New Connections
​Schedule 2025

Information about research talks in 2025 is given below.
We would like to thank our ECR members for applying to take part and colleagues at the various host universities for being so welcoming. 
​We would also like to specially thank Manchester University Press, supporting the 2025 New Connections scheme by offering book vouchers to each speaker.

Wednesday 16th April 2025, 3pm-5pm, University of St Andrews (in-person, Film Studies Boardroom)

• Dr Beth Pyner, "Encounters in the Cinematic Gallery: Reading  Inteermediality Diana Markosian's Santa Barbara"
• Dr Pyner’s talk was hosted by the Centre for Screen Cultures and the St Andrews Institute for Gender Studies. 

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Wednesday 30th April 2025, 4pm-5pm, University of Leeds (in-person, Fine Art  Building 2.09)

• Dr Anushrut Ramakrishnan Agrwaal, "Watch and Learn: Film and British Education (c. 1900)"
• Dr Ramakrishnan Agrwaal’s talk was hosted by the Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures. 

 
Tuesday 6th May 2025, 4pm, University of Liverpool (Rendall Building, Lecture Theatre 3)

• Dr David Melbye, "Evolution of Horror Jazz: African American Music in Postwar British Crime Cinema"
• Dr Melbye’s talk was hosted by the University of Liverpool. 

 
Tuesday 24th June 2025, 11h30-12h30, University of Sheffield (in-person, Jessop Building, Seminar Room 117)

• Dr Yunzi Han, "What if we temporarily move beyond the patriarchal paradigm? A gendered reading of the gestational journey in Iranian film Heiran (dir. Shalizeh Arefpour, 2009)"
• Dr Han’s talk was hosted by the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, as part of the research workshop "Conceptions: maternity, birth and early years in a global and interdisciplinary perspective". 

 
Tuesday 2nd December 2025, 4-5:30 pm, University of Southampton (in-person, Lecture Theatre B, Avenue Campus)

• Dr Felipe Espinoza Garrido, "New Thatchers? Reimagining the Iron Lady in 21st century film and TV"
• Dr Espinoza Garrido’s talk is hosted by the University of Southampton. For further information, please contact Dr Espinoza Garrido ([email protected]) or Dr Louis Bayman ([email protected])

New Connections
​Schedule 2024

We would like to thank our ECR members for applying to take part and colleagues at the various host universities for being so welcoming. 
​We would also like to specially thank Manchester University Press, supporting the 2024 New Connections scheme by offering book vouchers to each speaker.

Wednesday 14th February 2024, 4.30pm, University of Leeds, Michael Sadler Building, LG.16 (in-person)

• Dr Maria Fernanda Miño, ‘Ecuadorian cinema for the 21st century: negotiating neoliberalism? Policy, industry, and memory during the Ley de Cine years’
• Dr Miño’s talk was hosted by the Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures at the University of Leeds.​

 
Tuesday 12th March 2024, 4pm, Northumbria University, Sandyford Building, Room SAN204 (in-person)

• Dr Reece Goodall, ‘Viande d’origine française: meat production in contemporary French horror’
• Dr Goodall’s talk was hosted by the Horror Studies Research Group at Northumbria University.​

 
Thursday 16th May 2024, 1-2pm, Kingston University, John Galsworthy Building, Penrhyn Road Campus, room JG1003 (hybrid)

• Dr Bethan Jones, ‘Women are born with horror in their bloodstream: Horror tattoos and the embodiment of fandom’
• Dr Jones’s talk was hosted by the School of Critical Studies and Creative Industries in association with the Kingston School of Art Visual and Material Culture Research Centre at Kingston University.

 
Thursday 6th June 2024, 4pm, FAB (Faculty of Arts Building) 0.21, FAB Cinema, University of Warwick (hybrid)

• Dr Cathy Lomax, ‘Styling the Female Stars of the Sexual Revolution in Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970), Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970) and Play it as it Lays (1972)’
• Dr Lomax’s talk was hosted by Film and Television Studies, Dr. Hannah Hitchin and Dr. Julie Lobalzo Wright, the University of Warwick.

 
Tuesday 5th November 2024, 4pm, Avenue Campus, University of Southampton, Building 65, Lecture Theatre B (LTB) (in-person)

• Dr Anna Viola Sborgi , ‘Homelessness, gender and labour in contemporary narrative cinema’
• Dr Sborgi’s talk was hosted by the University of Southampton as part of The Centre for International Film Research (CIFR) Research Seminar Series.

