New Short Fiction: I Will See What I Can Do by Jackie Reuben

A fantastic new short fiction is now available from Beyond Trangression. Please note that this story deals with explicit themes and language.

‘I Will See What I Can Do.’  by Jackie Reuben

New Short Story: The Shit by Jason Lee

Do you know a ‘shit’? Jason Lee’s new short story, ‘The Shit’, exclusively for Beyond Transgression is now online.

Radio Leicester talks to DMU Professor and author Jason Lee

Jason Lee discusses his influences as a writer, with some favourite records, and his thoughts on the media with BBC Radio Leicester’s Ben Jackson

https://soundcloud.com/simon-dmu-walsh/bbc-radio-leicester-prof-jason-lee-ben-jackson

DMU writer explores seedy life of millionaire footballer in new novel – Spit Roast by Jason Lee

The excesses of a millionaire footballer in a celebrity-obsessed world come under the spotlight in a new novel penned by a De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) academic.

Professor Jason Lee’s new book Spit Roast tells the story of John Tao, an internationally famous sports star who earns £500,000 a week.

Set in the near future, where the Chinese economy has grown to dominate the globe, Tao is exposed by the press in a sleazy affair.

Hunted by paparazzi in a world where mass online media has led to a total loss of privacy, Tao is drawn into a murky underworld, meeting a cast of characters whose intentions he can no longer trust.

Professor Lee, who is the Head of Leicester Media School, said he wanted to look at celebrity culture and media attention in his new book.

He said: “I set it in the near future so we would have a world we recognised but which was pushed just a little further in the direction things seem to be going.

“In my book, John Tao is a successful footballer on a lot of money in the eye of relentless media attention. It is an examination of what this can do to a life and how actually, despite the freedom you might think he has with that kind of life, how much of a slave he is to the system in which he exists.

“This is a literary novel for people who might not normally read about footballers but I think that by looking at this more obscene or extreme ends of our society we can really look at who we are as people.”

Spit Roast follows Professor Lee’s last book, Unholy Days, which was set in Tenerife and inspired by the controversial circumstances surrounding the death of media mogul Robert Maxwell in 1991.

Professor Lee said: “I am interested, broadly, in transgression, in the way people create boundaries and then cross them and these themes have connected a lot of my work.”

Spit Roast is published by Roman Books, priced at £8.99. It is available at Amazon.co.uk

– See more at: http://www.dmu.ac.uk/about-dmu/news/2015/september/dmu-writer-explores-seedy-life-of-millionaire-footballer-in-new-novel.aspx#sthash.E1AS6wh3.dpuf

Midlands3Cities PhD funding for UK/EU students

AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council)

The Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership is an AHRC funded collaborative project, which brings together the resources of six universities: Nottingham, Nottingham Trent, Leicester, De Montfort, Birmingham and Birmingham City University. For 2016 entry, the DTP will award 89 PhD Arts and Humanities Research Council studentships for UK/EU applicants.

M3C provides candidates with an opportunity to benefit from a world-class research environment, cross-institutional mentoring, expert supervision teams (including cross-institutional supervision where appropriate), subject-specific and generic training, and professional support in preparing for an academic career. In addition, M3C works with a range of regional, national and international creative industry partners including among others the National Archives, British Museum, British Film Institute (BFI), City Museum and Gallery services (Birmingham, Leicester and Nottingham), Nottingham Contemporary, Curve in Leicester, and Heritage England.

The Media Discourse Group (MDG) and CATH (Cinema and Television History) Centre at the Leicester Media School, De Montfort University

Within the field of Media, Communication and Film Studies, two Centres at De Montfort University are currently inviting applications from students wishing to undertake PhD research.

The Media Discourse Group (MDG) is concerned with the sociological and ethnographic aspects of Media consumption, and includes the study of Protest and the Media, Social Media and Community, News and Journalism, and Feminist Media Discourses (see below for full list).

The Cinema and Television History (CATH) Centre at De Montfort University undertakes a wide range of research in Film and TV, including work on Screen Industries, Hollywood, Film Ephemera, Women and Film, and TV Drama (see below for full list).

Expressions of Interest, including a CV and an outline proposal, should be sent by Friday 6^th November to the following recipients: Professor Jason Lee at Jason.lee@dmu.ac.uk, Professor Stuart Price, at sprice@dmu.ac.uk and Professor Steve Chibnall at schib@dmu.ac.uk.

