Staff Profile of Film Lecturer Dr. Guy Westwell

Dr Guy Westwell

Senior Lecturer in Film Studies

Room: 143
Tel: +44 (0)20 7882 8337
Fax: +44 (0)20 8980 5400
email: g.r.westwell@qmul.ac.uk

I am a graduate of Keele University (BA Hons) and the University of Glasgow (MPhil, PhD). I joined Queen Mary in 2006.

My research explores the relationship between film/photography and cultural memory within an American context, with a particular focus on the war movie and the history film. I am currently working on two book projects. The first is a dictionary of film studies terms, co-authored with Professor Annette Kuhn, for Oxford University Press, to be published in 2012. The second is a monograph examining the representation of 9/11 in American film for Wallflower Press to be published in 2013. I also write film reviews for Sight and Sound.

I am currently supervising three PhDs – a comparative study of the work of William Eggleston and Frederick Wiseman, an examination of the representation of terrorism in contemporary cinema, and an exploration of space, place and architecture in the contemporary action movie. I welcome applications from students interested in pursuing doctoral research.

At undergraduate level I teach FLM100 Introduction to Film Studies, FLM308 Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, and FLM603 Mapping Contemporary Cinema. At postgraduate level I teach a session on film and history on the MA core course and the module 9/11 and American Film. I was the recipient of Drapers’ Award for excellence in teaching in 2009.

 

Selected publications

 

Books and edited works

  • War Cinema: Hollywood on the Front Line (Wallflower Press, 2006)

Articles and book chapters

  • ‘Regarding the pain of others: scenarios of obligation in post-9/11 cinema,’ Journal of American Studies, in press.
  • ‘Accidental Napalm Attack and hegemonic visions of America’s war in Vietnam,’ Critical Studies in Media Communication, in press.
  • 'In country: mapping the Iraq war in recent Hollywood combat movies,' in Screens of Terror: Representations of War and Terrorism in Film and Television Since 9/11 (Abramis Academic, 2011), pp.19-37.
  • 'One image begets another: a comparative analysis of Flag-raising on Iwo Jima and Ground Zero Spirit', Journal of War and Culture Studies, vol.1, no.3 (2008), pp.325-40.
  • ‘The domestic vision of Vietnam Home Movies,’ in Image as Witness – Trauma, Memory and Visual Culture (Wallflower Press, 2007), pp.143-159.
  • ‘Critical approaches to the history film – a field in search of a methodology,' in Rethinking History, vol.11, no.4 (2007), pp.577-588.