributing work and pay it to authors. The cut-off for the March payment is to register your items by Nov 30th. www.alcs.co.uk/about-alcs/

Tomorrow evening’s screening of Desert Hearts at the Garden Cinema is almost sold out! I am delighted to have recorded the intro I had hoped to deliver on Saturday which will be screened before the film. www.thegardencinema.co.uk/film/dessert...

this Sunday, films by Julie Dash, Alile Sharon Larkin, and Zeinabu irene Davis with a post-screening discussion @TheGardenCinema chaired by @laurastaab.bsky.social – come along! www.thegardencinema.co.uk/film/l-a-reb...

Writing view

Solidarity to all the other scholars who used up their research budget on Charli XCX tickets and, thus, are not going to SCMS. Just me then........

So here’s the update. The billionaire owner of the Guardian preparing to get rid of a core part of the news org + 100 journalists. If you’re a Guardian or Observer reader, please share this. The need for a strong, free & independent press couldn’t be greater. Yet, here it is.

PSA. Tickets are now on sale for Luchino Visconti: Decadence & Decay, my season of Visconti's great films in January at BFI Southbank. I'm chairing our season launch on 9 Jan! whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/defau...

I’m gutted that I had to drop out of introducing Desert Hearts at the Garden Cinema this evening for medical reasons. I wanted to talk about @alpember.bsky.social’s wonderful season, and the inclusion of this remarkable film as a “trailblazer”.