Newcastle University

Research Interests

My research falls into four major areas: 1) early cinema and cinema culture, 2) the literary landscape of the period 1880-1930, including modernism, 3) Hollywood since 1975, and 4) the history of menstruation.

Current Work

A monograph on the emergence of film celebrity in Britain in the years around 1911; a history of the 'discovery' of the purpose of menstruation during the long nineteenth century. A special issue on the variety of relationships between cinema and modernism.

Future Research

I plan to shortly begin compiling a multi-volume, multi-authored History of the Cinema in Britain. Other projects include articles on the shared origins of cinema and the short story, and an analysis of crossovers between popular ideas about cinema and the 'minority' film discourse of film thory.

Postgraduate Supervision

I welcome applications from prospective research students in any area of anglophone film history, particularly those hoping to specialise in early cinema, points of contact between literature and film, popular cinema culture, or contemporary Hollywood. I am also keen to supervise work on late-Victorian and Edwardian culture, modernism, literary renditions of time, and the history of menstruation.
Students wishing to write their PhD on Victorian/Edwardian visual culture may also wish to consider coming to Newcastle, as Tyne & Wear archives holds a major collection of primary material on North East entertainments.

Undergraduate Teaching

Team member for SEL2207 Modernisms (stage 3)
Modul convenor for SEL2208 Independent Research Project (stage 2)
Module convenor for SEL3319 The Spielberg Generation (stage 3)

Postgraduate Teaching

Degree Programme Director for the MA in Film: Theory & Practice
Team membr fo MA in Modern & Contemporary Studies 

• Shail A. The Cinema and the Origins of Literary Modernism. London, UK: Routledge, 2012.
• Shail A. The Invention of Cinematic Celebrity in the United Kingdom. In: Gaudreault A; Dulac N; Hidalgo S, ed. A Companion to Early Cinema. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, pp.460-486.
• Shail A. The Great American Kinetograph: News, Fakery and the Boer War. In: Shail, A, ed. Reading the Cinematograph: The Cinema in Short Fiction, 1896-1912. Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2011, pp.59-94.
• Shail A. Intermediality: Disciplinary flux or formalist retrenchment?. Early Popular Visual Culture 2010, 8(1), 3-15.
• Shail A, Stoate R. Back to the Future. London: British Film Institute/Palgrave, 2010.
• Trotter D, Shail A. Cinema and the Novel. In:Parrinder, P; Gasiorek, A, ed. The Oxford History of the Novel in English: Volume 4: The Reinvention of the British and Irish Novel 1880-1940.Oxford:Oxford University Press,2010, pp. 370-386.
• Salisbury L, Shail A, ed. Neurology and Modernity. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010.
• Shail A. Reading the Cinematograph: Short Fiction and the Intermedial Spheres of Early Cinema. Early Popular Visual Culture 2010, 8(1), 47-62.
• Shail A, ed. Reading the Cinematograph: The Cinema in British Short Fiction, 1896-1912. Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2011.
• Shail A. Neurology and the Invention of Menstruation. In: Salisbury, L; Shail, A, ed. Neurology and Modernity. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010, pp.59-80.
• Shail A. “senses that you don’t know”: Vibrating Modernists. The Senses and Society 2008, 3(2), 169-86.
• Shail A. Not so Follywood. Oxford Forum 2008, 8, 48-9.
• Shail A. The Motion Picture Story Magazine and the Origins of Popular British Film Culture. Film History 2008, 20(2), 181-197.
• Shail A. “although a woman’s article”: Menstruant Economics and Creative Waste. Body and Society 2007, 13(4), 77-96.
• Shail A. “You’re not one of those boring masculinists, are you?” The Question of Male-Embodied Feminism. In:Gillis, S; Howie, G; Munford, R, ed. Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration.Basingstoke:Palgrave,2007, pp. 97-109.
• Shail A. Penny Gaffs and Picture Theatres: Popular Perceptions of Britain’s First Cinemas. In: Lyons, J; Plunkett, J, ed. Multimedia Histories: From the Magic Lantern to the Internet. Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2007, pp. 132-47.
• Shail A. ‘A distinct advance in society’: Cinema’s 'Proletarian Public Sphere' and Isolated Spectatorship in Britain 1911-1918. Journal of British Cinema and Television 2006, 3(2), 209-228.
• Shail A. 'She looks just like one of we-all!': British Cinema Culture and the Origins of Woolf’s Orlando. Critical Quarterly 2006, 48(2), 45-76.
• Shail A. “You Hear About Them All the Time”: A Genealogy of the Sentient Program. In: Stacy Gillis, ed. The Matrix Trilogy: Cyberpunk Reloaded. London: Wallflower Press, 2005, pp. 23-35.
• Shail A. ''A rag and a bone and a hank of hair': The Menstrual Background of the Movie Vampire’. In: Andrew Shail and Gill Howie, ed. Menstruation: A Cultural History. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, pp. 235-250.
• Howie G, Shail A, ed. Menstruation: A Cultural History. Basingstoke:Palgrave,2005.