Newcastle University

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 Newcastle.

Roles and Responsibilities

Director of Postgraduate Studies, SML (from September 2010)
Co-director of the MA in International Film: History, Theory, Practice
Co-ordinator, Film and Visual Arts field of study, SML

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

2001-2004: 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 Studies in French Cinema.

Languages

French and Italian

Informal Interests

Going to the cinema.
Hill-walking, cycling and swimming.

Research Interests

French cinema from the 1930s to the present day; stars, stardom and questions of national identity; cinema audiences and theories of spectatorship; questions of representation and identity.

Current Work

I have recently completed an article on the cinematic collaborations of the Groupe Octobre, examining the relationship between cinema and theatre in the early 1030s. I am currently expanding this work in relation to the role of screenwriters in French cinema, looking at figures ranging from Prévert, Jeanson and Spaak to Agnès Jaoui.
I'm also working on a chapter for the Blackwell companion to Buñuel (eds Gutierrez Albilla and Stone) on La Mort en ce jardin (1956).

Future Research

Screenwriters: I am planning a co-authored book (with Isabelle Vanderschelden, Manchester Metropolitan University) on screenwriters in French cinema.

Research Roles

Assistant editor, Studies in French Cinema.
Member of AHRC Peer Review College.
Co-organiser of NERFS: North East Regional Film Seminar.

Postgraduate Supervision

Willing to supervise on:
French cinema from the 1930s to the present day;
Stars and stardom;
Cinema audiences and reception;
Gender theory and film.

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.

Funding

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

Undergraduate Teaching

Contemporary French Cinema (Stage 4, co-taught with Guy Austin)
Classic French Cinema (Stage 2)
Introduction to International Film (Stage 1)

Postgraduate Teaching

MA International Film: History, Theory, Practice
Approaches to Film History and Theory
Celluloid Cities: Urban representations on film

• Leahy S. '"Une vraie famille Benetton": Maternal metaphors of nation in Il y a longtemps que je t'aime - a response to Susan Hayward'. In: Higbee, W. and Leahy, S, ed. Studies in French Cinema: UK Perspectives 1985-2010. Bristol: Intellect, 2010, pp.153-165.
• Leahy S. Hats, hotels, mayhem and Marx: Film, theatre and the cinematic collaborations of the Groupe Octobre, 1932-1936. Modern and Contemporary France 2010, 18(3), 357-374.
• Higbee W, Leahy S, ed. Studies in French Cinema: UK Perspectives 1985-2010. Bristol: Intellect, 2010.
• Leahy S. A (middle) class act? Taste and otherness in Le Goût des autres (Agnès Jaoui, 2000). In: Vanderschelden, I; Waldron, D, ed. France at the Flicks: Trends in Contemporary French Popular Cinema. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholarly Press, 2007, pp. 116-129.
• Leahy S. Casque d'Or (Jacques Becker, 1952). London: I.B. Tauris, 2007.
• Leahy S. Gender Panic: The 'garce' and the 'Good Girl' in Postwar French Cinema. In: Hipkins, D; Plain, G, ed. War-Torn Tales: Literature, Film and Gender in the Aftermath of World War II. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007, pp. 105-122.
• Leahy S. Jean Cocteau. Williams, JS. French Studies 2007. , 61(3), 398-399.
• Leahy S. Visual and Embodied Pleasures: Cinema-going in Newcastle upon Tyne. In: Fawcett, H, ed. Made in Newcastle: Visual Culture. Newcastle upon Tyne: Northumbria University Press, 2007, pp. 87-101.
• Leahy S. Simone Signoret: Aging and agency. Studies in the Literary Imagination 2006, 39(2), 21-42.
• Leahy S. 'Neither charm nor sex appeal...' Just what is the appeal of Simone Signoret?. Studies in French Cinema 2004, 4(1), 29-40.
• Leahy S. The Matter of Myth: Bardot, Stardom and Sex. Studies in French Cinema 2003, 3(2), 71-81.
• Leahy S. Bardot and Dance: Representing the Real?. French Cultural Studies 2002, 13(37), 49-64.
• Leahy S, Hayward S. The Tainted Woman: Simone Signoret, Site of Pathology or Agent of Retribution?. In: Sieglohr, U, ed. Heroines without Heroes: Reconstructing Female and National Identities in European Cinema, 1945-51. London and New York: Cassell, 2000, pp. 77-88.
• Leahy S. '"A la place de l'autre": the films of Agnès Jaoui'. Studies in French Cinema 2012, 12. In Preparation.
• Leahy S. Gens de plume: rehabilitating the French screenwriter. 2012. In Preparation.