About

doctor film is Aaron Hunter, a film studies lecturer in the department of media studies at Maynooth University in Ireland.

This blog arose out of a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship (2016-2018) I undertook with the Irish Research Council on the topic of Women and New Hollywood. That fellowship has let to two forthcoming books: Women and New Hollywood, a collection I am co-editing with Dr Martha Shearer (Rutgers University Press), and a monograph on production designer Polly Platt (Palgrave Macmillan).

The original intent was to post updates on my research, thoughts about the state of women in Hollywood (and on occasion other film industries), and musings about film authorship. Since then, it has grown to include a repository of my video essays and continuing thoughts on the state of film studies, and issues related to my research in women in film, production studies, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and film authorship,

I received my PhD in film studies from Queen’s University, Belfast, in 2013. I teach or have taught courses on Hollywood history, Hollywood in the 1970s, screenwriting, introduction to film, documentary film, and visual studies.

Before going for my PhD, I received an MA in English Literature from the University of Maine and a BA in English Literature from Bates College. Before coming to Maynooth, I taught in English, American Studies, and Film Studies departments at the University of Maine, the University of Southern Maine, Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, and Queen’s University, Belfast.

My first monograph, Authoring Hal Ashby: The Myth of the New Hollywood Auteur was published in August 2016 by Bloomsbury Academic. I have published articles and reviews at The Journal of Film and VideoAlphaville, and Scope.

Some of my academic conference papers can be viewed at his academia.edu profile. You can also follow me on twitter.