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Dr Pansy Duncan

Senior Lecturer

School of Humanities Media and Creative Comm

I work at the intersection of film aesthetics, media history, political economy and eco-materialist media studies, with an emphasis on early cinema. My articles have been published in a number of venues, including Screen, PMLA, Cinema Journal, Feminist Media Studies, Textual Practice and Cultural Critique. My 2016 monograph, The Emotional Life of Postmodern Film (Routledge), examined the cinematic life of a series of posthumous or borderline emotions, including knowingness, boredom, fascination, euphoria and bewilderment.

My current book project, which is funded by a Marsden grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand, advances a counter-history of cinematic form. Provisionally entitled A Natural History of Film Form, it argues that the raw materials of early photographic film stock—cellulose, silver and gelatin—shaped the emergence and evolution of popular Euro-American film aesthetics across the extended "early" period (1895-1925).

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Research Expertise

Research Interests

Modern visual cultures; film and media history; the political aesthetics of cinema; eco-materialist approaches to film and media; the politics of affect; political economy of the media

Area of Expertise

Field of research codes
Art Theory (190103): Art Theory and Criticism (190100): Cinema Studies (190201): Electronic Media Art (190203): Film, Television and Digital Media (190200): Studies In Creative Arts And Writing (190000): Visual Cultures (190104)

Research Projects

Summary of Research Projects

Position Current Completed
Project Leader 1 4

Current Projects

Project Title: The natural history of Film Form: Film Aesthetics through animal, vegetable and mineral matter

Date Range: 2019 - 2022

Funding Body: Royal Society of New Zealand

Project Team:

Research Outputs

Journal

Duncan, P. (2020). Celluloid TM: Cecil M. Hepworth, Trick Film and the Material Pre-History of the Plastic Image. Film History: an international journal. 31(4), 92-111 Retrieved from https://muse.jhu.edu/article/748823
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, PK. (2020). 'Journeys of Adventure Among its Far-Flung Debris': Three Theories of the Blockbuster Explosion Spectacle. Journal of Cinema and Media Studies. 59(2), 1-22 Retrieved from https://muse.jhu.edu/article/746998
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, P., & Holm, N. (2018). Cultural Studies, Marxism and the Exile of Aesthetics. Open Cultural Studies. 2(1), 746-757 Retrieved from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/culture-2018-0067/html
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P., Holm, N.
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Duncan, PK. (2018). Exploded Views: Early Cinema and the Spectacular Logic of the Explosion. Screen. 59(4), 401-419 Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/screen/article/59/4/401/5253340
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, PK. (2018). Lights, camera, lumino-politics: Lighting the searchers, from paraffin to LED. Film-Philosophy. 22(2), 184-202 Retrieved from https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/film.2018.0072
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, PK. (2017). The uses of hate: On hate as a political category. M/C Journal. 20(1)
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, PK. (2017). I drink liberal tears: Genre, desire and the leaky liberal body. Feminist Media Studies. 17(3), 516-520 Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2017.1304718
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, PK. (2017). Joke work: Comic labour and the aesthetics of the awkward. Comedy Studies. 8(1), 1-21 Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcos20
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, PK. (2017). Once more, with Fredric Jameson. Cultural Critique. 97, 1-23
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2016). Stuck on you. Feminist Formations. 28(2), 112-118 Retrieved from https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/35481
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, PK. (2015). Bored and Boringer: Avant-garde and trash in Harmony Korine's Gummo. Textual Practice. 29(4), 717-743
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, PK. (2014). The cinematic life of the implosion. Film Quarterly. 68(2), 37-47
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, PK. (2014). Cute studies. Cultural Studies Review. 20(1), 327-334
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, PK. (2014). Taking the smooth with the rough: Texture, emotion and the other postmodernism. PMLA. 129(2), 204-222
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2013). Corey Haim and the 'Homeless Celebrity': Rock Bottom on Rodeo Drive. Celebrity Studies. 4(2), 241-244
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, PK. (2011). Tears, Melodrama and 'Heterosensibility' in Letter from an Unknown Woman. Screen. 52(2), 173-192
[Journal article]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Book

