Overview of Research Interests
Kate is the author of Trash or Treasure? Censorship and the Changing Meanings of the Video Nasties (MUP, 2007), Cultographies: The Evil Dead (Wallflower, 2011), and (with Martin Barker, Tom Philips and Sarah Ralph) Alien Audiences (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). She is also the co-editor of Cult Film Stardom (with Sarah Thomas, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), And Now for Something Completely Different: Critical Approaches to Monty Python (with Jeffrey Weinstock, EUP, 2020), and Researching Historical Screen Audiences (with Jamie Terrill and Martin Smith, EUP, forthcoming). She is currently working on practice-based research focused on the Dirt in the Gate cinema events and their audiences at the Shelley Theatre, Bournemouth, and planning and developing further research on audience memories of horror film and television.
Qualifications
PGCTHE, University of Wales, 2011.
PhD in Film Studies: ‘Bad Objects: Taste, Consumption and the Changing Meanings of the Video Nasty’, University of Nottingham, 2005.
MA in Film Studies, University of Nottingham, 1999.
BA (Hons) Film and Drama, University of Reading, 1997.
Professional Affiliations
Co-convenor, British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) Horror Studies Special Interest Group.
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), since June 2012.
Member of the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) and the BAFTSS British Cinema and Television Special Interest Group.
Member of the International Association for Media and History (IAMHIST)
Employment
Kate began working at Northumbria in May 2020, after working for twelve years as lecturer and then senior lecturer in film studies at Aberystwyth University. Between 2003 and 2004, she was a research assistant on the ESRC- funded The International Lord of the Rings Audience Project (run by Professor Martin Barker and Professor Ernest Mathijs).
Between 2016 and 2019, she was external examiner for the BA Film and Television Studies programme at Northumbria University, and, between 2009 and 2012, external examiner for the MA Film Studies programme at London Metropolitan University.
PhD Supervision and Examination
Kate has previously supervised 12 PhD Students to completion:
As First Supervisor:
Jamie Terrill, ‘An Investigation of Rural Welsh Cinemas: Their Histories, Memories and Communities’ (2019).
Thomas Alcott, ‘Wrestling with Stardom: The Factors and Contexts that Inform the Relations between Wrestling Stars and their Audiences’ (2018).
Nia Edwards-Behi, ‘Remaking Controversy? Three Case Studies of the Changing Reception of Controversial Films and their Remakes’ (2016).
Edward Payne, ‘Football Memories: The Exploration of Football Fandom through Popular Cultural Memory’ (2013).
Stephanie Jones, ‘Masculinity and the James Bond Films: A Textual and Reception Study’ (2013).
As Joint Supervisor:
Wikanda Promkhuntong, ‘On Becoming Asian Auteurs: The Transnational Reputation Making Processes of Wong Kar Wai, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Kim Ki-duk’ (2017).
As Second Supervisor:
Terence Bailey, ‘Screenwriting Manuals, 1911-Present’ (2015).
Emma Pett, ‘A Contested Category: British Audiences and Asian Extreme Films’ (2013).
Rebekah Smith, ‘Tarantino’s Audiences: A Cognitive-based Audience Research Enquiry’ (2011).
Sarah Ralph, ‘Watching With Mother: How Film Stars are Utilised in Mother-Daughter Relations’ (2011).
Russ Hunter, ‘A Cross-Cultural Reception Study of the Films of Dario Argento in the UK and Italy’ (2009).
Kerstin Leder, ‘Audiences Talking “Fear”: A Qualitative Investigation’ (2009).
PhD External Examination
Gabriela Zogall, ‘The Evil Woman In Cinematic Realms: The Evolution of Supernatural Female Antagonists in English-Speaking North American Fantasy and Horror Film of the 21st Century’ (Practice-Based PhD), Birmingham University, 1st September 2020,
Lauren Stephenson, ‘Exploring British Hoodie Horror’, York St John University, 20th Feb 2018.
PhD Internal Examination
Robbie McAllister, ‘The Past Made Present: An Analysis of Twenty-First Century Steampunk Cinema’, Dec 2015.
Melissa Beattie, ‘Discourses of Torchwood: National Identity, Glocalisation and the Pseudo-Reflexive Audience’, Dec 2014.
Kirsty Sedgman, ‘Preparing for Rain: Audience Responses to National Theatre Wales’, Oct 2013.
Ian Wilkie, ‘Cue Laughter: Signs, Speech and Scottishness in British Comic Performance’, May 2012.
