My approach to teaching is grounded in two ideas: that deep reading is central to critical thinking, and that the best learning happens when students feel confident asking difficult questions. These values were shaped by my doctoral training at UCLA with Peter Wollen and Carlo Ginzburg, and through the Paris Critical Theory Program led by Samuel Weber. The experience of reading closely across disciplines and cultures continues to shape how I teach, supervise, and develop curriculum.
My teaching career has focused on building new programs and interdisciplinary pathways across screen studies and the creative arts. I have held inaugural teaching and curriculum roles at The University of Manchester, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, The University of Melbourne, and Deakin University, where I co-founded the Bachelor of Entertainment Production. I have also taught internationally through workshops and masterclasses in Venice, India, and Indonesia focused on screen production, AI, VR, and emerging media.
Across all of these contexts, my teaching is driven by the same question that shapes my research: whose stories remain untold, and what do we need to learn in order to tell them?
Thanks to Tony Ayres (Clickbait, most recently; we were exploring his Home Song Stories) and Geoffrey Wright (Romper Stomper) for visiting our class, making teaching in lockdown an opening up rather than a shutting down, and building connections with students across Melbourne, Australia, and internationally.
I really like teaching. Honestly. It is fun. You have to hook students in, the way you do a whole lot of (older and wiser) people. But then you get them and say: well, in order to speak about this, I first have to talk about that. And so it begins. Film history becomes less linear. ideally really overlapping...
With my colleague Liz Baulch I wrote a piece during coronavirus lockdown for the New York-based journal, Millenium Film Journal. This is the longest-running publication devoted to artists' moving image. What motivated the article was our experience in teaching film online. We were delivering classes in filmmaking, TV production and criticism online...
In May, 2020 I was invited by a variety of people and platforms to speak about Australian films and their accessibility (or not!!) online. My concern (and interest) was piqued by the discussions I was having with archivists across the globe about the shifts they had made in order to make films available to people in lockdown. What I...
With Frank Schepisi (and wearing his hat!), 2018
This year, I introduced and launched a new unit at Deakin University: Film Festivals. It came on the heels of the teaching I was invited to undertake in Italy in 2017 and 2017, where I led professional Master's workshops on Festivals for ALMED at the Università Cattolica, Milan.
