Professor Lisa Purse

Email:
l.v.purse@reading.ac.uk
Phone:
+44 (0) 118 378 4079
Job title:
Professor in Film

Responsibilities:

Director of PGR
Joint Research Division Lead
Member of the Executive Committee of the Centre for Film Aesthetics and Cultures
Member of the Heritage & Creativity Institute Steering Committee
Member of the University Arts Committee
Principle Investigator on British Academy-funded project Disappearing War: Cinema and the Politics of Erasure in the 'War on Terror' (2015–16)
Co-Investigator on AHRC/FAPESP-funded project IntermIdia: Towards an Intermedial History of Brazilian Cinema (2016–19)

Office

Room 207

Building location

Minghella Studios

Areas of interest

My research is broadly concerned with the relationships between aesthetics and the politics of representation in cinema.

I am interested in constructions of the body and physicality in post-studio mainstream cinema, and in particular their relationship to zones of geopolitical conflict. A second key strand of my research explores popular cinema's interactions with the digital, including digital visual effects and Digital 3-D.

My monograph Contemporary Action Cinema explored issues of style, representation, and politics in action cinema of the last decade. My second monograph Digital Imaging in Popular Cinema investigated the challenges that digital elements of the film frame pose for interpretation. I am currently researching projects on cinema and the epistemology of war, and space and duration in contemporary digital cinema.

Postgraduate supervision

I welcome enquiries from prospective postgraduate students on any aspect of my research interests, including proposals for projects with a practical component. I am currently supervising theses on:

Creative modes of film production (co-supervisor, research by practice)
Animating the evacuee archive – memory and materiality (co-supervisor, research by practice)
Shakespeare and action cinema (co-supervisor)
Intermediality in '70s and '80s Japanese cinema (co-supervisor)
Theatre live streamed into cinemas (co-supervisor)
Narrative in the Star Wars films (co-supervisor)
Access to the film industry for filmmakers with disabilities in India (co-supervisor, research by practice).

Teaching

Introduction to Film (BA)
Critical practice modules in all years (BA, MA)
Cinema, Spectacle and Technology (BA)
Film Production (MA)
Film Aesthetics (MA)
Dissertation/advanced practical project supervision (BA and MA).

Research centres and groups

Centre for Film Aesthetics and Cultures

Ways of War Centre.

Professional bodies/affiliations

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Member of British Film Institute
Member of Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Member of Media, Communication & Cultural Studies Association
Member of the Executive Committee of Centre for Film Aesthetics and Cultures (CFAC).