Â鶹ÊÓƵ

I received my Ph.D. in the Critical Cultural Studies of Media and Cinema from the University of Victoria (Canada) in 2019. I also hold an MA in Film Studies, an MA in Theatre History, and a BA Honours in English Literature. Before joining the Â鶹ÊÓƵ, I taught at the University of Victoria, the University of the Fraser Valley (Canada) and the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (China). For these endeavours I was awarded Fellowship in the UKPSF Advance Higher Education (FHEA). I am also an Executive Co-Director of the Festival of Media Stories inaugurated in 2023-24. My research and teaching covers film theory and history, ideology and cultural studies, digital cinema, Canadian cinema, anarchist cinema, international science fiction and apocalypse cinema, horror video games and cinema, reception and perception analyses, theatre history, and media studies more broadly. 

I welcome inquiries and applications towards the supervision of graduate studies in any of these areas of study:

Science Fiction - Literature, Cinema, and Television 

History of the Star Wars Franchise 

Horror Film - Nostalgia and Gender Issues 

Horror Video Games - Perception/Reception Studies and/or Ideology, Gender, and Identity Issues 

Anarchist Philosophy and Cinema 

Canadian Film and Television History 

Apocalypse Cinema and Ideology 

Shakespeare on Screen and Cultural Capital 

Transnational Cinemas and Ideology 

Guerrilla Cinema - Parody and Satire

Zombies, COVID-19, and Panic Journalism 

Indigenous or First Nations Cinema and Reconciliation

Statement of Research

The study of media story-telling, ideology, and sociology is a field of increasing importance in an era in which students are living in a world of electronically mediated social relations and the destabilized global-capitalist socio-political environments in which they emerge and change at an unprecedented rate. An understanding of the cumulative impact of modern media and its ideological implications is paramount for responsible global cultural citizenship and the development of a diversified global sensibility that can move progressively towards a sustainable and equitable social, political, and ecological economy. I am particularly interested in the intersection between apocalypse/revelation narratives and ideologies from various cultural traditions (including Canadian indigenous), and eco-critical interests and creative outputs.

Established Research:

My recent book monograph Toronto New Wave Cinema and the Anarchist-Apocalypse (Manchester University Press, 2025) is an historical examination of the apocalypse and apocalyptic films of the so-called Toronto New Wave through the analytical lens of a Žižekian/anarchist theoretical paradigm that I argue is necessary for an accurate contemporary understanding of the socio-political import of Canadian cinema. As I state in my summary for the J. H. Stewart Reid Memorial Fellowship website, “Canadian cinema requires analytical tools that contribute to an understanding of both its socio-political underpinnings and the significance of its material conditions of production.” I wish “to understand the role media and cinema play in reproducing, subverting, or challenging contemporary political power dynamics.” The content of my dissertation establishes an anarchist-inflected methodological approach to the analysis of apocalyptic films and posit a specific progressive ideological mandate to their construction. Anarchist cultural studies are partly informed by certain strands of feminist theory, queer theory, and diaspora studies, and my work specifically situates them within the Canadian context.

My broader dossier of publications is concerned with contemporary media studies at the cusp of cultural studies and political economy, and demonstrates my abiding concern with the socio-political import and impact of media content. These include various influential works in such fields as the political economy of journalism (Revisiting the Fifth Filter: From Sensationalism to Panic Journalism in COVID-19 Coverage and Beyond - Intellect Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies, 2026), social media (The Virtual Network City and the Long-Tail of Social Media Alienation - Svetovi/Worlds Ann. 3 No. 2, 2025), the politics of Chinese Sci-Fi (Flexing Armageddon: Displacing Climate Change Anxiety through Soft Power Nationalist Interests in GuoFan’s The Wandering Earth - Brill Youth and Globalization Journal: Cultural Production in Asia, Vol. 6, 2025); ludic perception and ideology (Horror Video Games and the Ideological Implications of Ludic VR, Games and Culture, August 2022; Horror Video Games and the “Active-Passive” Debate, Games and Culture, April 2022); social mental health (Framing the Mentally Ill: An Anarchist-Theoretical Understanding of Two ‘Jokers,’ Bright Lights Film Journal, 2022); third cinema (Excrement, Garbage, and the City, CineAction, 2018); indigenous cinema (Subversive Horror, Patriarchal Poison, and Progressive Apocalypse in Jeff Barnaby’s Cinema, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 2022); as well as such widely cited works as The Capitalist and Cultural Work of Apocalypse and Dystopia Film (CineAction, 2015), The Dialectic of Fantasy Displacement and Uncanny Allegory in the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (The Word Hoard, 2016), and Discourse of the Damned: Texts Regarding Canadian Horror Cinema (Intellect Horror Studies, 2016). A more fulsome listing of my published articles is included on my Curriculum Vitae.

