Dr Beth Johnson
- Position: Associate Professor in Film and Media; Director of Student Education
- Areas of expertise: television; film; performance; gender; social class; sex on screen; representing the North; representing poverty; political performance; emotion.
- Email: B.L.Johnson@leeds.ac.uk
- Location: 1.02 Clothworkers' North
- Website: Researchgate | ORCID
Profile
I undertook my AHRC funded PhD at Lancaster University, completing in 2008. After this I worked briefly as Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow in Media at Liverpool Hope University before taking up post as Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at Keele University. Over six and a half years at Keele I inaugurated successful undergraduate and postgraduate Film Studies degree programmes. I was awarded a 18 month Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2013 for a project on the transnational success and style of the television serial Shameless (Channel 4, 2004-2013; Showtime 2011- ), and became Programme Director of Film Studies on my return to work in summer 2014. I joined the University of Leeds in January 2016 taking up post as Associate Professor in Film and Media. I am the author of Paul Abbott (Manchester University Press, 2013) and I have published widely on screen representations of gender and class. I co-edited a dossier on English Television Stardom and Performing the North (with David Forrest, University of Sheffield) for Journal of Popular Television (2016, 4:2), and co-edited, again with Forrest, a book collection entitled Social Class and Television Drama in Contemporary Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). My latest co-edited collection, Teenage Dreams: Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media (with Bentley and Zieleniec), was published by Palgrave in May 2018.
I am the academic lead of the Inclusive Teaching and Learning Task Group at the University of Leeds, and Chair of MeCCSA Women's Studies Media Network (2019- ).
I am an External Examiner for the University of Manchester, Southampton Solent University and Leeds Trinity University.
Responsibilities
- Director of Student Education
Research interests
My main research interests concern representations of gender, social class, poverty and place on film and television. In particular, I have a strong interest in visual articulations of the North of England on screen. I am also engaged in research on activism, performance, emotion and politics.
I am co-convener of the Visual Media and Communication Research Group in the School of Media and Communication.
Across 2018-19, I am also convening the Sadler Seminar Series 'The Performance of Political Feeling', funded by the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute: https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/leeds-arts-humanities-research-institute/doc/performance-political-feeling. My co-conveners are: Professor Stephen Coleman, Dr Kim Allen and Dr Philip Kiszely.
A selection of recent press interviews include:
https://www.redpepper.org.uk/how-television-informs-our-ideas-about-class/
https://metro.co.uk/author/dr-beth-johnson/
https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/yorkshire-film-locations-uk/
<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
- PhD
- MA (Distinction)
- BA (Hons)
Professional memberships
- SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies)
- MeCCSA (Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association)
- BAFTSS (British Association for Film, Television and Screen Studies)
- PSA (Political Studies Association)
- RTS (Royal Television Society)
- Chair of MeCCSA Women's Studies Network
Student education
I am Director of Student Education in the Schol of Media and Communication. The Director of Student Education has a dual Faculty and School role and is directly responsible to the Faculty, through the Pro-Dean for Student Education, for the quality assurance, standards and quality enhancement of the School's learning and teaching provision.
Research groups and institutes
- Gender
- Visual Media and Communication
- PRIA