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Staff Profile

Dr Sarah Leahy

Reader in French and Film

  • Email: sarah.leahy@ncl.ac.uk
  • Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 7441
  • Address: Room 5.05
    Old Library Building
    Newcastle University
    Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU


Background

Background

After graduating from the University of Birmingham with a degree in French and Italian, I worked for two years as an EFL teacher in Poland and Portugal before returning to the UK to study for a PhD on French cinema at the University of Exeter, awarded in 2002. I worked as a Film Studies Lecturer at Northumbria University from 2001-5 before coming to the French section at Newcastle.

Roles and Responsibilities

Year Abroad coordinator for incoming Francophone students

Combined Honours Subject Advisor, Film Studies (Semester 1)

Acting Programme Director, Global Film MA (Semester 2)

SML Director, Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (2017-2024);

Director of Postgraduate Studies, SML (2010-2015)

Co-director of the MA in International Film: History, Theory, Practice (2006-2010)

Co-ordinator, Film and Visual Arts field of study, SML (2006-2010)

Qualifications

PhD: 'Simone Signoret and Brigitte Bardot: Femininities in 1950s French Cinema', University of Exeter. Awarded 2002.

BA Combined Hons in French and Italian, University of Birmingham, 1994.

Previous Positions

2001-2005: Lecturer in Film Studies, Northumbria University

1999-2001: Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Exeter.

1997-1999: Lectrice, Université de Versailles et Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines

Memberships

Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS)

Society for Studies in French Cinema.

British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS)

Network for European Cinema Studies (NECS)

Screenwriting Research Network

Languages

French and Italian

Informal Interests

Going to the cinema.

Hill-walking, cycling and swimming.

Research

Research Interests

French cinema from the 1930s to the present day; stars, stardom and questions of national identity; screenwriters, authorship and working practices; questions of representation and identity.

Current Work

My current research builds on previous work on screenwriters and stars and focuses on three main strands:

  1. Writers and authorship in the tradition of quality cinema.
  2. Stardom and voice.
  3. Working conditions for screenwriters in the contemporary French audiovisual industry.

Research Roles

Member of AHRC Peer Review College.

Postgraduate Supervision

I welcome applications for postgraduate research in the following areas:

French cinema from the 1930s to the present day, most particularly in the following areas:

stars and stardom; screenwriters; theories of gender and sexuality and film; film criticism and film history.

Esteem Indicators

Invited speaker at:

Journée d'études, 'Casque d'or: lectures croisées', organised for students preparing the agrégation in French by the University of Nanterre-Paris Ouest. 13 February 2010, Institut National pour l'histoire de l'art.

Screening event, Fait-divers (Claude Autant-Lara, 1923), BFI London. Part of the 4th Fashion in Film Festival, Marcel L'Herbier, Fabricating Dreams, 10-19 May 2013.

Colloque: 'Des livres aux scénarios. Approches interdisciplinaires des archives du cinéma français (1930-1960)', 10-11 October 2016, Université de Lausanne and Cinémathèque suisse

Colloque: 'Studies in French Cinema to French Screen Studies: Continuity, Change, Perspectives', Université Lumière Lyon 2, November 2020

Funding

2007-8 British Academy Small Research Grant

2005-6 AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award

2004-5 AHRC Research Leave

2003-4 University of Northumbria Small Research Grant

2002-3 University of Northumbria Small Research Grant

2000 AHRB Study Abroad Grant 

Keywords

Film Studies; French Cinema; Film History; Screenwriters

Teaching

Undergraduate Teaching

Social Justice in French and Francophone Culture (Stage 4, co-taught with Guy Austin, Gillian Jein and Shirley Jordan)

Classic French Cinema (Stage 2)

Introduction to International Film (Stage 1)




Publications