Lauren Anderson, ‘Investigating Audience Responses to Popular Music in Contemporary Romantic Comedy Films’, July 2009.
Publications
Egan, K. (2020) ”The Film That’s Banned in Harrogate’: Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979), Local Censorship, Comedy and Local Resistance’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01439685.2020.1815363
Egan, K. (2020) ‘Memories of Connecting: Fathers, Daughters and Intergenerational Monty Python Fandom’ in Kate Egan and Jeffrey Weinstock (eds) And Now For Something Completely Different: Critical Approaches to Monty Python (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).
Egan, K and J. Weinstock (eds) (2020) And Now For Something Completely Different: Critical Approaches to Monty Python (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).
Egan, K, M. Smith and J. Terrill (2019) ‘Introduction to Themed Section: Researching Past Cinema Audiences’, Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies 16:1.
Egan, K. (2019) ‘”The Overlooked, The Side-lined and the Undervalued’: BFI Flipside, Cult DVD Labels and the Lost Continents of British Cinema’, Cinephile 13:1: 13-17.
Egan, K. (2017) ‘The Criterion Collection, Cult-Art Films and Japanese Horror: DVD Labels as Transnational Mediators?’, Transnational Cinemas 8:1: 65-79.
Egan, K. (2016) ‘Cults in British Cinema and Film Culture’ in I.Q. Hunter, Laraine Porter and Justin Smith (eds) The Routledge Companion to British Cinema History (London: Taylor and Francis), 494-510.
Barker, M. K. Egan, T. Philips and S. Ralph (2016) Alien Audiences: Remembering and Evaluating a Classic Movie (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).
Egan, K. (2015) ‘Precious footage of the auteur at work: framing, accessing, using, and cultifying Vivian Kubrick’s Making the Shining’, New Review of Film and Television Studies 13: 1 pp. 63-82.
Egan, K. (2014) ‘The Evil Dead DVD Commentaries: Amateurishness and “Bad Film’ Discourse” in Claire Perkins and Constantine Verevis (eds) B is for Bad Cinema: Aesthetics, Politics and Cultural Value. New York: State University of New York Press.
Egan, K. and K. Leder-Mackley (2013) ‘The Same Old Song? Exploring Conceptions of the ‘Feelgood’ Film in the Talk of Mamma Mia’s Older Viewers’ in Louise Fitzgerald and Melanie Williams (eds) Mamma Mia! The Movie: Exploring a Cultural Phenomenon. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 127-144.
Egan, K and S. Thomas (eds) (2013) Cult Film Stardom: Offbeat Attractions and Processes of Cultification. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Egan, K. (2013) ‘A Real Horror Star: Articulating the Extreme Authenticity of Ingrid Pitt’ in Kate Egan and Sarah Thomas (eds) Cult Film Stardom: Offbeat Attractions and Processes of Cultification. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 212-225.
Egan, K. (2011) The Evil Dead (Cultographies Series). New York: Wallflower Press.
Egan. K. (2007) Trash or Treasure? Censorship and the Changing Meanings of the Video Nasties. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Barker M. and K. Egan (2007) ‘The Books, the DVDs, the Extras and Their Lovers’ in Martin Barker and Ernest Mathijs (eds) Watching The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien’s World Audiences. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 83-102.
Egan, K (2007) ‘The Celebration of a “Proper Product”: Exploring the Residual Collectible through the “Video Nasty”’ in Charles Acland (ed.) Residual Media: Residual Technologies and Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 200-221.
Egan, K. and M. Barker (2006) ‘Rings around the World: Notes on the Challenges, Problems and Possibilities of International Audience Projects’. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies 3:2 https://www.participations.org/volume%203/issue%202%20-%20special/3_02_eganbarker.htm
Egan, K. (2003) ‘The Amateur Historian and the Electronic Archive: Identity, Power and the Function of Lists, Facts and Memories on “Video Nasty”-Themed Websites’ Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media 3 (2003) https://intensitiescultmedia.com/2012/12/11/intensities-the-journal-of-cult-media-3-horror-issue-spring-2003/
Policy/Research Reports
Audiences and Receptions of Sexual Violence in Contemporary Cinema (with Martin Barker, Ernest Mathijs, Jamie Sexton, Russ Hunter, and Melanie Selfe)
A collaborative research project contracted and funded by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), 2006. The research project involved researchers from the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Aberystwyth University undertaking research focused on audience perceptions of sexual violence in controversial cinema; see report at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337389246_Audiences_and_Receptions_of_Sexual_Violence_in_Contemporary_Cinema_BBFC_Report
Recent Conferences & Talks
Keynote Talk:
‘Nostalgia for Pre-Digital Scares: Childhood Memories, Horror and 35mm’, Genre/Nostalgia Conference, University of Hertfordshire, January 2021
Conference Papers:
‘”So Well Acted” to “No Acting There!”: Ridley Scott’s Alien and Audience Responses to Performances in the “Chestburster” Sequence’, Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) conference, Atlanta, March 2016.
