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Dr Lee Broughton

  • Position: Lecturer in Film and Media (Teaching and Scholarship)
  • Areas of expertise: Film studies; film theory; popular cinema; genre films (particularly the Western and horror films); cult movies; the representation of race and gender
  • Email: L.Broughton@leeds.ac.uk
  • Phone: +44(0)113 343 6697

Profile

Much of my published research has focused upon the Western and other popular film genres (including horror films and action movies). My monograph The Euro-Western: Reframing Gender, Race and the ‘Other’ in Film (I.B. Tauris/Bloomsbury Academic, 2016) brings a uniquely international dimension to our understanding of the Western’s evolution by casting a critical light on previously overlooked European Westerns. The book problematises the Western genre’s received (Hollywood-centric) evolutionary model by arguing that local cultural, historical and political influences – and local film industry practices and trends – resulted in West German, Italian and British production companies producing cycles of Westerns that featured groundbreaking representations of the Wild West’s traditional ‘Others’ (Native Americans, African Americans and strong women respectively) that prefigured the appearance of similarly progressive representations in American Westerns.

Three conferences and two research seminar series that were kindly funded by the Leverhulme Trust between 2013 and 2016 assisted me in curating two edited collections on the Western: Critical Perspectives on the Western: From A Fistful of Dollars to Django Unchained (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) and Reframing Cult Westerns: From The Magnificent Seven to The Hateful Eight (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).  

I have worked on a variety of “extra features” for DVD and Blu-ray releases (including the numerous documentaries that appeared on MGM’s Special Edition DVDs of Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns) and have programmed and introduced films in conjuction with a number of local cultural organisations (including the Leeds International Film Festival, the Holmfirth Film Festival, Opera North, the National Media Museum and Screen Seven). I have also written articles and film reviews for the CineSavant / Trailers from Hell internet resource. 

Responsibilities

  • Academic Lead for the International Foundation Year

Research interests

  • The representation of race and gender in film
  • The reflection of historical contexts of production in film
  • The presence of both transnational and local influences in films produced worldwide
  • The Western
  • Horror films
  • Cult movies
  • Popular Italian cinema 
<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 in Film and Cultural Studies (noted for research excellence), University of Leeds
  • MA in World Cinemas (Distinction), University of Leeds
  • BA (Hons) in Media and Popular Culture (First Class), Leeds Beckett University

Professional memberships

  • HEA Fellow

Student education

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and have been teaching in the Higher Education sector at all levels since 2009. I am a module leader and teacher on undergraduate and postgraduate modules offered by the School of Media and Communication. In addition, I supervise and assess undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations in the school, act as a Personal Tutor for the school’s students and am the school’s Academic Lead for the International Foundation Year at Leeds. I also teach on the Lifelong Learning Centre’s Arts and Humanities programme.