Pedagogical Research:

Recently I have contributed Film Programming as Archival Research at the Â鶹ÊÓƵ (Synoptique Issue 11.1 “Teaching Media Archives” 2025) and Flipping the Flipped Classroom - Student Preferences and Pedagogical Practice Towards Recuperating the Lecture-Based University Teaching Methodology (Journal of Innovations in Pedagogy and Technology 2025), the latter of which was presented at the XJTLU Annual Teaching Colloquium in 2022. My further work and research for the PGCert Program for U.K.-recognized HEA Accreditation (for which I was granted Fellowship in 2022) also comprises imminent publications on the integration of interactive media affordances into pedagogical practice.

Current Research:

I have been contracted by the British Film Institute and Bloomsbury Press for 100 Apocalypse Films as part of their 100 Film Series which is in post-peer-review final editing for press. My contribution considers a wide swathe of apocalypse and apocalyptic films from popular Hollywood and UK productions, as well as outputs from Canadian First Nations, countries in Africa, Central America, and other international filmmaking traditions, for the ways they challenge largely capitalist conservative and American-centric ideologies.

I am also in the process of researching for a book monograph concerned with Technophilia and Technophobia in the Age of Convergence: Star Wars as a Touchstone for Contemporary Capitalist Commodity Fetishism based on research for a course module I conduct entitled Star Wars: A Cultural History and for which I presented the preliminary findings at the XJTLU 2021-22 Department of Media and Communication Speakers Series. A preview of this larger research endeavour will be available as a chapter on the same subject in the upcoming Routledge Handbook to Star Wars due out in 2027 to coincide with the franchise’s 50th Anniversary. Towards this initiative I am also working with Ph.D. Student Samantha Gao for a Star Wars at 50 in the UK Conference to be hosted at the Leicester Space Centre in collaboration with the Leverhulme Centre for Humanity in Space.

In the position of virtual Visiting Scholar for 2021-22 to the Centre for Cinema and Media Studies at the University of British Columbia, I began research for a book-length monograph regarding the cinema and cult reception of the works of Italian-American-Canadian underdog auteur Vincenzo Natali which is now at an advanced stage. Natali remains significantly concerned with social inequities and the mythology of various cultural traditions that have informed his progressive cinematic horror and he has been generously participant with the research and has agreed to be a collaborator on the project. Towards this initiative I have contributed Vincenzo Natali’s Fantastic Television: Cosmic Puzzles in a Tight Political Economy to Offscreen for their Special Double Issue: Contemporary Canadian Fantastic Cinema (due out before the end of 2026).

The Wandering Earth contribution listed above is part of a larger research project towards a book monograph to investigate The Rise of Chinese Sci-Fi both domestically and, uncharacteristically, to Western international markets that I am conducting in collaboration with Ph.D. Student Tianyu Yu commencing in September 2026.

Imminent Book Chapters also include Technophilia and Technophobia in Star Wars for Routledge mentioned above, Cinema and Outer Space - An Ideological History: From Cold War Colonization to Cold Space Salvation for the Humanising Space Edited Collection by the Leicester Institute for Space (invited submission in review), and Wicked Clowns and the Anarchist Footprint: Smiling Back in Vengeance for Here Come the Clowns: Critical Essays on the Circus of Popular Culture by the American Press (invited submission in review).

In addition to the published articles listed above, I have published or I am developing articles concerned with Guerrilla Satire and the Rebound Effect (in press, Journal of Popular Culture), Advertising as Entertainment and the Commercial Colonization of the Social Sphere, Post-Covid Zombie Video Games and the Epidemiological Sublime, and a historical survey of the cultural import and impact of Canadian First Nations Radio (Podcast), Television, and Cinema productions. I am collaborating in establishing and obtaining funding for the Media Health Project as part of the annual Festival of Media Stories for which I am a co-director and co-founder. The project is imagined as an annual symposium towards a collected journal initiative spearheaded with international colleagues. We have developed an analytical lens that deploys the pervasive metaphor of health to three pillars of media research: health in media (representation and narrative), health of media (political economy), and health by media (participatory culture). As stated above, I am particularly interested in the intersection between apocalyptic narrative and ideology and progressive eco-critical considerations. This arena of inquiry will be a central pillar for both the Festival of Media Stories and the Media Health Project.

