Curriculum vitae  



Education

PhD in Film Studies, Birkbeck College/British Film Institute, University of London (1999)

BA in English Literature and Drama Studies, Trinity College Dublin (1994)


Employment history

Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, Film Studies Program, School of Humanities, King's College London (2007-)

Lecturer in Film Studies, Film Studies Program, School of Humanities, King's College London (2004-07)

Davis Center Research Fellow, Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University (2006-07)

Lecturer in Film Studies, Department of History of Art and Film, University of Leicester (2001-04)

Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow (2003-04)

Visiting Scholar in the Department of Film, Television, and Digital Media, University of California, Los Angeles (2003-04)

Lecturer in Film Studies, School of Cultural Studies, Sheffield Hallam University (2000-01)

Faculty of Arts Fellow, Centre for Film Studies, University College Dublin (1997-2000)


Selected Publications

The Real Los Angeles: Hollywood, Cinema, and the City of Angels, London: Reaktion Books, forthcoming 2010

“A Regional Geography of Film noir: Urban Dystopias On- and Off-screen”, in Gyan Prakash (ed.), Noir Urbanisms, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, in press

"Starring Los Angeles: The Southland on Screen", in Kevin McNamara (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of Los Angeles, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 145-156.

"Branding the Modernist City: Geographies of Rome and Paris in Postwar Film", in Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Catherine Kevin, and Eleonore Kofman (eds), Branding Cities and Cultural Borders: Cosmopolitanism, Parochialism, and Social Change, London and New York: Routledge, 2009, pp. 105-22.

“Imagined and Built Spaces in the Rome of Neorealism”, in Richard Wrigley (ed.), Cinematic Rome, Leicester: Troubador Publishing, 2008, pp. 27-42.

“Hollywood, the New Left, and George McGovern in '72”, in Frank Krutnik, Steve Neale, Brian Neve, and Peter Stanfield (eds), The Blacklist: Re-viewing the Films of the Hollywood Left, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007, pp. 210-24.

“Banal and Magnificent Space in Electra Glide in Blue (1973), or An Allegory of the Nixon Era”, Cinema Journal, vol. 46, no. 2, Winter 2007, pp. 89-114

“The American New Wave, Part 1: 1967-1970”, in Michael Hammond and Linda Ruth Williams (eds), American Cinema Since World War Two, London and New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006, pp. 12-28

“The American New Wave, Part 2: 1970-1975”, in Michael Hammond and Linda Ruth Williams (eds), American Cinema Since World War Two, London and New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006, pp. 124-50

Italian Neorealism: Rebuilding the Cinematic City, London: Wallflower Press, 2006

Screening the City, Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice (eds), London and New York: Verso, 2003

“A Nostalgia for Modernity: New York, Los Angeles, and American Cinema in the 1970s”, in Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice (eds), Screening the City, London and New York: Verso, 2003, pp. 160-79

“Why Call them 'Cult Movies'? American Independent Filmmaking and the Counterculture in the 1960s”, in Scope: Online Film Studies Journal, Institute of Film Studies, University of Nottingham, 8 (2003)

“Multiple Times and Multiples Spaces: The Experiential Effects of Location Filming in Dublin City”, in Tracings: Journal of Architectural Theory, 2 (2002), pp. 100-107

Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice (eds), Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2001

“Cinema and the City in History and Theory”, in Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice (eds), Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2001, pp. 1-18


Invited talks and lectures

"The Pacific Wall: Cinematic Visions of Los Angeles after 1968", Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, University of Cambridge, 12 January 2010

"Mapping Early Hollywood", Cinema Studies Colloquium, University of Pennsylvania, 19 March 2008

“Imprisoned in its Own Beatitude: Los Angeles and the Emergence of Postmodernism after 1968", Globalization and Violence, University of London Institute, Paris, 10-12 January 2008

“A Regional Geography of film noir: Urban Dystopias On- and Off-screen”, Urban Dystopias conference, Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University, 18-19 May 2007

“The Real Los Angeles: Hollywood, Cinema and the City of Angels”, Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University, 15 March 2007

The City as Trace and Symbol from Visconti’s Bellissima (1951) to Rossellini’s Viaggio in Italia (1954)”, Traces and Symbols in Italian Neorealism, Center for Italian Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 2 December 2006

“Italian Neorealism”, public lecture at the British-Italian Society, London, 25 January 2006

“A Tale of Two Cities: Michelangelo Antonioni’s Cronaca di un amore (1950) and Zabriskie Point (1969)”, plenary paper at the conference Visualising the City, University of Manchester, 26-28 June 2005

“Michelangelo Antonioni”, a public lecture to open the Michelangelo Antonioni retrospective, National Film Theatre, London, 2 June 2005

