Gonville & Caius College听 Trinity Street听 海角社区 听 CB2 1TA
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On sabbatical leave 鈥� will return Easter term 2024
Dr Laura McMahon is an Associate Professor in Film and Screen Studies, with research interests in connections between film and philosophy, especially in French and Francophone contexts, and in cinema鈥檚 relations with decolonial, feminist and ecocritical approaches.
She is currently working on a project that explores how recent feminist remediations of archives 鈥� of ethnographic films, newsreels, home movies and photographs, for example 鈥攔eframe histories through forms of critical repurposing and speculative reimagining. The project addresses contemporary moving image practice 鈥� mostly documentary filmmaking and artists鈥� moving image 鈥� in a global context, exploring work by Onyeka Igwe, Khady Sylla, Annie Ernaux, Alina Marazzi and Michelle Citron, among others.
Recent publications relating to this project include:
- 鈥楧isordering Archives: Onyeka Igwe and Black Feminist Speculative Histories鈥�, Screen, 64:4 (2023)
- 鈥榃omen鈥檚 Voices in Contemporary Senegal: Khady Sylla鈥檚 Le monologue de la muette (The Silent Monologue) (2008)鈥�, in Stefanie van der Peer, Lizelle Bisschoff and Ana Grgic (eds), Stretching the Archives: Decolonising Global Women鈥檚 Film Heritage (Archive Books, forthcoming in 2024)
Previous work has explored questions of ecologies, politics and philosophy in a range of moving image practice. For example, she has written on 鈥榰ntimely鈥� justice and colonial memory in Alain Resnais鈥檚 Muriel ou le temps d鈥檜n retour (1963), ecologies and nonhuman histories in the films of Claire Denis, and the place of animal death in allegories of post-war France in Georges Franju鈥檚 Le sang des be虘tes (1948).
Her monograph Animal Worlds: Film, Philosophy and Time (Edinburgh University Press, 2019) brings reflections on the ethics and politics of animal life by thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida and Nicole Shukin into contact with a range of contemporary international art cinema, particularly experimental documentary, including work by Emmanuel Gras, Denis C么t茅, B茅la Tarr and 脕gnes Hranitzky, and Lucien Castaing-Taylor and V茅r茅na Paravel. The focus of the book intersects with 鈥楽creen Animals鈥� (2015), a dossier of essays that she edited for the journal Screen, and with a collection entitled Animal Life and the Moving Image (BFI, 2015), co-edited with Michael Lawrence, which includes chapters by Raymond Bellour and other leading scholars in the field.
Other research interests include questions of embodiment, materiality and the senses in cinema. Her first book, Cinema and Contact (Legenda, 2012),听focuses on the films of Claire Denis, Marguerite Duras and Robert Bresson, examining dynamics of touch, politics and community, drawing in particular on the work of the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy.
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Dr McMahon welcomes inquiries from potential MPhil and PhD students with research interests relevant to her interests.
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Monographs
- Animal Worlds: Film, Philosophy and Time (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019)
- Cinema and Contact: The Withdrawal of Touch in Nancy, Bresson, Duras and Denis (Oxford: Legenda, 2012)
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Edited volumes
- Animal Life and the Moving Image, co-edited with Michael Lawrence (London: BFI, 2015)
- Rhythms: Essays in French Literature, Thought and Culture, co-edited with Elizabeth Lindley (Bern: Peter Lang, 2008)
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Edited special issue
- 鈥楽creen Animals鈥�, Screen, 56:1 (2015)
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Journal articles
- 'A Poetics of Opacity: Disability, Race and Gender in Khady Sylla鈥檚 Une fen锚tre ouverte听(2005)', French Screen Studies, forthcoming in 2024
- 鈥楧isordering Archives: Onyeka Igwe and Black Feminist Speculative Histories鈥�, Screen, 64:4 (2023)
