Professor Stephanie Dennison

Profile

I'm originally from Northern Ireland but have lived between England and Brazil for most of my post-teenage years. After a brief stint teaching Portuguese and Spanish at the University of Liverpool, I joined the University of Leeds in 1994 where I currently hold a Chair in Brazilian Studies. I held a Leverhulme-funded International Academic Fellowship at the Multimeios Dept of UNICAMP, Brazil in 2015 and a Macpesquisa-funded Visiting Professorship on the Cultural History programme of Mackenzie Presbyterian University, also in Brazil. In 2025 I was a Senior Fellow at MECILA, based at CEBRAP in Sao Paulo, Brazil. During the fellowship I worked on a project entitled Countermapping Lusofonia. I was President (and then Past President of ABIL, the Association of Lusitanists of Great Britain and Ireland, from 2018-2025 and I am a founding member of REBRAC, a European network of Brazilianists working in Cultural Studies. I was a member of the Modern Languages and Linguistics sub-panel for REF2021.

I have published a number of books on Brazilian, Latin American and World Cinema. My latest single-authored book, Remapping Brazilian Film Culture in the 21st Century, was published by Routledge in 2020. I was Primary Investigator and Co-investigator respectively on AHRC-funded projects Soft Power, Cinema and the BRICS and Voicing Hidden Histories, and I have published articles and book chapters and produced short films related to these projects. I am currently Primary Investigator on a British Academy funded international workshop series entitled Decolonising Academic Publishing with Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous Reserachers (2025-27). My documentary Decolonial Lisbon screened at the Campinas Film Musem in Brazil. A short video of my research trip to UFMG, Brazil can be found here: https://youtu.be/RjIVm2Q8Xsc. I am Primary Investigator on the project Bridging Worlds: Brazilian Cultural Thought in Global Perspective (brazil.leeds.ac.uk).

Responsibilities

• DHoS: Strategic Lead for People and Culture

Research interests

I am interested in film culture as it is broadly understood, particularly, though not exclusively, in the contemporary period, and particularly as it is manifested in Brazil. I am also interested in new approaches to cultural studies, and especially popular culture and the soft power of film.

I currently supervise pg research projects on a much wider range of topics:

• History of Independent Film Exhibition in Leeds (Alice Miller)
• The Role of Media in the Revitalisation of the Jibbali Language (Kamela al Barami)
• Screen Representations of Muslim Women (Afnan Alasmari)
• Beyond Binary Perspectives: Rethinking Bl;ack Independent Cinema (Jing Chen)
• Comparative Study of the works of Jose Saramago and Nawal El-Saadawi (Maram Alasmari)

• Bridging Worlds: Brazilian Cultural Thought in Global Perspective
• Soft Power, Cinema and the BRICS

Qualifications

• BA Hons Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, King's College, London
• PhD Hispanic Studies, University of Liverpool
• MA Filmmaking, University of Bradford

Professional memberships

• ABIL (Association of Lusitanists of Great Britain and Ireland). President of the Association.
• REBRAC (Rede Europeia de Brasilianistas de Analise Cultural). Founding member.
• LASA (Latin American Studies Association)
• BRASA (Brazilian Studies Association)
• BAFTSS (British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies)

Student education

I contribute to teaching and undergraduate superivision on modules relating to Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, Film Studies (undergraduate and postgraduate) and Translation Studies (postgraduate)

Research groups and institutes

• Cinema and Television
• Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American
• Digital cultures
• The Camões Centre for Portuguese Language
• Fusão
• Cultural studies
• Network for Hispanic and Lusophone Cultural Studies
• Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures

Current postgraduate researchers

• Afnan Alasmari