 
Wednesday 6th November 2024, 10.30am, RSG/01, Richard Steinitz Building, University of Huddersfield (hybrid)​

• Dr Toby Huelin, ‘Scoring Peak TV: Hans Zimmer, Bleeding Fingers, and the Evolution of Library Music’
• Dr Huelin’s talk was hosted by the Music and Music Technology Research Forum at the University of Huddersfield.

Wednesday 13th November 2024, 5-6.30pm, Richard Hoggart Building RHB 150 (in-person)

• Dr Tom Livingstone, ‘Point and Shoot to First Person Shooter: Screen Studies after Game Engines’
• Dr Livingstone’s talk was hosted by the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London.​​​

New Connections
​Schedule 2023

Thursday 9th March 2023, 2pm, Monica Partridge Building, room C15 (online)

• Dr Sophie Swoffer, ‘It’s Us!’  Reconsidering the Male Gaze in Feminist Performance and Film’
• Dr Swoffer’s talk was hosted by the University of Nottingham. 

Friday 24th March 2023, 3.30-5pm, Roborough Studios RS2 (hybrid)

• Dr Alice Pember, ‘New Girls on the Block: Music and Dance as Spaces of Aesthetic Politics in Fish Tank (2009) and Rocks (2020)’
• Dr Pember’s talk was hosted by the Department of Communities, Drama and Film in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Exeter, as part of the Screen Studies Centre Research seminar series. 
  A recording of the talk can be accessed here. 

 
Wednesday 26th April 2023, 5-6pm, Shilling Lecture Theatre (in-person)

• Dr Jules O’Dwyer, ‘Cinemas' Hotels: From Postcolonial Hospitality to the Paris Syndrome’
• Dr O’Dwyer’s talk was hosted by the Centre for Visual Cultures, Royal Holloway, University of London.

 
Thursday 4th May 2023, 1pm, Lecture Theatre 4, School of Music, 12 Cavendish Road, Leeds, LS2 9JT (hybrid)

• Dr Dan White - ‘There and Back Again: Music as Suture and Desuture in the Fantasy Film Franchise’
• Dr White’s talk was hosted by the University of Leeds, as part of the Leeds Music Research Colloquia. 

 
Thursday 4th May 2023, 6pm (in-person)

• Dr Thirza Wakefield, ‘Televisual seriality, and the dramatisation of working-class community in Shane Meadows’s works for television (2010–2023)’
• Dr Wakefield’s talk was hosted by the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University College London.

Wednesday 17th May 2023, 2-4pm, Bloc Arts One, Mile End Road (in-person)

• Dr Christina Wilkins, ‘Explanation/exploration: masculinity and mental illness in contemporary film’
• Dr Wilkins’s talk was hosted by Queen Mary University London.

 
Tuesday 13th June 2023, 4.30-6pm, FAB cinema, Room 0.21, Faculty of Arts Building (in-person)

• Dr Dominic Lash, ‘What happens in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure (1997)?’
• Dr Lash’s talk was hosted by the University of Warwick, as part of the Film and Television Studies Research Seminars.​

 
Wednesday 1st November 2023, 10.30am, Richard Steinitz Building, Room G/01 (hybrid)

• Dr Elsa Marshall, ‘Fostering a Public Appreciation of Film Music: The USA the First Decade of Film Music Notes (1941-1951)’
• Dr Marshall’s talk was hosted by the University of Huddersfield.​

New Connections
​Schedule 2022

Wednesday 15th June 2022, 5pm (online, via Zoom)

• Dr Lisa Duffy – ‘“You Can’t Stop the Beat”: John Travolta as an Ageing Dancer’
• Dr Duffy’s talk was hosted by the Department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick, in association with the BAFTSS Performance & Stardom SIG.
• A recording of the talk can be accessed here.

 
Wednesday 15th June 2022, 3pm (online)

• Dr Abigail Whittall – ‘“New Nazisploitation”: Nazi Monsters on 21st Century Screens’
• Dr Whittall’s talk was hosted by the Faculty of Media and Communication and the History Research Group at Bournemouth University.

Tuesday 18th October 2022, University of East Anglia (in-person)

• Dr Karol Valderrama-Burgos – ‘Female Warriors: Action Women in Contemporary Colombian Cinema’
• Dr Valderrama-Burgos’s talk was hosted by the Department of Film, Television and Media, and the Latin American Studies Network at the University of East Anglia. It was part of the UEA Media Research Seminar Series and the UEA Latin American Studies Network Research Seminar Series. 

