De Montfort University

Faculty Member, Media, Film and Journalism

READER IN FILM & FILM CULTURE

About

I am READER IN FILM & FILM CULTURE, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.

I am probably best known for:

• My contributions since the mid-1990s to the debates around the cultural politics of the ‘heritage film’ (defined by Richard Dyer as 'a text set in the past’, often ‘drawing upon a canonical source’, and ‘comprised of period costumes, decor and locations carefully recreated')

• My wider socially and contextually situated work/publications on contemporary British cinema, spanning trends in the representation of both past and present within this, with particular reference to the cultural politics of the Thatcher and Blair eras.

My latest projects/publications return to the 'heritage film' as viewed from the perspectives of real audiences and fans:

• In the monograph 'Heritage Film Audiences: Period Films and Contemporary Audiences in the UK' (Edinburgh University Press, June 2011).

• More recently, the 'Heritage Film Audiences 2.0' project, looking at 21st-century online fandom and fan productivity around key 'heritage film' texts of the 1980s,  specifically the Merchant Ivory Productions E. M. Forster adaptations 'Maurice' (1987) and A Room With A View (1985). Publication link to follow shortly.


In my pre-academic career as a critic/journalist, I contributed regularly to the international film magazine 'Sight and Sound' for more than a decade, and occasionally still do.

The punk/post-punk interests you'll see in my CV, and some of my publications, date back to the 1980s, when I was a post-punk fanzine writer/publisher.

If you want to get in touch, please e-mail in the first instance: cmonk@dmu.ac.uk

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