Professor Heather A. Nunn

 

Job Title: Professor Qualifications: MA (Sussex), MA (London), PGCE (FE), PhD Telephone: +44 (0)20 8392 3359 Email Address: H.Nunn@roehampton.ac.uk

Biography, Research Interests and Roles

Heather Nunn is Reader in Media and Cultural Studies and was Head of Film, Media and Cultural Studies until September 2008. She is Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Film and Audiovisual Cultures and is on the steering group of the Centre for Research in Sex, Gender and Sexuality. She is a Member of the School of Arts Research Sub-Committee. She is an elected member of the Executive Committee of the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association and Chair of its Women's Media Studies Network. She is also a member of the AHRC Peer Review College.


Research interests include reality television, documentary and factual programming, political representation and the media, new technologies, social networks and identity, cultural politics, gender, feminism and the media, national identity, formations of class and nation, images of childhood.

Publications: books

Thatcher, Politics and Fantasy: The Political Culture of Gender and Nation, Lawrence and Wishart: 2002.

Reality TV: Realism and Revelation (with A. Biressi), Wallflower Press: 2005.

The Tabloid Culture Reader (with A. Biressi), McGraw Hill/OU:2008.

Publications: edited collections

Co-editor, Media War, for the Mediactive series, Barefoot Publications/Lawrence and Wishart, Issue 3, 2004.

Co-editor of Trauma and Ethics in the Field of Vision, guest edition of Journal for Cultural Research, 8.3 Winter 2004.

Publications: chapters and articles

‘Written on the Body: Abjection, Melancholia and Love’ in Women: A Cultural Review 7.1, 1996.

‘Violence and the Sacred: the Iron Lady, the Princess and the People'’ PM’ in New Formations, 36, 1999.

‘Running Wild: Fictions of Gender and Childhood in Thatcher’s Britain’ in EnterText, Vol. 1, No. 3, Autumn 2001.

‘ “An Englishman’s Home…”: Reflections on the Tony Martin case’ (with A. Biressi) in Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture, Issue 20, Summer, 2002, pp37-45.

‘Silent Witness, detection and the postmortem body’ (with A. Biressi) in Feminist Media Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, July 2003, pp193-206.

‘Video Justice?: crimes of violence in social/media space’ in Space and Culture, Vol.6, No. 3, August 2003, pp276-291.

‘The especially remarkable: celebrity and social mobility in Reality TV’ (with A. Biressi) in Mediactive Issue 2, January 2004, pp44-58.

‘Emotional Death: the charity advert and photographs of childhood trauma’ in Journal for Cultural Research, Winter 2004, Vol.8, No. 3.

‘Errol Morris: documentary as psychic drama’ in Screen, Vol. 45, No. 5, Winter 2004.

‘In the shadow of monstrosities: violence, memory and guilt in Another World’ (with A. Biressi) in Critical Perspectives on Pat Barker, M. Jolly, S. Monteith, R. Paul and N. Yousaf eds., University of Carolina Press, 2005.

'Man in a Box',(with A.Biressi)in Vertigo, Vol 2, No. 8, pp37-38.

'The kidnapped body and precarious life: reflections on the Ken Bigley case', in K. Randell and S Redmond (eds) The War Body on Screen, Continuum 2008.

'Bad citizens: the class politics of lifestyle television', in G. Palmer (ed) Exposing Lifestyle Television: The Big Reveal, Ashgate 2008.

Nunn, H and Biressi, A. (2008) ‘Reflections on the ‘Undeserving Poor’ (2008) on Soundings: Class and Culture Debate, http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/soundings/class_and_culture/nunnbiressi.html

Nunn, H. and Biressi, A. ‘A world apart: images of the “undeserving poor” in Soundings: A
Journal Politics and Culture, Issue 41, Spring, 2009.

‘After life: television and the paranormal’ in S. Dauncey and T. Jenkins (eds)Corpse Life : The Contemporary Preoccupation with Human Remains (under consideration with Rodopi).

Review Articles, Case Studies and Conference Reports

Dovey, Jon (2000) Freakshow: First Person Media and Factual Television, Pluto Press in Intensities: the journal of cult media, Issue 1, 2001.

Bruzzi, Stella (2000) New Documentary: A Critical Introduction, (Routledge) in Scope, 2002.

‘”An Englishman’s Home…”: Reflections on the Tony Martin case’ (with Anita Biressi) in Signs of the Times, Discussion Papers, 3rd October 2002, http://www.signsofthetimes.org.uk/biresinunav[ie].html.

