Research output per year
Research output per year
Dr
Research activity per year
I am a Senior Lecturer in Film and Media at the University of South Wales. In my role as Course Leader of the BA (Honours) Film I aim to bring together the oft-divided worlds of film theory and practice, by linking screen, psychoanalytic and cultural theory with creative, artistic and practical skillsets.
Originally training as an editor for film post-production in New Zealand, I went on to post-graduate study where I specialised in gender and queer theory in visual culture at Honours and Masters level. My Doctoral work, which examined a series of cinematic characters, embraced psychoanalytic theory by exploring mental suffering as an inherent aspect of the human condition. Findings included themes of identity, humanity, trauma, and resilience, acknowledging psychological struggle as part of the normative lived experience, rather than extraneous to it. During the completion of my Doctoral research I continued to work part time in the industry in pre-production roles including producer, ethics adviser, script editor, festival adjudicator (and stepping in occasionally as a performer!)
My theory-based research interests are broadly driven by the notion of suffering as a key aspect of human identity, and in particular, the subject's relationship with their own corporeal reality (through embodiment and aesthetic). I am particularly passionate about explorations of adaptability, survival, and transformation following trauma, and I find that screen characters work as exemplary case studies for explorations of trauma-driven transformation. Upcoming research in this area includes an application of Didier Anzieu's 'skin-ego' to Game of Thrones characters who go through physical (and psychic) transformation, and a Zizekian analysis of the transformed male body as abject site in the AIDS-related films Philadelphia, Dallas Buyers Club and The Normal Heart.
The combining of modern psychological practice and psychoanalysis is rarely done in academic environments but successfully linking the categorizing capacity of modern psychology with the broader existentialism of psychoanalytic theory is one of my long term research goals. I intend to expand on the contentious juncture between psychoanalytic theory and modern psychology with research which explores anorexia nervosa through a mediated lens, incorporating online and television texts. This research introduces anorexia as a diagnosable psychological disorder under the DSM-V, before psychoanalytically considering anorexia as a psychosis, as affect, as dissociative state, as melancholia and as superego.
BA (Honours) Film:
Masters Advanced Media Production:
BA, Film & Television; Bachelor of Communications:
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
PGCTHE (Post-Graduate Certificate in Teaching for Higher Education), Aberystwyth University
Award Date: 22 Feb 2022
PhD (Doctorate of Philosophy), University of Auckland
Award Date: 1 Jun 2019
MCs (Masters of Communications), Auckland University of Technology
Award Date: 1 Jun 2012
BCs-Hons (Bachelor of Communications - Honours), Auckland University of Technology
Award Date: 1 Aug 2010
BPSA (Bachelor of Performing and Screen Arts: Editing), Unitec Institute of Technology
Award Date: 1 Apr 2008
Festival Adjudicator (2021-2022), Essex Doc Fest
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) (2021- ), Higher Education Academy, The
Editorial Board (2015-2022), Puratoke Journal of Undergraduate Research for the Creative Arts and Industries
Funding Board (2021-2022), South West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership (SWWDTP)
Festival Adjudicator (2019-2022), Top of the South Film Festival
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper
Stephenson, Laura (Recipient), 2022
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)