I am happy to be presenting Foundation Studies in a Shrinking SHAPE Landscape at the Â鶹ÊÓƵ at the Growing Humanities: Flourishing Futures in Challenging Times - Higher Education Conference at the University of Westminster in June of 2026. This paper examines the insights and revelations from the combined ‘perfect storm’ of the rise of A.I., the crisis in funding and employment across the HE sector, and the increasing employment-market-driven loss of reputation for SHAPE subjects in a brutal contemporary capitalist media landscape from a balanced perspective that observes objectively what is changing and what can be done, from eliminating redundancies, and integrating A.I., to the introduction of Foundation Programmes that foster the optics of SHAPE as a counter to STEM and as a specific “employability” arena of study.

Books

Toronto New Wave Cinema and the Anarchist Apocalypse: Kissing This World Goodbye. Manchester University Press, 2025.

100 Apocalypse Films. In press, British Film Institute and the Bloomsbury Press.

Technophilia and Technophobia in the Age of Convergence: Star Wars as a Touchstone for the Contemporary State of Capitalist Fetishism. Forthcoming.  

The Cinemas of Vincenzo Natali: Anarchist Revelations and Cult Receptions. Forthcoming.

Before joining the Â鶹ÊÓƵ, I taught in the areas of cultural studies, film history, and media theory at The University of Victoria, the University of the Fraser Valley (Canada) and the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (China). For these endeavours I awarded Fellowship in the UKPSF Advance Higher Education (FHEA).

At the University of Victoria, I worked as my departmental Teaching Assistant Consultant for five years. This position required the mentorship and quality control of between five and ten graduate students annually in their roles as Teaching Assistants for various courses across the curriculum.

At XJTLU, I was responsible for the development advisement, supervision, and grading of several Final Year Projects and Masters Dissertations.

2023-present: doctoral supervision - Xiyuan Gao, “Female Star Wars Fan Communities and ‘Substitution Creation.’”

2023-present: doctoral supervision - Yiming Song, “Interactive Battlefields: Exploring National Identitiy and Moral Choices in U.S. and East Asian War Video Games." 

2023-present: doctoral supervision - Linjun Cheng, “Spiritual Connotations in Uncanny Video Games: Childhood Trauma and the Therapeutic Socialist Footprint.”

Â鶹ÊÓƵ (UK)

• ED 0013 – Foundation Year – Introduction to Film Studies and Film History
• EN 1030 – Literature and Film Adaptation, team-teaching group led by Prof. Martin Halliwell
• HA 1005 – Reading Television, co-taught with Prof. James Chapman
• HA 1307 – Reading Film
• HA 1115 – Film/Video as Art-Event/Installation
• HA 2227 – Independent Research Project and Video Essay, co-taught with Dr. Claire Jenkins
• HA 2030 – Researching World Cinema, co-taught with Dr Gozde Naiboglu
• HA 2429 – Film Production
• HA 2433 – Film Reception and Consumption, team-taught.
• HA 3439 – Film and Art Journalism
• HA 3488 – Star Wars: A Cultural History
• EN 3035 – Weird Fiction/Weird Film, co-taught.
• HA 7209 – Masters Seminar in Transnational Cinemas

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (China)

• COM 407 – Masters Seminar in Interactive and Emerging Media Technologies
• COM 337 – Film Studies for the Digital Age

University of the Fraser Valley (Canada)

• MACS 110 – Introduction to Media and Mass Communications Theory
• MACS 130 – Mass Communications in Canada
• MACS 210 – History of Mass Communications
• MACS 221 – Media and Popular Culture
• MACS 230 – Canadian Cultural Industries in Mass Media
• MACS 240 – Media, Money, and Power
• MACS 299G – Star Wars: A Cultural History
• MACS/JRNL 369 – Media Law and Ethics
• MACS 399H – Canadian Cinema in its Media Industry
• MACS 399I – Anarchist Cinema and Media Practices
• MACS 490IS1 – Directed Study in Horror Video Games

University of Victoria (Canada)

• AHVS 370 – Canadian Cinema
• AHVS 311 – Horror Video Games
• AHVS 392 – Star Wars: A Cultural History
• AHVS 392 – Anarchist Cinema
• AHVS 392 – Dreams in Cinema
• SLST 450 – The Cold War on Film
• UNI 201 – Introduction to Film Studies

Anarchist Essays (ARG) – Spotify

• 3 June 2024: Essay #82: Early Cronenberg and the Anarchist-Apocalypse: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1u5j8AuYtSzUMKAaCns9v0

Facuti.net – Arts and Humanities

• 7 May 2024: Horror Video Games and the Ideological Implications of Ludic VR: https://faculti.net/the-doors-of-perception-horror-video-games-and-the-ideological-implications-of-ludic-virtual-reality/

Out of the Blank – Spotify

• 17 Feb 2023: #1348 - David Christopher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL40bsykTo4

NOW with Dave Brown – Accessible Media Inc.