‘Case Study: Fostering student engagement with issues of contemporary politics and culture within a context of commitment to ‘flexibility’ and independent learning’, in ADC LTSN case studies, October 2002, http://staffcentral.brighton.ac.uk/ltsn/details.php?docid=2326.

'Video Justice: Public Anxiety and Private Trauma' (with Anita Biressi) online Conference Proceedings for Media in Transition 2: Massachusetts Institute of Technology at http://cms.mit-edu/conf/mit2/Abstracts/Nunn-Biressi.html

‘The Long Revolution’: A report on Media in Transition 2: Globalisation and Convergence, May 10-12, 2002 in Scope, May 2003, http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/film/journal/conrep/conference-may-03.htm.

‘Trauma Politics: Jenny Edkins, Trauma and the Memory of Politics’ in Soundings, Issue 29, Spring 2005, pp136-40.

Stokes, Melvyn and Maltby, Richard (eds) (2004) Hollywood Abroad: Audiences and Cultural Exchange in Particip@tions Vol 2, Issue 1 (August 2005), http://www.participations.org/volume%202/issue%201/2_01_nunn_review.htm

Back Cover Review for Candida Yates, Masculine Jealousy and Contemporary Cinema, Palgrave: 2007.

Richards, Barry (2008)Emotional Governance: Politics, Media and Terror, (Palgrave Macmillan)on http://www.warandmedia.org/commentary/reviews.htm

Conference activity and research papers

‘The Masquerades of Margaret Thatcher: gender, politics and the media’ – Post Theory: An International Postgraduate Conference, School of English, University of Glasgow 4-6th July 1996.

‘The Nation Rampant: media representations of the 1983 general election campaign’ – University of East London, Cultural Studies Research Seminar Series, February 1997.

‘Fictions of Childhood in Thatcher’s Britain’ – University of East London, Cultural Studies Research Seminar Series, March 1998.

Discussant at ‘Responsibilities’ seminar series - University of East London and Tavistock Centre, 1999-2000.

‘An Englishman’s Home...: defensive individualism and fantasies of retribution’ (co-authored), Other(ing) England – Dept of Arts and Media, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, 9 June 2001.

‘Death and the Maiden: femininity and the postmortem body in Silent Witness’ (co-authored), Console-ing Passions: Television, Video, Feminism - University of Bristol, 5-8th July 2001.

‘Cultural studies comes home: interdisciplinary approaches to the Tony Martin case’ (co-authored) – MeCCSA Annual Conference, 11-13th January 2002, University of Westminster.

‘Video Justice: Public Horror and Private Trauma’ – Sussex Media and Cultural Studies Research Seminar Series, 5th March 2002.

‘Genre trauma: holocaust history in the TV drama Silent Witness’ History/Fantasy - 4th Annual conference, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, 23rd March 2002.

Final plenary speaker, History/Fantasy - 4th annual conference, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, 23rd March 2002.

‘Video Justice: Public Anxiety and Private Trauma’ (co- authored) Media in Transition 2: globalization and convergence – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA., USA, 10th-12th May 2002.

‘Video Justice: Testament and Spectacle in reality TV’, Crossroads in Cultural Studies Tampere, Finland, 28th June – 2nd July 2002.

Co-convenor and Panel Chair, Signs of the Times ‘Crime and Punishment: the politics of policing in the 21st century’, weekly seminar series, March-April 2003.

‘Documentary Futures: new documentary as psychic trauma’ (co-authored) Media in Transition 3: Television – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA., USA, 2nd – 4th May 2003.

Co-convenor, Women in Public Life, MeCCSA Women’s Media Studies Day, Roehampton, University of Surrey, 6th June 2003.

‘New Documentary as psychic drama’, Screen, University of Glasgow, 4th-6th July 2003.

Chair Plenary session – Penny Woolcock and Nicola Abel Hirsch, Culture and the Unconscious – University of East London and Tavistock Clinic, SOAS, University of London, 11th-12th July 2003.

Chair, ‘Press and Politics’ panel, Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) Annual Conference, 19th -21st December 2003.

Chair, ‘Memory and Autobiography’ panel, Media, Communications and Cultural Studies (MeCCSA) Annual Conference, 19th -21st December 2003.

‘Reality TV and the therapy playroom’, Reality TV day event, Roehampton, University of Surrey, 22nd May 2004.