Friday 28th October 2022, 4-5.30pm, University of Westminster, Regent Street Campus 152-153 - Cayley (in-person)

• Dr Temmuz Süreyya Gürbüz – ‘Punk Aesthetics on Screen: The Intersections of Punk, Queer and Trash Cinema’
• Dr Gürbüz’s talk was presented by the University of Westminster's Film TV and Moving Image MA and Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM).​

New Connections
​Schedule 2021

We would like to thank our sponsor for 2021: Edinburgh University Press.

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Wednesday 17th February 2021, 1pm-2.30pm (online)

• Dr Craig Ian Mann – ‘Take Me to Your Leader: Alien Invasion Films in the Reagan Era’ 
• Dr Mann’s online talk was hosted by the University of Hertfordshire’s Media Research Group (School of Creative Arts).
• To access the talk, please click on the following link: https://www.herts.ac.uk/research/groups-and-units/media-research-group/research-talks-video-resources

Friday 23rd April 2021, 2pm (online)

• Dr Hanja Dämon – ‘A Failed Film Project in Austria: Interwar Star Franziska Gaal’s Unmade Post-War Comeback’
• Dr Dämon’s talk was hosted by the Culture, Media, and Society Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University.
• To access the talk, please click on the following link: https://vimeo.com/552804954/85eac8723f

Wednesday 5th May 2021, 1pm-2.30pm (online)

• Dr Kieran Foster – ‘Shadow Cinema: Unmade Films and the Archive’
• Dr Foster’s talk was hosted by the University of Hertfordshire’s Media Research Group (School of Creative Arts).
• To access the talk, please click on the following link: https://www.herts.ac.uk/research/groups-and-units/media-research-group/media-research-group-videos/media-research-group-seminar-videos

Wednesday 11th May 2021, 4pm (online)

• Dr Ozge Ozduzen – ‘Online Radical Right Activity in Turkey and Britain’
• Dr Ozduzen’s talk was part of the Visiting Speaker Seminars hosted by the Centre for International Film Research at the University of Southampton.
• Access the talk here.

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Wednesday 16th June 2021, 4.30-6pm (online)

• Dr Laurence Kent and Liam Rogers – Posthumanism(s) Roundtable: ‘Cinematic Sapience and the Rethinking of Rationality in Contemporary Science Fiction’
• This roundtable, chaired by Professor Catherine Constable, was part of the Film and Television Research Seminar Series, hosted by the University of Warwick.
• To access the talk, please click on the following link: https://vimeo.com/564211674

Thursday 28 October 2021, 4-6pm (online)

• Dr Llewella Chapman – ‘Bond Undressed: Researching Costume in the James Bond Films Through Archives’
• Dr Chapman’s talk was hosted by the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. The talk was not recorded.

New Connections
​Schedule 2019/20

Wednesday 30th October 2019, 2 – 5pm

• Dr Matthew Robinson: ‘An “Emotional Moment”: The Execution of Ruth Ellis in Pierrepoint (2005)
• Dr. Robinson’s talk is hosted by the Centre for Film, Media, Discourse and Culture, Faculty of Arts, University of Wolverhampton (Location: Room  MC226, Millennium City Building, City Campus). For further details please contact Dr Benjamin Halligan ([email protected]) Director of the Doctoral College, or Dr Fran Pheasant-Kelly, ([email protected]), Director Centre for Film, Media, Discourse and Culture.

Wednesday 13th November 2019, 6 – 7pm

• Dr Eve Benhamou: “An Expanding Cinematic Universe: Contemporary Disney Animation and Genre in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)"
• ​Dr Benhamou’s talk is part of the ‘Film, Media and Global Culture Seminar Series’ at the Centre for Multidisciplinary and Intercultural Inquiry (CMII), University College London (Location: Room 111, Foster Court, Malet Place). For further details please contact Dr Keith B. Wagner ([email protected]) or Dr Benhamou ([email protected]). 

Monday 17th February 2020, 5pm

• Dr Oliver Kenny: ‘Brits can't do erotica: the impact of nationality on British attitudes towards sexual imagery.’
• Dr Kenny’s talk is hosted by the History Research Group,  Bournemouth University (Location: Room W240, Weymouth House). (For further details please contact Dr Austin Fisher [email protected]), or Dr Oliver Kenny ([email protected])