1. Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures
  2. School of Languages, Cultures and Societies
  3. People
  4. Profile
Dr Rob Miles

Dr Rob Miles

  • Position: University Fellow in Film Studies
  • Areas of expertise: Film; World Cinemas; Spain; Hispanic Visual Cultures; Poetry and Cinema; Poetry
  • Email: R.J.Miles1@leeds.ac.uk
  • Location: Michael Sadler Building

Profile

I am a University Teaching Fellow in Film Studies in the Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures at the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies. I teach Film history, theory and analysis to undergraduates and postgraduates on our Film Studies programmes. Previously, I have taught Hispanic visual-cultural, literary and translation studies at the universities of Portsmouth, Hull and Leeds, and Film Studies at the University of Liverpool, where I was also a Research Associate for Memory, Victims and Representation of the Colombia Conflict (MVRC), in the Department of Languages, Cultures and Film. I have twenty-five years’ experience of research and supervision, peer review for international journals, teaching, scholarship, and senior management in higher education. Some external positions have included editorial board membership of New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, and roles as External Examiner at Leeds Metropolitan, Edinburgh Napier, and York universities.

Responsibilities

  • University Teaching Fellow in Film Studies

Research interests

My research and publication focus has been largely Hispanic visual-cultures, with a particular emphasis on the cinema of Víctor Erice, representations of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, and Spain under Franco in art and film. I have also published on Luis Buñuel, Guillermo del Toro, Pura López Colomé, Pablo Picasso, Diego Velázquez, cinema and Spanish architecture, as well as poetry and translation. Some analytical approaches have included theory relating to the auteur, artistic influence, conflict and generational trauma, exile, communal memory, intervisualities/textualities, transnationalism, performance, and the construction of stars and intracinematic personae. My poetry in English has been widely-published in magazines and anthologies and I have a collection appearing with Broken Sleep Books in 2024. I have won, among others, the Philip Larkin Prize, the Poets and Players Prize, and the Resurgence (now Ginkgo) International Ecopoetry Prize, and I have a contiguous interest in film poetry/poetry films, poetry on film, poetics and cinema, which I explore with Final Year and MA Film Studies students at Leeds. 
 

Selected Publications:

  • ‘The Sonnets of Seamus Heaney in Spanish’, International Journal of Comparative Literature & Translation Studies, Vol. 4 No. 2, (April) 2016.
  • ‘Reclaiming Revelation: Another Look at Pan’s Labyrinth and The Spirit of the Beehive’, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Vol. 28, No. 2, (April) 2011. 
  • ‘The Shadow of Maeterlinck’s La vie des abeilles and El espíritu de la colmena’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Vol. 87, No. 8, 2010, 961-975.
  • ‘Out of Order: “Spanishness” as Process in El espíritu de la colmena’, in Cristina Sánchez-Conejero (ed.), Spanishness in the Spanish Novel and Cinema of the 20th-21st Century, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007, pp. 157-169.
  • ‘Entre dos Fuegos: The Function of Teresa and the Possible Subplot in El espíritu de la colmena’, Journal of Romance Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2007, 99-122. 
  • ‘Víctor Erice as Fugitive’, Bulletin of Spanish Studies (Glasgow), Vol. 84, No. 1, 2007, 57-78. 
  • ‘Virgin on the Edge: Luis Buñuel’s Transnational Trope’, Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2006, 169- 188.
  • ‘If It’s Baroque Don’t Fix It: Picasso’s Exilic Resurrection of Velázquez and the (Ab)use of Las Meninas’, Tesserae: Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2, Dec. 2001, 173-189.

Among others, I have written book reviews and peer reviewed for:

  • Studies in European Film
  • Journal of Contemporary European Studies
  • Bulletin of Hispanic Studies
  • Bulletin of Spanish Studies
  • Feminist Media Studies
  • Film International
  • New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film
  • Romance Studies
  • Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas
  • Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies
  • Journal of Gender Studies
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>

Qualifications

  • BA Spanish Language and Literature with French and Linguistics
  • MA Ibero-American Studies
  • PhD Hispanic Visual Cultures

Student education

I deliver lectures, seminars, tutorials and supervise extended independent projects at undergraduate and postgraduate levels on the Film Studies programmes. I also have Academic Personal Tutees, seen by appointment.