• 4 May 2021: The Historical and Cultural Import of the Star Wars Franchise:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsF4TKIlrJE

University of Fraser Valley – EHSAAS Film Festival: Indian Cinema and Shakespeare

• 4 March 2020: Lecture and Discussion – Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool (2003)

Happy Endings: Optimism and the Apocalypse in Atomic Cinema (2019), dir. Kelly Clark:

• Jeffrey Rubinoff Scholar in Art as a Source of Knowledge Bursary: June 2017, June 2018, and June 2019
• Departmental Nominee (declined) – UVic Andy Farquharson Teaching Excellence Award for Grad Students: 2015 / 2018
• Departmental Nominee and University Selected Candidate – 3M National Student Fellowship Competition: 2016 and 2017
• J. H. Stewart Reid Memorial National Fellowship: 2016/2017
• SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship: September 2015 - August 2018
• Howard E. Petch Research Scholarship: 2014/2015
• University of Victoria Department of Art History and Visual Studies Doctoral Fellowship: Sept. 2014 - Aug. 2015
• University of Victoria Department of History in Art Doctoral Fellowship: Jan. 2014 - Aug. 2014

Colorado College – Living Dead Under Settler Colonialism: A Zombie Symposium for the Liberal Arts

• 1-2 May 2025: Invited Guest Speaker – The Evolution of the Zombie Narrative into the Post-Covid Era

University of Nottingham – A Nightmare on Elm Street at 40 Symposium

• 8-9 Nov 2024: From Elm Street to The Red Door: A 'New Nightmare' of Negligence, Misogyny, and Transphobia

Â鶹ÊÓƵ – Reflecting on 35 Years Since Penny Marshall’s Big (BAFTSS)

• 19 May 2023: Starlets to Auteurism: The Uncelebrated Collaborations of Cindy Williams and Penny Marshall

IAMCR - XJTLU Pre-Conference

• 9-10 July 2022: “Flexing Armageddon: Displacing Climate Change Anxiety through Soft Power Nationalist Interests in GuoFan’s The Wandering Earth (2019).”

XJTLU EDU Community of Practice Speakers Series – Blended Learning in Different Disciplines

• 29 June 2022: “H5P and Digital Escape Rooms on the LMO.”
• 2 March 2022: “Trials and Tribulations in Integrating Technology into the Hyflex.”

XJTLU - Annual Education Transformation Conference

• 2 June 2022: “Flipping the Flipped Classroom: Action Research in Student Preferences in Lectures vs. Interactive Activities.”

XJTLU Dept. of Media and Communication - Speakers Series

• 16 May 2022: “Technophilia and Technophobia in the Age of Convergence: Star Wars as a Touchstone for the Contemporary State of Capitalist Fetishism.”

Visual Impetus – University of Victoria Department of Art History and Visual Studies

• Jan. 2022: Distinguished Alumni Keynote: Flexing Armageddon: Displaced Eco-Anxiety and National Interests in Guo Fan’s The Wandering Earth.
• Jan. 2018: Anarchist and Apocalyptic Impulses in the Films of David Cronenberg
• Jan. 2017: Keynote Address – Dreams in Cinema – Memory, Materiality, and the Beginning of History
• Jan. 2016: Anarcho-Apocalyptic Cinema Theory and the Toronto New Wave
• Jan. 2014: Canadian Horror and Apocalypse Cinema: an Unlikely Medium for the Negotiation of National Identity
• Oct. 2012: Monstrous Simians and the Postmodern Re-signification of Images

NYU Cinema Studies Virtual Conference – [Frames (Windows (Mirrors))]

• 19-20 February 2021: “The Doors of Perception: Horror Video Games and the Ideological Implications of VR.”

University of Fraser Valley – EHSAAS Film Festival: Indian Cinema and Shakespeare

• 4 March 2020: Lecture and Discussion of Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool (2003)

Annual Invitational Jeffrey Rubinoff Forum on Art History as a Source of Knowledge

• 25-27 June 2019: Art and Moral Conscience / “Progressive Apocalypse in the Works of David Cronenberg”
• 25-27 June 2018: Art and Knowledge 1900-1950
• 26-29 June 2017: Twentieth-Century Artists and their Interaction with Other Disciplinary Fields of Inquiry

Film Studies Association of Canada – Annual Congress of the Humanities

• June 2019 (University of British Columbia): general delegate
• May-June 2016 (University of Calgary): Zizek and The Return of the Return of the Repressed Eco-Critical Simian Monster
• June 2013 (University of Victoria): Made-for-Television Fantasies of Nuclear Displacement in the 1980s