‘The Film that was Banned in Harrogate: Local Newspapers, Monty Python’s Life of Brian and the Expression of an Alternative Local Community’, Research Seminar at Edgehill University, March 2016.
‘Local Censorship, the BBFC and the Pythonesque: The British The Life of Brian Controversy’, Research Seminar at Northumbria University, January 2016.
‘”You’ve Never Seen Anything Like…”: The Criterion Collection’s Conceptions of Global Cult and Exploitation’, Global Exploitation Cinemas: Historical and Critical Approaches Conference, Lincoln, May 2015.
‘The Film that was Banned in Harrogate: Local Censorship, Local Newspapers and Monty Python’s Life of Brian’, Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) conference, Montreal, March 2015.
Conference Organisation:
Co-organiser (with Jamie Terrill), Researching Past Cinema Audiences Conference: Archives, Memories and Methods, Aberystwyth University, 26th- 28th March 2018, in association with the Media Industries and Institutions Research Cluster, Aberystwyth University, Keynote speakers: Professor Sue Harper, Portsmouth University and Professor Daniel Biltereyst, Ghent University, Belgium.
Examples of Public Engagement
Introduction to a 40th anniversary screening of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Dirt in the Gate Movies, The Shelley Theatre, Bournemouth, December 2019.
Interview about the 40th anniversary of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, ABC News Australia, August 2019.
Interview in The Digital Human episode ‘Ghoul’, BBC Radio Four, July 2019.
Interviews on BBC Good Morning Wales and BBC Good Morning Scotland about the Monty Python Memories project, August 2017.
‘Previously Banned: The Video Nasties and Moral Panic as Marketing Strategy on DVD’ given as part of the Trash or Treasure? The Politics of Genre Cinema conference, held as part of the fourth Kurja Polt Genre Film Festival (entitled ‘Repression and Revolt’), Ljubljana, Slovenia, April 2017.
Introduction to a rare 16mm screening of The Evil Dead, Dirt in the Gate Movies, The Shelley Theatre, Bournemouth, November 2015.
Interview contribution to the documentary Video Nasties: Draconian Days (Jake West, 2014).
Introduction to Countess Dracula, Abertoir: The National Horror Festival of Wales, 2010.
Interview about the screening of Monty Python’s Life of Brian at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre, March 2009, Sky News.
External funding/research grants
Aberystwyth University Research Fund:
July-Sept 2017: £497: to fund historical/archival research on British Local Censorship at the Glamorgan Archives, Cardiff, and the National Viewers and Listeners Association Archive, University of Essex.
May-Aug 2011: £300: to fund historical/archival research for a research project entitled ‘Film Censorship Controversies and Local Communities: The Case of The Life of Brian’.
Postgraduate Grant Awards
Co-applicant: Funding Body: Arts and Humanities Research Council, Scheme Title: Collaborative Doctoral Awards, Title of Project: ‘How Have Successive Developments in New Media Technologies Been Taken up and Used by Fans of Extreme Horror Films?’
Principal Applicant: Professor Martin Barker, Aberystwyth University, Amount awarded: £3,900, Application successful, commenced: 30/9/09. The successful applicant for this award (Emma Pett) completed, in July 2014, a PhD entitled ‘A Contested Category: British Audiences and Asian Extreme Films’, with Professor Barker as first supervisor, and myself as second supervisor.
Editorial Board and Peer Review Experience
Member of Editorial Board, Global Exploitation Cinemas book series (Bloomsbury), since 2020
Member of Editorial Board, Media History, since May 2016.
Member of Associate Editorial Board, Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, http://www.participations.org/index.htm, since 2008.
Kate has acted as a peer reviewer for journals such as Horror Studies, Media History, Participations, Journal of Popular Television, Journal of British Cinema and Television, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television and Feminist Media Studies.
Kate has also peer reviewed monographs and proposals for Bloomsbury, Edinburgh University Press, and Palgrave Macmillan.
Email
kate.egan@northumbria.ac.uk
Twitter
@kte75
Academia.edu page
https://northumbria.academia.edu/KateEgan