- 鈥楿ntimely Resnais: Muriel鈥檚 Justice鈥�, Film-Philosophy, 20:2-3 (2016), 219-234
- 鈥楢nimal Agency in Le Quattro Volte鈥�, Screen, 56:1 (2015), 108-114听
- 鈥楥inematic Slowness, Political Paralysis? Animal Life in Bovines鈥�, NECSUS, Spring 2015,
- 鈥楢nimal Worlds: Denis C么t茅鈥檚 Bestiaire鈥�, Studies in French Cinema, 14:3 (2014), 195-215
- 鈥楥laire Denis鈥檚 Ecologies鈥�, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 7 (2014), 1-18
- 鈥楧islocation of the Senses: Nancy on Klotz鈥檚 La Blessure鈥�, The Senses and Society, 8:1 (2013), 62-71
- 鈥楿nwinding the Anthropological Machine: Animality, Film and Arnaud des Palli猫res鈥�, Paragraph, 35:3 (2012), 373鈥�388
- 鈥楩rom Homofraternity to Hospitality: Deconstructing the Political with Derrida and the Dardennes鈥�, French Studies, 66:4 (2012), 510-524
- 鈥楽uspended Moments: Child Performance in Lynne Ramsay鈥檚 Ratcatcher鈥�, Screen, 53:4 (2012), 471-476
- 鈥楾he Justice of Images: Between Derrida and Nancy鈥�, Modern and Contemporary France, 19:1 (2011), 1-16
- 鈥楯ean-Luc Nancy and the Spacing of the World鈥�, Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 15:5 (2011), 623-631
- 鈥楶ost-deconstructive Realism? Nancy鈥檚 Cinema of Contact鈥�, New Review of Film and Television Studies, 8:1 (2010), 73-93
- 鈥楲overs in Touch: Inoperative Community in Nancy, Duras and India Song鈥�, Paragraph, 31:2 (2008), 189-205
- 鈥楧econstructing Community and Christianity: 鈥淎-religion鈥� in Nancy鈥檚 Reading of Beau Travail鈥�, Film-Philosophy, 12:1 (2008), 63-78,
- 鈥楾he Withdrawal of Touch: Denis, Nancy and L鈥橧ntrus鈥�, Studies in French Cinema, 8:1 (2008), 29-39
- 鈥楩iguring Intrusion: Nancy and Denis鈥�, Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 12:4 (2008), 463-470
- 鈥楲鈥橧ntrus鈥�, in 鈥楨xposures: Critical Essays on Jean-Luc Nancy鈥�, special issue of The Oxford Literary Review, 27 (2007), 187-191
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Book chapters
- 鈥榃omen鈥檚 Voices in Contemporary Senegal: Khady Sylla鈥檚 Le monologue de la muette (The Silent Monologue) (2008)鈥�, in Stefanie van der Peer, Lizelle Bisschoff and Ana Grgic (eds), Stretching the Archives: Decolonising Global Women鈥檚 Film Heritage (Archive Books, forthcoming in 2024)
- 鈥楩ranju鈥檚 Animals: Stains, Traces, Histories鈥�, in Zoe Angeli and Blake Gutt (eds), Stains/Les Taches: Communication and Contamination in French and Francophone Literature and Culture (Bern: Peter Lang, 2019)
- 鈥楩ilm鈥�, in Ron Broglio, Undine Sellbach and Lynn Turner (eds), The Edinburgh Companion to Animal Studies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018)
- 鈥楧ead Funny: Laughter, Life and Death in Philibert鈥檚 N茅nette and Un Animal, des animaux鈥�, in Michael Lawrence and Karen Lury (eds), The Zoo: Images of Exhibition and Encounter (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 247-268
- 鈥楽creening Pigs: Visibility, Facticity and the Production of Species鈥�, in Lawrence and McMahon (eds), Animal Life and the Moving Image (London: BFI, 2015), pp. 203-218
- 鈥楨vidence 鈥� Jean-Luc Nancy鈥�, in Edward Branigan and Warren Buckland (eds), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 173-177
- 鈥楻hythms of Relationality: Denis and Dance鈥�, in Marjorie Vecchio (ed), The Films of Claire Denis: Intimacy on the Border (London: IB Tauris, 2014), pp. 175-188
- 鈥業mitation, Seriality, Cinema: Early Fassbinder and Godard鈥�, in Brigitte Peucker (ed), A Companion to Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Oxford: Blackwell, 2012), pp. 79-100
- 鈥楶assage of Sense: Anish Kapoor鈥檚 Memory (2008) with Jean-Luc Nancy鈥�, in Lorna Collins and Elizabeth Rush (eds), Making Sense: For an Effective Aesthetics (Bern: Peter Lang, 2011), pp. 199-206
- 鈥楾ouching Intact: Sophie Calle鈥檚 Threat to Privacy鈥�, in Georgina Evans and Adam Kay (eds), Threat: Essays in French Literature, Thought and Cinema (Bern: Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 69-83
- 鈥楾he Contagious Body of the Film: Claire Denis鈥檚 Trouble Every Day鈥�, in Isabelle McNeill and Bradley Stephens (eds), Transmissions: Essays in French Literature, Thought and Cinema (Bern: Peter Lang, 2007), pp. 77-92