University of Victoria Farquhar Auditorium Presentation of One-Man Star Wars

• 4 May 2019: Introductory Discussion Panel – The Cultural Import of Star Wars

University of Victoria Ideafest

• 6 March 2018: Art and Optimism in an Age of Worry – “Canadian Cinema and the Happy Apocalypse”
• 7 April 2014: Panel Member - discussion of Closely Watched Trains (1966 Czechoslovak film)
• 5 March 2014: Panel Member - discussion of Twelve (2007 Russian adaptation of 12 Angry Men)

Medieval Secrets and Mysteries – University of Victoria Medieval Studies Course Union

• Feb. - Mar. 2014: MedEvil Dead Stereotypes and the Displacement of Industrial Anxiety

Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conferences

• Oct. 2011 (Spokane, WA): Shakespeare as Melodrama: Actor-Managers of the 19^th Century
• Oct. 2010 (Victoria, BC): Performing Usury and Homosocial Credit in Elizabethan/Jacobean England

Education

PhD – Critical Cultural Studies in Media and Cinema. October 2019.
Master of Arts – Film Studies and Cultural Theory. December 2013.

University of Victoria – Department of Art History and Visual Studies – Victoria, BC

Master of Arts – Theatre History. June 2011.

Master of Arts (Honorary) – Theatre History and Domestic Achievement. April 2011.
University of Victoria – Department of Theatre – Victoria, BC

Bachelor of Arts Honours – English. June 2007.

Bachelor of Arts and Social Sciences – Economics and English. June 1995.

Carleton University – Ottawa, ON.

• Including the equivalent of Minors in Education Studies and Linguistics.

Professional development

PGCert HEA Accreditation Program. October 2021 - present.

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University – Educational Development Unit (EDU)

Collegium Workshop: Engaging Online Learners. 23 August 2021.

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University – EDU Online Teaching Professional Development Sessions

Collegium Roundtable: Challenges of Online Learning. 18 March 2021.

University of the Fraser Valley – College of Arts

Badges - UFV Online MicroCourse Series for Faculty

• Online Teaching Fundamentals 3: Assessments. 3 June 2020.
• . 9 June 2020.

Faculty Workshop: Plagiarism, International Student Supports, and Course Delivery Diversity. 21 Aug 2019.

University of the Fraser Valley – Dept. of Social, Cultural, and Media Studies

Workshop: Innovative Pedagogy in the Film and Media Classroom. 5 June 2019.

Film Studies Association of Canada Annual Conference at Congress (UBC)

Online Teaching Resources: Pearson Revel Project. 19 March 2019.

University of the Fraser Valley – Dept. of Social, Cultural, and Media Studies

New Faculty Orientation: Practices for Student Engagement. 20 August 2018.

University of the Fraser Valley

Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (LATHE) Program.

University of Victoria – Dept. of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies

• Jan. 2018 to April 2018: ED-D 610 – Contemporary Issues in Higher Education: A+/100%
• Sept. 2017 to Dec. 2017: ED-D 600 – Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: A+/93%
• Indigenous Cultural Acumen Training (ICAT). 25 September 2017.
• University of Victoria ICAT Training Program
• Certificate – Teaching Professional Development for Graduate Students. 13 April 2017.
• University of Victoria – Learning and Teaching Centre / Co-operative Education Program and Career Services
• Applying for a Learning and Teaching Development Grant - 11 April 2017.
• Beyond Accommodation: Creating an Equitable Classroom for Students Experiencing Disability - 30 March 2017.
• Developing the Teaching Dossier - 22 March 2017.
• The Digital Portfolio: A Dynamic 21^st Century Tool for Network Learning - 14 March 2017.
• Optimizing the Multiple-Choice Test Item - 1 March 2017.
• Large Classes and Two-Stage Exams - 20 February 2017.
• LATHE and the Teaching Dossier Workshop - 12 January 2017.

Certificate – Peer-Teaching Facilitator Training. 12 April 2017.

University of Victoria – Learning and Teaching Centre

Diploma – Teaching English as a Second Language. November 2001

Pan Pacific International English College – Victoria, BC

250-hour - TESL Canada and BCTEAL recognized

Professional appointments

Assistant Professor of Media Studies, 2021-2022

Department of Media and Communication

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

Visiting Scholar, 2021-2022

Centre for Cinema and Media Studies

University of British Columbia

Assistant Professor, 2018-2021

Department of Social, Cultural and Media Studies

University of the Fraser Valley

Sessional Instructor, 2014-2021

Department of Art History and Visual Studies

University of Victoria