Staff Profile
Dr Keith McDonald
Senior Lecturer: Media & Film Studies
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I hold a PhD from Birkbeck College, University of London and I'm a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies and Media at York St John University. I am the co-author of:
Guillermo del Toro: Film as Alchemic Art (Bloomsbury, 2015) and Contemporary Gothic and Horror Film: Transnational Perspectives (Anthem Press, 2021).
I am currently involved in teaching and writing on popular media and collective memory. Other interests include pedagogy, transnational media and film stardom.
- School – School of Humanities
- Email – k.mcdonald@yorksj.ac.uk
- Phone – 01904 876 768
Books and Reviews
Books
Film and TV Textual Analysis: A Teachers Guide (Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Books, 2006)
The book provides the Film & Media Studies tutor with a comprehensive introduction to the subjects and a range of approaches to teaching textual analysis. The guide introduces the key concepts and the analytical tools required and explores ways in which they can be applied to the study of the media and film in educational contexts.
Reviews
Regular contributions to ‘Scope’, Nottingham University’s Academic Web Journal of Film & ‘The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies’
Articles and Reports
'A constant transit of finding': fantasy as realisation in Pan’s Labyrinth
Keith McDonald. Children’s Literature in Education. March 2010 pp. 52-63.
This article explores the ways in which Guillermo del Toro uses fantasy tropes to engage with the political and enter into a dialogue with Spanish history.
"I Can See My House from Here." Google Street View and Resistance. Queen: A Journal of Rhetoric and Power. 2010.
This article investigates recent resistances to Google Street View in the context of post-structuralist concepts of power, agency and surveillance.
“You don’t even look like a real female. You look…better.” Gender, Invasion and Fantasy in the Luna Brother’s Girls. Proteus: SA Journal of Ideas. Fall 2009 pp.53-59.
This article explores invasion narratives in genre fiction and the ways in which the graphic novel Girls both extends and subverts invasion tropes for a comic reading audience.
‘A Report on the Relevance of Language Barriers to Work Based Learning/Employer Engagement.’ Sep 2008
This report was commissioned by The York and Humber East Lifelong Learning Network (YHELLN) and provides a survey of where language barriers have been identified as problematic in employer engagement and work based learning (WBL) initiatives.
‘Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go as Speculative Memoir’. Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, Feb 2007 pp. 74-83
This article considers Kazuo Ishiguro's dystopian novel Never Let Me Go as a text which utilizes memoir as a Science-Fictional mode in order to engage with contemporary and historic ideological debates.
‘Exploring Non Narrative Forms of Delivery and Multi Modal Literacy in the Teaching of Complex Subjects.’ York College Learning Development Unit, 2006
This report was commissioned by the York College Research and Development Unit and concerned the use of images, music and virtual spaces in the teaching of philosophy.
Conferences and Events
Nov 2009 ‘Comic Books and Reader Response Theory’, Leeds University: Possibilities and Perspectives Conference.
Dec 2008 ‘Exploring Web 2.0 Platforms for Student Critical Engagement’, Northumbria University: Beyond the Essay Conference.
Sep 2007 ‘Cross Arts Assessment and Multi-Modal Literacy’, York St John: Teaching & Learning Conference.
Nov 2006 ‘Film and Gender: David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence as Masculine Dilemma’, Glasgow University: Return to Gender Conference.
May 2002 ‘Gender Representation in Film and Television’ British Film Institute: Annual Media Studies Conference.
Nov 2001 ‘Aids and Representation’, Birkbeck College: Forbidden Knowledge Conference.