‘Reality TV and the space of therapeutic culture’, Console(ing) Passions conference, Tulane University, New Orleans, 30th May-2nd June 2004.


‘Reality TV and the therapy playroom’, Screen, University of Glasgow, 2nd-4th July 2004.

Panel Chair, ‘Politics and the Cultural Psyche 2’, Culture and the Unconscious conference, University of East London and Tavistock Clinic, SOAS, University of London, 9th-10th July 2004.

Panel Chair, 'Production, Consumption and Gender'MeCCSA Annual Conference, 5-7th January 2005.

'Home and Away: Mediation and Mourning in the Ken Bigley case', Globalisation and its Discontents 3: Globalisation and Representation, School of Critical Studies, University of Brighton, 12-13th March 2005.

' "Pitiless Evil and a Misbegotten War": the media spectacle of global terrorism', Communicating War: Strategies, Implications, Ethics; War and the Media network, University of Surrey, 13th May 2005.

‘Sea of Souls: televisual fantasies of cultural/psychic dislocation’, Screen Studies, University of Glasgow, 2nd-4th July 2005.

'Unofficial voices: Political communication, media participation and the Ken Bigley case' (with A Biressi) Media Change and Social Theory, CRESC, Oxford, 6-8th September 2006.

'War body on the screen' (with A Biressi) Centre for Media and Film Studies Research Seminars, SOAS, 13th December 2006.

'The media and politics of the Kenneth Bigley case: some reflections' (with A Biressi), Seminars in Communications, Cultural and Media Studies, London Metropolitan University, 18th April 2007.

Plenary speaker 'Lifestyle citizenship', First International Conference of Lifestyle Television: The Big Reveal: Style, Class and Industry, University of Salford, 25-27th April 2007.

'Looking at common people?: the class politics of reality TV' (with A. Biressi), Channel 4: the First 25 years, British Film Institute, 17-18th November 2007.

Keynote speaker for 'Class and Culture Now': launch of the Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies, Falmer, Sussex, UK, 13th February 2008.

Participant in discussion panel 'Screening Emotions' at Waterstones bookshop, Picadilly Circus, 29th February 2008.

'Emotional laboratories: what can reality TV tell us about family, emotions and social difference?',(with A. Biressi)at 2nd International Emotions Conference, University of Surrey, 13th June 2008.

Invited opening speaker 'Class redux: images of the 'undeserving poor' at Media, Class and Value: An ESRC Symposium, De Montfort University, 20th June 2008.

'Shrink Rap/therapy talk: celebrity breakdown on screen' (with A. Biressi) at 'Media and Global Divides' IAMCR International Congress for Media Research, University of Stockholm 20th-25th July 2008.

Invited Chair, Discursive Issues, The Point of Feminism, Reading University, 12th September 2008.

‘Underprivileged, underclass, unproductive: mapping keywords in the media’, The Media School, Bournemouth University, 10th November 2008.

Conference and event planning

Other(ing) England one day conference 9th June 2001, Dept. Arts and Media, BCUC.

Women in Public Life, MeCCSA Women’s Media Studies Network, Roehampton, University of Surrey, 6th June 2003.

Reality TV: Contexts, Debates, Futures, 22nd May 2004, CRFAC Symposium, HACS, Roehampton.

Media War: Covering conflicts after Iraq, 24th November 2004. held at the Guardian Newsroom.

Co-convener (with A. Biressi) Signs of the Times Crime and Punishment: the politics of policing in the 21st century, series of six seminars March-April 2003, London.

MeCCSA UK Annual Conference, Sussex University, 19-21st December 2004.

Tabloid Culture and Media Spectacle, May 2005 CRFAC Symposium, Roehampton University, London.

MeCCSA with AMPE UK Annual Conference Lincoln University, 5-7th January 2005.

MeCCSA with AMPE UK Annual Conference, Coventry University, 10-12th January 2007.

TV Futures, 12th May 2007, CRFAC Symposium, School of Arts, Roehampton University.

Research Projects Undertaken

External grants:

April 2005: AHRC – £15,301 research leave matched funding from Feb – May 2006 - tabloid culture and popular journalism.

June 2002-May 2003: Arts Design and Communications LTSN - £5,000 award (with £5000 matched funding) – for collaborative teaching and learning project with University of Surrey, Roehampton.

October 1994-September 1997: British Academy – three year full award to undertake PhD at the Department of Cultural Studies, University of East London.

Internal grants:
April 2005: Roehampton University - £1,000 internationalisation fund for visit to Hong Kong universities.