Film and Television History Screen Industries Women in Film and Television Silent Cinema Genre Cinema and Television Hollywood Stars, Studios and Directors Film financing Film advertising and promotion Film magazines Media Audiences and Fandom Production Studies Film Exhibition British and Italian Cinema UK and US Television Drama

Social/Digital Media Media Discourse, Gender and Identity Media Representations of Disability Discourses of Advertising Global Media Forms Club Cultures and Ethnography Media Discourse and Politics Feminism and Media Representations of Class Media Discourse and Protest Media Discourse and Journalism Critical Security Studies and Media The European Public Sphere Political Communication

The deadline for AHRC M3C funding applications is 12 January 2016, by which time students must have applied for a place to study and have provided two references to a university within the DTP.

Candidates wishing to pursue PhD study with the Media Discourse Group, please contact Professor Stuart Price, at sprice@dmu.ac.uk

See also the MDG webpages:

http://www.dmu.ac.uk/research/research-faculties-and-institutes/technology/media-discourse/media-discourse-group.aspx

Candidates who would like to discuss studying for a PhD in the CATH Centre, please contact Professor Steve Chibnall at: schib@dmu.ac.uk

See also the CATH webpages:

http://www.dmu.ac.uk/research/research-faculties-and-institutes/technology/cath/cinema-television-history-cath-research-centre.aspx

For full details of eligibility, funding and research supervision areas (including use of the supervision search tool) please visit www.midlands3cities.ac.uk or contact enquiries@midlands3cities.ac.uk

Information and proposal-writing workshops will be hosted in each of the three partner cities. Register for the workshop in Leicester on Wednesday 11th November 2015, at the University of Leicester. The workshop will take place from 1:30-3:30pm in the Peter Williams Lecture Theatre in the Fielding Johnson Building (South Wing). Students can register through eventbrite http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/midlands3cities-doctoral-training-partnership-6326720187

Who is eligible to apply?

AHRC funding in the Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership is currently only open to UK and EU students. Please note that EU students who have not lived in the UK for three years prior to the start of their degree might only be eligible for partial funding. For more information, see: www.midlands3cities.ac.uk

Key Dates

Application Writing Workshop

Wednesday 11 November 2015

1.30pm to 3.30pm

Peter Williams Lecture Theatre, University of Leicester

Student application deadline

Tuesday 12 January 2016 (midnight)

Successful students notified by email: 23 March 2016

Reserves notified: 23 March 2016

Deadline for students to confirm award: 12 April 2016

Stuart Price
Professor of Media and Political Discourse

Open Research Seminar – Celebrity, Police Collusion and Conspiracy – Contemporary Child Sexual Abuse Scandals

Open Research Seminar, Faculty of Technology Research Seminar Series – De Montfort University. Leicester

Date and time: 1:00-2:00 pm Wednesday 10th of June 

Venue: GH3.79 ( Gateway House, De Montfort University, LE19BH)

Title : Celebrity, Police Collusion and Conspiracy – Contemporary Child Sexual Abuse Scandal

Professor Jason Lee (Leicester Media School, DMU)

More details can be found from :

http://www.dmu.ac.uk/research/research-seminar-series/10thjune2015.aspx

Abstract

In March 2015 the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) announced an inquiry into ‘high-level corruption of the most serious nature’ including the suppression of evidence into child sexual abuse cases involving high profile figures (White 2015). Abnormal pathology can be part of celebrity culture, especially ‘erotomania’ (Redmond 2014, 115, Harper 2006). This form of pathology is more easily identified when an individual is pathological. In this paper, the pathological group behaviour of the police is significant, especially when star status and celebrity mean criminality is overlooked. Police corruption is central to problems with celebrity paedophiles (Lee, 2009). The focus here is primarily on three cases: Jimmy Savile; Leon Brittan and the ‘missing dossier’; and rock star Ian Watkins. These cases are important given: the extent of the alleged abuse; the link to the establishment; and the direct corruption of the police in the case of Watkins. They all highlight the significance of celebrity status in enabling child sexual abuse, and how the media attempts to play a role in child protection through what can be termed ‘mediated’ child protection. In this presentation I explicate these issues in the context of conspiracy theories.
Bio-sketch
Professor Jason Lee MA DPhil SFHEA is the Head of Leicester Media School at DMU. The author/editor of over 15 books, with work translated into 12 languages, he is the author of Pervasive Perversions – paedophilia and child sexual abuse in media/culture (2005) and Celebrity, Paedophilia and Ideology in American Culture (2010).
He is currently working on a book with Palgrave Macmillan, Child Sexual Abuse and the Media – From ‘False’ to Universal Memory?

