Newcastle University

Roles and Responsibilities

DPD - MA International Film: History, Theory & Practice
Erasmus Co-ordinator & International Student Support
Film Subject Co-ordinator for Combined Studies programme.

Qualifications

BA, MA, Ph.D

Previous Positions

Lecturer in Film, University of Portsmouth
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Gender Studies, University of Hull

Memberships

Feminist and Women’s Studies Association

Research Interests

British film and British film culture. Film history; female creative agency in film production and exhibition; representations of femininity in popular culture; gender, genre and national identity.

Current Work

My current work focuses on women film critics from the post-war period and film criticism in cross-media contexts (specifically radio, women's magazines and adult education). This explores questions of gender and media practices as well as 'film' as a specific form of gendered education.

Research Roles

Member of the North East Regional Film Seminar Series (NERFSS) and the Research Group in Film and Media group (RiFM)

Postgraduate Supervision

I welcome applications from prospective research students in the following areas: all aspects of British film and film culture; film history (including the material history of cinema); feminist film historiography.

Esteem Indicators

Lecturer at the British Film Institute's Media Studies Conference (2009)
Keynote Address, 1950s Women Network Symposium (2009)
Steering Committee Member 'International Women's Film History Project - UK/Ireland Network'.
Contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2006);
Contributor to the Encyclopedia of British Film (2nd ed forthcoming 2009)

Funding

AHRC Research Award Scheme (2008/9)
British Academy Research Grant (2006)

Undergraduate Teaching

British Cinema 1930-1960
British Cinema: Gender, Class and National Identity

Postgraduate Teaching

Film Noir
Approaches to Film (History, Theory, Practice)

• Bell-Williams M. ‘Shop-soiled’ Women: Female Sexuality and the Figure of the Prostitute in 1950s British Cinema. Journal of British Cinema and Television 2006, 3(2), 266-283.
• Bell-Williams M. Gender and modernity in post-war British cinema; a case study of Young Wives' Tale (1951). Women's History Review 2007, 16(2), 227-243.
• Bell M. Fatal Femininity in Post-War British Film: investigating the British femme. In: Hanson, H., O'Rawe, C, ed. The Femme Fatale: Images, Histories, Contexts. London: Palgrave, 2010, pp.256.
• Bell M. Femininity in the Frame: Women and 1950s British Popular Cinema. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009.
• Bell M. 'A Prize Collection of Familiar Feminine Types': The Female Group Film in British Popular Cinema. In: Bell, M., Williams, M, ed. British Women’s Cinema. New York, USA: Routledge, 2009, pp.94-110.
• Bell M, Williams M. [Introduction] The Hour of the Cukoo: Reclaiming the British Woman’s Film. In: Bell, B., Williams, M, ed. British Women's Cinema. New York, USA: Routledge, 2009, pp.1-18.