September 2002-August 2003: Middlesex University - £9,750 research leave award to complete co-authored monograph Reality TV: Realism and Revelation, Wallflower Press.

May 2002: Middlesex University, Teaching and Learning projects funding - £500 award – for teaching and learning research.

October 1997: University of East London – six-month bursary to assist writing-up of PhD.

Membership of professional bodies

Member of Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College 2006- to date.

Elected member of national Executive Committee, Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) December 2002-4, January 2007-to date.

Chair of MeCCSA Women’s Media Studies Network, January 2003 – to date.

Committee Member for the National Higher Education Academy, Media and Communications Reference Subject Group 2004-7.

Member of the International Communication Association.

Member of the Steering Group for the Popular Culture Working Party, International Association for Media and Communications Research, Sept 2008-

The Association for Journalism in Education.

European Communications and Research Association (ECREA).

Qualification Details

BA (Hons) English Literature (1st Class)1989

MA Critical Theory and Contemporary Literature 1990

PGCE (FE) Media, English, Access 1991

MA Cultural Studies (Distinction)1993

PhD Cultural Studies 2000

Research Expertise

Reality TV, documentary and factual TV. New Media Technologies, Social Networking and Identity. Politics and mass media. Gender, feminism and media. Class and Popular representations. Images of childhood.

Teaching Expertise

Research Students supervised:

1.Irem Inceoglu – Jan 2004: Coalition through the Internet: The Networking of the New Anti-Systemic Movements as a Contemporary Case of Radical Democracy;
2.Maxine Newlands – June 2005: Environmental Direct Action and the Politics of Representation;
3. Amanda Wayling-Yates- Sept 2005: Gender, TV Role Models and Teenage Audiences;
4. Hugh Ortega Breton – Nov 2005: In the Eye of the Storm: Paranoiac Hegemony and the Culture of Fear in Anglo-American Political Culture.
5. Jennifer Barnett – Sept 2007: Approaches to the post-1990 sitcom: Generic hybridity and transitions in form and content.

MA Teaching:

Media and Culture.
Research and Analysis.
Media and Cultural Studies Dissertations.

BA Teaching:

Studying Popular Culture.
Politics and the Media.
Reality Revolutions.
Popular Journalism and Tabloid Culture.
Independent Study Development Project.
Media and Cultural Studies Dissertations.

Examining Experience

External Examiner, MA Contemporary Popular Knowledges, MA Cultural Studies, University of Winchester, Jan 2009-

External Assessor, BA (Hons) Film and Television Studies, Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries, University of Portsmouth, 26th November 2008.

External Examiner, Media and Cultural Studies Programme, Canterbury Christ Church University College, from 1st Sept 2004 – July 2008.

External Examiner for revalidation of Middlesex University collaborative Media Communications degree programmes at October University for Modern Sciences and Arts (MSA), Cairo, Egypt, 21-24 May 2007.

External Examiner, Media Communications Field, University of Gloucestershire, 1st September 2002 – June 2006.

Examiner of M.Phil Rashni Khanna, ‘Mediascapes, Ideoscapes and Ethnoscapes: A Study of Disjunctures, South Asian cable and satellite television in Britain’, Roehampton University, 19th September 2005.

External Examiner – Media and Cultural Studies Programme Revalidation, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, Feb 2005.

External Assessor – Culture, Media and Society Programme Validation, University of Hull, Jan 2005.

External Assessor – Visual Culture pathway Validation, School of Psychosocial Studies, University of East London – 2002.

Consultancy Expertise

Gender, politics and the media.
Reality TV.
Class and cultural identity.
Popular culture.

Consultancies Undertaken

Member of International Editorial Review Board,Atlantis: The Journal of the Spanish Association for Anglo-American Studies.

Founding Member Editorial board for Communication, Culture and Critique, ICA.

Founding Member Editorial board for
Mediactive: Ideas, Knowledge, Culture (Lawrence and Wishart/Barefoot Publications).

Member Editorial board for Celebrity Studies.

Peer reviewer for Cultural Politics, Feminist Media Studies, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice, Journal of Gender Studies.

Book proposal/ manuscript reviewer – Open University Press; Edinburgh University Press; Pearson Education.

Consultant for Women's Library, London Metropolitan University on academic value of their media and journalism archives. Joint report submitted Autumn 2006.

Undergraduate courses taught at Roehampton:

Media and Culture
Journalism and News Media

Postgraduate courses taught at Roehampton:

Media & Cultural Studies