Professor Bruce Bennett
Professor in Film StudiesCurrent Teaching
POSTGRADUATE (PhD)
I am currently co-supervising the following PhD projects:
- Areej Alghamdi, Saudi Women's Incorporeal Heritage
- Ian Hunt, Cinema and memory
- Johnathan Ilott, Cinema and the afterlife
- Vicky James, The Migrant Mime - Documentary film and migrant identity
- Mingkuo Li, Rebellious Youth Culture in East Asian Cinema, from the 1990s to the present
- Rui Qian, Migrant workers in post-'90s Chinese cinema
I have supervised PhDs on a variety of topics including: TV movies, stardom, fanfiction, media culture and the British monarchy, film spectatorship, women's cinema, experimental film and video, science fiction, British and international cinema. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss ideas for a PhD project.
I also lecture on a number of modules on the MA and BA in Film Studies.
POSTGRADUATE (MA)
I contribute lectures to the following modules on the MA in Film Studies, Transnational Cinemas (LICA441) and Research Methods: Contemporary Film Theory (LICA440), Silent Cinema (LICA444), Women Film-makers (LICA449). I also supervise MA dissertations, including dissertations that combine practical film-making with theoretical study.
UNDERGRADUATE
I lead the second-year option module, Women Film-makers (LICA258), and the third-year option module, Silent Cinema (LICA355). I also leadthe first-year core module, British Cinema (LICA102), and the 1st-year Film Studies core module, Introduction to Film Studies (LICA150). I also contribute lectures to the 2nd-year core module, Global Cinemas: Forms, Debates, Histories (LICA251).
I supervise undergraduate dissertations on a variety of topics, including dissertations that combine film practice with theory.
Current Research
BOOKS
Forthcoming publication:
Refugee Cinema (Oxford University Press).
I have been commisioned by OUP to co-write a book on refugee cinema with my regular co-author Prof Katarzyna Marciniak (Occident college, USA). This is currently in process and due for publication shortly.
Recent publications:
The Cycling Companion (Routledge, 2022)
I was invited in 2020 to contribute a chapter on cycling and cinema to this comprehensive overview of research on all aspects of cycling and cycling cultures, edited by Glen Norcliffe and Nicholas Oddy. This substantial book was published in December 2022.
Cycling and Cinema (Goldsmiths Press/MIT, 2019)
This innovative book is a cultural history of cycling in global cinema and new screen cultures, considering the cultural significance of the bicycle and the practice of cycling as, variously, leisure activity, transportation device, professional sports apparatus, consumer good, a means of creative expression and a means of protest.
I was awarded a 12-month Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust to undertake this project. The project is outlined in more detail in the Leverhulme Trust newsletter from May 2015.
A blog on the project can be found here, and the book can be ordered here.
An edited excerpt from the introduction to the book, 'Cinema and Cycling, Technological Twins' is published in the MIT Press journal here.
'The fine art of cycling: bicycles, modernity and political art'
I contributed a chapter on the history of bicycles in modern art to the collection, Cycling Societies: Emerging Innovations, Inequalities and Governance, edited by Cosmin Popan, Katerina Psarikidou and Dennis Zuev. Using Ai Weiwei and Rainer Ganahl as the principal case studies, this piece asks why the bicycle has been such a fascinating subject for experimental artists and how their work invites us to think differently about cycling and society.
Details about this can be found here.
JOURNALS
'Fugitive Aesthetics: Echoes, Ghost Stories and Refugee Cinema' (2022)
This article, co-written with Katarzyna Marciniak, examines the representation of refugees as absent or spectral figures in four recent films, and proposes that the most interesting refugee cinema is characterised by a distinctive aesthetic system. This was published as an open access article by Third Text journal in October.
'Close Encounters with Foreignness' (2019)
My regular collaborator and co-writer Katarzyna Marciniak and I were asked, along with a number of other scholars in the field, to submit an article for the 10th anniversary issue of Transnational Cinemas journal, reflecting upon the state of transnational film studies. Our article, which is organized around an analysis of Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War (2018), was published in April and can be found here.
'Aporias of Foreignness: Transnational Encounters in Cinema' (2018)
With Katarzyna Marciniak, I recently edited a suite of articles for a special issue of the journal Transnational Cinemas entitled 'Aporias of Foreignness' (vol. 9, no. 1, 2018). My contribution examines the issue of mobile-phone footage, new media and self-representation in film and TV documentaries dealing with the Mediterranean refugee crisis. Details of my article and the special issue can be found here.