– See more at: http://www.dmu.ac.uk/research/research-seminar-series/10thjune2015.aspx#sthash.8sdK3sU3.dpuf

The Performance Research Group and the Cinema and Television History (CATH) Research Centre present Professor Vanessa Toulmin (University of Sheffield)

AHRC funding for UK/EU arts and humanities research students

The Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership will be awarding 410 PhD studentships over a five year period to excellent research students in the arts and humanities. The DTP, a collaboration between the universities of Nottingham, Nottingham Trent, Leicester, De Montfort, Birmingham and Birmingham City, provides research candidates with cross-institutional mentoring, expert supervision including cross-institutional supervision where appropriate, subject specific and generic training, and professional support in preparing for a career.

The University of Nottingham School of Cultures Languages and Area Studies is inviting applications from students whose research interests include:

• Film and Television Studies
• Cultural Studies and Critical Theory
• American and Canadian Studies
• Comparative Literature
• French Language & Culture
• German Language & Culture
• Iberian & Latin American Language & Culture
• Russian, Slavonic & Eastern European Language & Culture
• Translation Studies

The deadline for AHRC funding applications is 9 January 2014, by which time students must have applied for a place to study and have provided two references to a university within the DTP. For full details of eligibility, funding and research supervision areas, please visit www.midlands3cities.ac.uk or contact enquiries@midlands3cities.ac.uk .

 

De Montfort University Cinema and Television History (CATH) Research Centre News

Hammer horror archive opens to public for first time

Christopher Lee as Count Dracula in The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)

A university that holds the largest collection of Hammer horror memorabilia is to open its archives to the public for the first time.

More than 240 original horror scripts from the Hammer film production company are held at De Montfort University’s Cinema And Television History (CATH) Research Centre in Leicester.

Steve Chibnall, director of the centre and professor of British Cinema, said: “When I was growing up, Hammer and horror were virtually synonymous, and seeing one of their films was a rite of passage into adulthood.

“Of course, they liked to sail as close to the wind as possible as far as the censor was concerned, but their products were memorable and influential internationally, and have now been recognised as Britain’s most important contribution to fantasy cinema.”

Ingrid Pitt from The Vampire Lovers (1970)

Hammer became known for its gothic horror films from the mid-1950s to the 1970s, which saw the birth of iconic characters such as Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and the Mummy.

De Montfort University was made custodian of the archive in 2012 and has continued to add to its collection.

The memorabilia includes Hammer playing cards

Dr Matt Jones, the university’s lecturer in cinema and television history, said: “There’s all sorts of unmade scripts and different versions of scripts, and it’s certainly the most complete collection of Hammer horror material that’s available.

“There’s a real wealth of material here for Hammer historians.”

The Devil Rides Out (1968)

The archive includes hundreds of scripts for well-known films such as Devil Rides Out, Demons of the Mind, Twins of Evil and for films that were never made, including Dracula: The Beginning.

It also holds books, articles, images used in the original film posters and collectible items, such as Hammer playing cards.

A scene from The Quatermass Experiment (1955)

Associate lecturer at the university, Laura Mee, said: “Their films feature a significant number of iconic characters so really represent that old gothic British cinema that really proved popular in the 50s into the 60s.

“They are entertaining and great fun to watch for a contemporary audience.”

The centre holds the only archive of all the scripts for every Hammer horror film ever made

Hammer’s archivist Robert Simpson oversaw the collection and transfer of the material, formally handing over the first of the script boxes to Professor Chibnall in February 2012.

Hammer Horror merchandise included postcards and mugs

Members of the public can have a look around the university’s archive from 15:00 GMT on 5 November as part of its launch of the Leicester Media School.

A series of Hammer Horror magazines was published by Marvel

More on This Story

Related Internet links

• De Montfort University Leicester
• Hammer Films

Leicester Media School Research Events