Skip to main content

Staff profiles

Photo of Dr Chris Grosvenor

Dr Chris Grosvenor

Lecturer (E&S)

Office Hours - Book Here

I am a Lecturer in Film and Television Studies within the Department of Communications, Drama and Film.

Beginning my academic career with a BA in English Literature and Film Studies at the University of Exeter, followed by a Master's degree in Film Studies at the University of Warwick, I completed my doctoral research at the University of Exeter in 2018. Since 2016, I have enthusiastically contributed to the discipline of Film and Television Studies here at the University of Exeter in a variety of teaching roles.

My research has been featured in respected international journals such as Film History: An International Journal, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, and Early Popular Visual Culture. I have also had the privilege of sharing my research with national publications and broadcasters including BBC Radio Devon, The Sun, and ITV News. In addition, I have recently been honoured with the Theatre Library Association Richard Wall Award for my book Cinema on the Front Line, which was recognised as an ‘exemplary work in the field of recorded performance’.

Currently, I am focused on multi-disciplinary projects that bridge the fields of English Literature and Film Studies, with a particular emphasis on Adaptation Studies, exploring contemporary trends in the 21st century. I am specifically interested in comic book/graphic novel adaptations, high/low art cultural discourse, and contemporary fandom. Through this research, I strive to offer valuable and up-to-date pedagogy within my teaching/lecturing.

Outside of academia, I maintain a deep passion for cinema and enjoy expressing my perspectives as an amateur film critic. Over the years, I have contributed to various publications and continue to maintain my personal website as a platform for sharing my thoughts and opinions. Additionally, I have played a significant role in the establishment and organisation of an award-winning film society and have helped to run various film-related extra-curricular activities and screenings within the department, further underscoring my commitment to fostering a vibrant cinematic culture within our academic community.

Twitter.
 

Teaching 2023/4 (Subject to Change)

Term 1

  • EAF1506: Interrogating Screens (Convener)
  • EAF2502: Shots in the Dark: American Film in Profile - Seminar Tutor

Term 2

  • EAF2510: Adaptation: Text, Image, Culture (University of Exeter) - Seminar Tutor
  • EAF3514 Film Studies Dissertation - Supervisor


Journal Articles

‘Cinemas Behind Barbed Wire: British Prisoners of War and POW Camp Cinemas, 1914-1918’, Early Popular Visual Culture (2019).

‘Dr Kinema’: The Cinema, the Trade and the Rehabilitation of Wounded and Disabled Soldiers during the First World War’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television (2019).

‘"He Sees Now What He Looked Like": Soldier Spectators, Topical Films and the Problem of onscreen representation during WWI', Film History: An International Journal, Vol. 30, No. 4 (2018) pp. 84-106.

'Discontinuity and the Tramp: Understanding Discontinuity as a Constitutive Element of Charles Chaplin’s ‘Charlie’ Identity', Exclamat!on: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2018), pp. 189-207 

'"At the Front" postcard series c.1916, the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum collection', Early Popular Visual Culture, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2017), pp.500-507.


Selected Book Reviews

‘Book Review: Cinema’s Military Industrial Complex’, Media, War & Conflict.

‘A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in Early American Cinema’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television.

‘Review: Comic Venus: Women and Comedy in American Silent Film’, Early Popular Visual Culture.


Selected Conference Papers

‘Secret Origins: The Disavowal of the Comics Medium within the Promotional Rhetoric of Film Promotion’, AAS Conference: Authenticity and Adaptation, University of Birmingham, June 2023

'The Dream that Kickstarts: Kickstarting Silent Film Restorations and Participatory Fan Culture', New Approaches to Silent Film Historiography, University of Leeds, September 2018.

'"Wake Up!": British Cinema, the Outbreak of War, and the Voluntary Recruiting Movement, 1914-1916', British Silent Film Festival Symposium, King's College London, 20th April 2018.

'The Forgotten Audience of First World War Cinema: The Evidence of Cinema Spectatorship in Official Military Documentation', Researching Past Cinema Audiences: Archives, Memories and Methods, Aberystwyth University, March 2018.

‘“He Sees Now What He Looked Like”: Soldier Spectators, Topical Films and the Problem of On-Screen Representation during WWI’, 27th Screen Studies Conference, June 2017.

‘Soldiers in the Archive: Uncovering the History of Military Cinema Audiences during WWI through the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum’, Invited Speaker, 20th Anniversary Lecture Event, The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, March 2017.

PhD

'Cinema on the Front Line: A History of Military Cinema Exhibition and Soldier Spectatorship during the First World War', University of Exeter, Doctorate awarded December 2018.

PhD Supervisors: Dr. Joe Kember and Dr. Debra Ramsay.


Current Roles/Positions

  • Film Studies Widening Participation Office (2022- )
  • 'Screen Talk', University of Exeter (2021- )


Public Outreach

Radio Interview with BBC Radio Devon on Cinema on the Front Line and the Theatre Library Association Award (26 September 2022).

Daily Mail – ‘New research shines light on cinema-going habits of British prisoners of war’ – also reported by The Sun Newspaper and others (15 August 2019).

ITV News - 'Military Cinemas provide respite for soldiers on the front line', 06/11/2018

Radio Interview with BBC Devon regarding the centenary of the propaganda film The Battle of the Somme (1916), 2/7/2016

The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum Podcast Series - Episode One.

 

 Edit profile