PhD Supervision Interests
I am interested in working with students in any area of cinema, film studies, screen studies or visual culture, but have particular interests in: Hollywood cinema, British cinema, Transnational cinema, Early cinema, Film, politics and class, cinema technology, Visual culture, cycling and cycling cultures, Migration studies and cinema.
IAA - AHRC Impact Acceleration Account
01/04/2022 → 31/03/2026
Research
Introduction to 'Battleship Potemkin' (Eisenstein, 1925)
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Q & A with director Michael B Clifford
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Introduction to 'The Lost World' (Harry Hoyt, 1925)
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
FREE workshops 2
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
In Conversation with Christopher Frayling
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Locus Lancaster.
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Exiled Voices: Refugee Lives on Screen
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Introduction to the screening of 'Peeping Tom' (Powell, 1960).
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Public film discussion at the Dukes cinema
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Interview with director Sonita Gale
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
FREE Film Screening
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Refugee Education: Continuing Conversations 2
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Public film discussion at the Dukes cinema
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
FREE Workshops
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Public film discussion at the Dukes cinema
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Public film discussion at the Dukes cinema
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Public film discussion at the Dukes cinema.
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Introduction to the screening of 'Peter von Kant' (Ozon, 2022)
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Forum Insaniyyat Tunis 2022
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Llantysilio - sound installation
Festival/Exhibition/Concert
'The Western belongs to all of us: The making of Sergio Leone's Once upon a Time in the West (1968)'
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
NECS 2022 conference - Epistemic Media: Atlas, Archive, Network
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Refugee Cinema: Mediation and Crisis
Invited talk
British Textile Biennial 2021
Festival/Exhibition/Concert
'Running the family Firm': Book Launch panel discussion
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Interview with film director Harry MacQueen.
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
NECS 2021 conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
'Becoming refugees' reading group
Invited talk
Introducing Manus prison theory: Knowing Border Violence
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Public Q and A with director Daniel Draper
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Cycling and Society Annual Symposium
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
NECS (European Network for Cinema and Media Studies) annual conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Cycling and Cinema
Invited talk
Book launch: Cycling and Cinema
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Examining Gender in Cycling Cultures - Insights and Methods
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Afrika Eye North festival
Festival/Exhibition/Concert
Art and Mobilities Network Inaugural symposium
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
NECS 2018 conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Panel discussion
Invited talk
Transnational Cinemas (Journal)
Editorial activity
NECS
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Ignorance and Inequality: Teaching Transnational Film
Invited talk
Mobilities Literature Culture
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Cycling and Society
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
NECS 2015 conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Senses of Cinema (Journal)
Editorial activity
Introduction to 'The Man who Fell to Earth'
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Cosmobilities: Networked Urban Mobilities
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Transport in the Media
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Public lecture on memorial photography and death
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Screening Style: Costume, Cinema and Performance
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
La Belle et La Bete (Cocteau, 1946) - Introductory lecture, Dukes cinema, Lancaster
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
"Re-imagining Sociology, re-imagining Society". SAANZ conference, 2013
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967). Introductory lecture, Dukes cinema, Lancaster
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Child in Time
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
London Film and Media Conference 2013
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Lancaster University Annual Student Film Society Screening
Festival/Exhibition/Concert
Perspectives on Production Design
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Introductory lecture, Dukes cinema, Lancaster
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Introductory lecture, Dukes cinema, Lancaster
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Society for Cinema and Media Studies annual conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Introductory lecture, Dukes cinema, Lancaster
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Acting Up: Gender and Television Comedy symposium, University of Northumbria
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Introductory lecture, Dukes cinema, Lancaster
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Introductory lecture, Dukes cinema, Lancaster
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
'Forced migration: Challenges and Prospects in the Current Global Context'
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
New Sciences of Protection: Designing Safe Living
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Touching War
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Introductory Lecture, Dukes cinema, Lancaster
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Introductory lecture, Dukes cinema, Lancaster
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Regions and Regionalism
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Disunited States: Cinema Beyond Nation-States
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Society for Cinema and Media Studies annual conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
'Cinema and General Economy'
Invited talk
'Michael Winterbottom and the cinema of incompatibility'
Invited talk
Cinema and Technology
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Making use of Culture, Manchester University conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Re-reading Britain Today, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Screen conference, University of Glasgow
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Crash Cultures symposium, University of West England
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
ICR film@Lancaster seminar series
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
ICR film@Lancaster seminar series, Lancaster University
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
War and Media, Lancaster University
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
- Cultures
- Insight