Duncan, P. (2020). A Theory of the Medium Shot: Affective Mapping and the Logic of the Encounter in Fredric Jameson’s The Geopolitical Aesthetic. In J. Szaniawski, & K. Wagner (Eds.) Fredric Jameson and Film Theory: Space, Representation and Allegory in a Globalizing Age. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press
[Chapter]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, P. (2019). Fade to Crude: Petro-Horror in The Shining. In J. Szaniawski (Ed.) After Kubrick: A Filmmaker's Legacy. New York: Bloomsbury
[Chapter]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2016). Shrubs and the city: Urban plant life in rear window. In P. Viera, M. Gagliano, & J. Ryan (Eds.) The Green Thread: Dialogues with the Vegetal World. (pp. 219 - 232). Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield
[Chapter]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK.(2015). The emotional life of postmodern film: Affect theory's other. : Routledge
[Authored Book]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Creative Work

Duncan, PK. (2014) Regret. [Exhibition] Avidly
[Artwork]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2014) Regret. [Exhibition] Sport
[Artwork]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2010). B-A-C. [online]. Window gallery.
[Exhibition]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2008) Soap. [Exhibition] Prix Choc
[Artwork]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2008) On Canine Humour. [Exhibition] Hue and Cry
[Artwork]Authored by: Duncan, P.

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Duncan, PK. (2008) Natural, Disaster. [Exhibition] Hue and Cry
[Artwork]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2007). A Tension Spanned. [Print/online]. Artspace.
[Exhibition]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2007) Love Poem. [Exhibition] Hue and Cry
[Artwork]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2005). The Copy Cats. [print]. Window Gallery.
[Exhibition]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2004). Game, Set and Match. [print]. Gus Fisher Gallery.
[Exhibition]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2004). Mise-en-Abyme. [Print]. Gus Fisher Gallery.
[Exhibition]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2003) The Apartment. [Exhibition] Sport
[Artwork]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2003) Soundings. [Exhibition] Sport
[Artwork]Authored by: Duncan, P.

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Thesis

Duncan, PK. (2012). Feeling Postmodern: Emotion in Postmodern Film Aesthetics and Theory. (Doctoral Thesis)
[Doctoral Thesis]Authored by: Duncan, P.

Conference

Taffel, SA., Holm, N., Duncan, P., Veale, K., Huffer, I., & Randell-Moon, H.(2017, December). Cultures of Capitalism: CSAA 2017. .
[Conference]Authored by: Duncan, P., Holm, N., Huffer, I., Taffel, S., Veale, K.
Duncan, PK. (2017, July). Fractal fallout: The digital effects explosion spectacle. Presented at Film-Philosophy. Lancaster, England.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2017, June). Exploded views: Early cinema and the spectacular logic of the explosion. Presented at Screen Studies Conference 2017. Glasgow, Scotland.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, PK. (2015, June). Urban Plant Life in Cinematic New York. Presented at Screen Studies 2015: Screening Animals and the Inhuman
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Duncan, P.
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Duncan, PK. (2013, September). Affect Theory’s Face. Presented at On Violence: Rethinking Humanities and Social Sciences Conference. University of Zadar, Croatia.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Duncan, P.

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Duncan, PK. (2012, June). Bored and Boringer: Avant-Garde and Trash in Gummo. Presented at Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand Conference 2012 (POPCAANZ),. Melbourne, Australia.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2010, June). The Spectator Who Knew Too Much: Knowledge and Knowingness in Rushmore. Presented at Visual Literacies. Oxford, UK.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Duncan, P.
Duncan, PK. (2005, November). Old Wounds. Presented at The Bone People After Twenty Years. Victoria University, Wellington.
[Conference Oral Presentation]Authored by: Duncan, P.

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Other

Duncan, PK. (2015). Book Review: Love story. Michel Faber, the book of strange new things (London: Hogarth, 2014).
[Other]Authored by: Duncan, P.

Teaching and Supervision

Courses Coordinated

Contact Supervisor

Summary of Doctoral Supervision

Position Current Completed
Co-supervisor 2 1

Current Doctoral Supervision

Co-supervisor of:

  • Kayleigh Geyer - Doctor of Philosophy
    Reflecting on affect and research: Investigating prose poetry as a new materialist meta-research method
  • April Geers - Doctor of Philosophy
    Crossing Spaces for Human Rights: Creative Activism in Short Stories and Poetry

Completed Doctoral Supervision

Co-supervisor of:

  • 2019 - Bridget Herlihy - Doctor of Philosophy
    Re-Tuning the mind's ear: An anonymous history of acoustic prosthetic technologies for the ear