“Le Cinéma et la ville”, invited speaker in the seminar series “Une histoire visuelle de la ville”, École des hautes études en sciences sociales/Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris, 23 May 2005

“‘The Wild Bunch’: American Cinema, 1967-80”, six weekly public seminars, National Film Theatre, London, 18 January-22 February 2005

“Cinema and the City”, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, in association with the 2003 City of Bristol Cities Festival, 29 March 2003

“Dead Time: Art and Attention in the Films of Michelangelo Antonioni”, Faculty of Humanities Public Lecture, University of Leicester, 5 December 2002

“The Limits of Modernism: German Film Theory and Contemporary American Cinema”, Wadham College, University of Oxford, 8 March 2002

“A Nostalgia for Modernity: Thoughts on American Cinema since the 1960s”, Screening the City conference, Queen’s University, Belfast, 1 December 2001

“Geography and Film Studies: Mapping the Space of the City”, Department of Geography, University College Dublin, 22 February 2000

“Visions of Skinhead and Football Violence in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange”, Philosophical Society, University College Dublin, February 1998


Conference papers

"Revolution and Postmodern Decline: Cinematic Representations of Los Angeles circa 1968", Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, Philadelphia, 6-9 March 2008.

“Branding the Modernist Metropolis”, Branding Cities and Urban Borders: Cosmopolitanisms and Parochialisms in Europe and Asia-Pacific, hosted by the University of Technology Sydney and Menzies Centre, Kings College London, at Australia House, London, 12-14 January 2006

“Imagined and Built Spaces in the Rome of Neorealism”, Cinematic Rome, Department of Art History, University of Nottingham, 17-18 September 2005

“The City as Object-To-Be-Looked-At”, Visual Pleasure’ Thirty Years On: The Work of Laura Mulvey, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 18 June 2005

“The Cinematic City of Michelangelo Antonioni: Cronaca di un amore (1950) and Zabriskie Point (1969)”, The Art of Comparison, sixth annual conference of the European Sociological Association Research Network for the Sociology of the Arts, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, November 3-5, 2004

“‘A Filthy Anti-American Flag-Desecrating Film’: Zabriskie Point and the Black Panther Party”, Society for Cinema Studies, Washington, DC, 24-27 May 2001

“Why Call them ‘Cult Movies’? American Independent Filmmaking and the Counterculture in the 1960s”, Defining Cult Movies: The Cultural Politics of Oppositional Taste, Institute of Film Studies, University of Nottingham, 17-19 November 2000

“Urban Spaces and Film Studies: A Challenge to the Discipline?”, Plenary paper, Screen, Department of Film Studies, University of Glasgow, 30 June-2 July 2000

“Banal and Magnificent Space in Electra Glide in Blue”, Society for Cinema Studies, West Palm Beach, Florida, 15-18 April 1999

“American Radical Poster Art and the Vietnam War”, Irish Association of Art Historians, National College of Art and Design, Dublin, April 1997

“Ostensible Revolutionaries: Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point”, Assault: Radical Aesthetics and Politics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, 8-11 November 1996

“Pathos in Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le fou”, Patheticism, Trinity College Dublin, 18-19 August 1995

“Photorealism and Hollywood”, Irish Association of Art Historians, University College Dublin, May 1994


Fellowships, awards, and grants

British Academy Small Research Grant, for primary research in Los Angeles, July-September 2009. Research project: The Real Los Angeles: Hollywood, Cinema, and the City of Angels

King’s College London, School of Humanities Small Grant, for primary research in Los Angeles, February 2009. Research project: The Real Los Angeles: Hollywood, Cinema, and the City of Angels

Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies Visiting Research Fellowship, Department of History, Princeton University, September 2005-August 2006. Research project: The Real Los Angeles: Hollywood, Cinema, and the City of Angels, a research monograph forthcoming with Reaktion Books, 2010

King’s College London, School of Humanities Small Grant, for primary research in Paris, April 2006. Research project: “Le cinéma américain des années 60 et la politique de l’espace”

Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship, for primary research in Los Angeles, September 2003-August 2004. Research project: American Cinema, 1968-1974: Radical Agendas and the Politics of Space

British Academy Small Research Grant, for primary research in Los Angeles, July-August 2005. Research project: The Real Los Angeles: Hollywood, Cinema, and the City of Angels, a research monograph forthcoming with Reaktion Books 2010

King’s College London, School of Humanities Small Grant, for primary research in Paris, April 2005. Research project: “Le Cinéma et la ville”

University of Leicester Teaching and Learning Committee award, for primary research in New York, July-August 2002. Research project: “The Limits of Modernism: Walter Benjamin and the Cinematic Image of New York City”

