Sarah Lahm

Profile

My BA and MA degrees are in American Studies, which I obtained at the University of Graz. My MA thesis was about postfeminist paradoxes in HBO’s Girls, and my research has had feminist theory and criticism at its core ever since. 

My research aims to contribute to contemporary feminist television criticism. I am interested in exploring questions of complex TV and seriality, as well as representations of gender, class and race in serial narratives. 

Such questions include:

• Wo are the women we are currently streaming on our small screens?
• What can these women reveal about shifts in feminism? In what sense are the protagonists of the shows we are binging right now a product of the culture they have emerged out of? What functions do they fulfil within their worlds, and our world?
• In what ways are the contradictions between neoliberal individualism and anticapitalist collectivity shaping the complex psyches of women on TV?
• How can we contextualise representations of women in terms of their reinforcement or subversion of gender stereotypes and the gender binary, societal norms (e.g. class divisions), and the neoliberal (white supremacist, patriarchal) order?
• What function does the serial format of TV shows fulfil in terms of these representational practices? What kinds of opportunities does it offer? How do the use of genre conventions and intermediate references contribute to more complex (and intersectional) renderings of female characters?

Research interests

• feminist theory
• neoliberal feminism
• socialist feminism
• intersectional feminism
• television studies
• complex TV
• seriality
• genre studies
• film studies
• American studies
• American culture (United States)
• the American dream
• American exceptionalism

 

<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>

Student education

I am currently a postgraduate teaching assistant at the School of Media and Communication.