About

I am passionate about film and television, and about teaching both Screenwriting and Film Studies students here at Sheffield Hallam University.

As Global and Academic Partnerships Lead in the Humanities Department, I am proud to work with our colleagues at UCEN, The Manchester College, and at The Sheffield College, in their delivery of a rich variety of specialist courses, which include Acting, Musical Theatre, Music, Dance, Make-Up and Special Effects. I enjoy working alongside colleagues in the College of Social Sciences and Arts here at SHU, in promoting transnational learning experiences and international partnerships.

My research includes:

• ‘Letters from Page to Screen and Back Again: Jane Austen’s Lady Susan and Whit Stillman’s Two Versions of Love and Friendship,’ in Persuasions Online, Volume 40, Issue 2, 2020
• ‘Lux Presents Hollywood: films on the radio during the golden age of broadcasting,’ in Routledge Companion to Adaptation, Dennis Cutchins, Katja Krebs, Katja and Eckart Voigt (eds.) (London, Routledge: 2018)
• ‘Fantasy, fallacy and allusion: reconceptualizing British landscapes through the lens of children’s cinema,’ in British Rural Landscapes on Film, Paul Newland (ed.) (Manchester, Manchester University Press: 2016)
• ‘“Scenes of marvellous variety:” the work-in-progress screenplays of Maurice,’ in Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, Volume 7, Issue 2, 2014
• “Film Form and Narrative” in Introduction to Film Studies, Jill Nelmes (ed.) (Abingdon, Routledge fourth edition: 2007; revised fifth edition: 2012)
• ‘“Post-impressionism” and the cinema: how we are 'made to see' in Conrad's Victory,’ in Joseph Conrad and the Performing Arts, Katherine Baxter and Richard Hand (eds.) (Aldershot, Ashgate: 2009)
• "The Ending is Out There" in The X-Files and Literature, Sharon Yang (ed.) (Newcastle Upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Press: 2007)
• ''Times of Death in Joseph Conrad's 'The Secret Agent' and Alfred Hitchcock's 'Sabotage', in The Classic Novel: From Page to Screen, Robert Giddings and Erica Sheen (eds.), (Manchester, Manchester University Press: 2000)

Specialist areas of interest

Film adaptation, in particular film adaptation within British cinema contexts, film adaptations of twentieth century novels and adaptation theory
European cinemas, in particular German cinema and German cinema since reunification

Teaching

Department of Humanities

Social Sciences and Arts

Subject Area

Stage and Screen

Courses

BA Screenwriting and Film BA Film Studies

Modules

Film Analysis;
Screen Storytelling;
Must-See TV;
Film Dissertation.

Research

• Humanities Research Centre
• Culture and Creativity Research Institute

Current Projects

I am currently writing a monograph on film, television and stage adaptations of the novels and short stories of E. M. Forster.

As part of this project, I have undertaken extensive research at the EMF Archive at King’s College, Cambridge. King’s College are the beneficiaries of Forster’s estate, and therefore the exclusive rights-holders to almost all of his works. The focus of my research is the work-in-progress screenplays of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, as well as the negotiations, both successful and otherwise, between filmmakers and the College for the screen rights to Forster’s fiction. I believe that this historical and paratextual material offers new scope for the study of adaptation processes, through a methodology which is both historically specific and theoretically rigorous.

Publications

Postgraduate supervision

Film adaptation; narrative theory, heritage cinema, European cinema, film and comedy.