British Academy Small Research Grant, for primary research in New York and Los Angeles, July-September 2001. Research project: “The production history of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1969)”

Faculty of Arts Bursary, University College Dublin, January 1999. Research project: development and planning of the Cinema and the City international conference, 12-14 March 1999


Conferences organized

Cinema and the City: co-organizer, with Tony Fitzmaurice, Centre for Film Studies, University College Dublin, 12-14 March 1999

Film Studies Research Seminar Program: organizer, Centre for Film Studies, University College Dublin, Winter and Spring 1997-98, in association with the Film Institute of Ireland and the British Council

In addition, I was the departmental convenor of the annual series of Film Studies Research Seminars in the Department of Film Studies at King's College London in 2005-06 and 2008-09.


Moderating at conferences

Organizer and chair of the panel "Architectures of Revolt: The Cinematic City circa 1968", Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, Philadelphia, 6-9 March 2008

Panel moderator at session on Cognitivism and Film, at the annual Screen Studies conference, University of Glasgow, July 2000

Panel moderator at two sessions on Irish cinema in the digital age, at Keeping It Real: Irish Film for the Twenty-first Century conference, University College Dublin, April 2002



Current undergraduate and graduate areas of teaching and research supervision at King's College London

Undergraduate courses on Hollywood Cinema; Italian Neorealism; and Introduction to Film Studies: Forms

Graduate courses on Cinema and the City; Formations in Film Theory

Supervision of PhDs on early British cinema and Victorian and Edwardian urbanism; international cinema, globalization, and urban restructuring in the 1970s; New York City in Hollywood musicals of the 1940s and 1950s


Courses previously taught at King's College London and other institutions

King's College London: Film Noir (BA), History of Postwar Cinema, 1945-1975 (BA), Film and Nationalism: Cinematic Relationships of Europe and the United States (BA)

University College Dublin: American Cinema and Politics since WWII (MA), Science Fiction Film (BA), and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (BA)

Sheffield Hallam University: Film Textual Analysis: Narrative and Style (MA); Popular Genres in Film and Literature (BA), Alternative Cinemas (BA), Cinema and the Modern World (BA)

University of Leicester: History of American Film and Visual Culture (BA), Realism and the Cinema (BA), contributions to Introduction to History of Art: Media and Techniques (BA), The American West (BA) and The American City (BA)


Teaching by invitation at other institutions

"Los Angeles, French theory, and the 1970s", Department of Film and Television Studies, University of Warwick, 4 February 2010

"Spatial perspectives on Los Angeles in cinema, 1922-1932", Department of Film and Television Studies, University of Warwick, 30 January 2008

“The Neorealism of Luchino Visconti”, IT209 Italian Landscapes on Film, undergraduate course convened by Prof Gaetana Marrone-Puglia, Department of French and Italian, Princeton University, 17 October 2006

“Le cinéma américain des années 1970 et la politique de l’espace”, invited postgraduate lecture at the symposium Une histoire visuelle de la ville, École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussies, Marne-la-Vallée, 4 May 2006

“The Cinematic City: Milan, Paris, Los Angeles”, MA/MSc Urban Design studio, course convened by Prof Robert Tavernor, Cities Programme, London School of Economics, 16 November 2005


External examining

External Examiner, MA Film and the Moving Image and MA Media Studies, Faculty of Arts, Thames Valley University, Ealing Campus, 2006 to 2009

Examing of thesis for the PhD in Film Studies, University of Warwick, 2009

Examining of theses for the MPhil Architecture and the Moving Image, Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, 2006

Examining of theses for the MPhil/PhD in Film Studies, University of Southampton, 2005-06


Media appearances

"Rossellini and the City", an interview by Johanna Schiller included as a DVD extra on the Criterion DVD release of Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy (Rome Open City, Paisan, Germany Year Zero), New York City, 24 July 2009

"Life as it is", an interview by Johanna Schiller included as a DVD extra on the Criterion DVD release of the film Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948), New York City, 27 September 2006

Odyssey, Chicago Public Radio, a one-hour radio interview on the subject of “Cinema and the City”, with Professor Giuliana Bruno (Harvard University), hosted by Gretchen Helfrich, 20 August 2004

The Arts Show, RTE Radio One interview (Irish national radio) on the “Cinema and the City” conference, 10 March 1999


Consulting

I have acted as an expert reader of book and journal article manuscripts for University of Minnesota Press, Palgrave-Macmillan, Cinema Journal, and the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research; and as an expert assessor of research funding applications for the University of British Columbia, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), the Leverhulme Trust, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada/Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada, and the Wiener Wissenschafts-, Forschungs- und Technologiefonds (Vienna Science and Technology Fund WWTF)