Staff Profile
Dr Steve Rawle
Associate Professor, School of the Arts Research and Knowledge Transfer Lead
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I am a graduate of York St John, having received a BA in Drama, Film and Television in 1997. Subsequently, I completed a research MLitt in 2000 and received my PhD, on performance in the films of Hal Hartley, from The University of Aberdeen in 2007. My principal teaching interest is film form and the relationship between history, cultural theory and the aesthetics and structure of film. Prior to my return at York St John in 2007, I was a teaching assistant at The University of Aberdeen, where I taught widely about film. I am a former student filmmaker and have practical experience working with the BBC and MTV. Furthermore, I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
- School – School of the Arts
- Email – s.rawle@yorksj.ac.uk
- Phone – 01904 876 584
- Research - View my work in RaY
Teaching
My teaching focuses largely on the intersections of history, industry, cultural change and film practice. I've taught widely across a number of degree programmes, including Film and TV Production, Film Studies, Journalism and Media Production. Several of my modules look at critical and analytical skills for students, embedding research skills and introducing first years to academic study. Further teaching is research-led and draws on my work on independent cinema and transnational cinemas, with a key interest in diverse storytelling and widening the taught canon beyond that previously established in the film studies and production disciplines. I also lead independent project and research modules at third year undergraduate and postgraduate level.
I also teach film practice, particularly short film drama and directing performances, providing students with insight into how to work with actors. With a particular focus on problem-based learning in production, I advocate both for experiential learning and blended approaches to theory and practice that I believe enrich both sides of a falsely constructed binary. My work also extends to engaging with film and television industries, largely through the Screen Industries Growth Network, to engage with ways in which students can enrich their experiences of HE by engaging with industry. In 2022, I organised a symposium that explored how HE curricula could provide both training for future careers and balance the needs of more traditional HE outcomes of critical thinking, research skills and soft skills that enable the leaders of the future to transform industries.
I have served as external examiner at Solent University for the BA in Film and TV Production and was previously an external at Bangor University for BAs in film and media and MA film-making. More recently, I have been an external for MA Documentary at Liverpool John Moores University. Furthermore, I have served as a member of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ Teaching Committee, who promote the development of pedagogy in film and media studies programmes internationally.
I also teach film practice, particularly short film drama and directing performances, providing students with insight into how to work with actors. With a particular focus on problem-based learning in production, I advocate both for experiential learning and blended approaches to theory and practice that I believe enrich both sides of a falsely constructed binary. My work also extends to engaging with film and television industries, largely through the Screen Industries Growth Network, to engage with ways in which students can enrich their experiences of HE by engaging with industry. In 2022, I organised a symposium that explored how HE curricula could provide both training for future careers and balance the needs of more traditional HE outcomes of critical thinking, research skills and soft skills that enable the leaders of the future to transform industries.
I have served as external examiner at Solent University for the BA in Film and TV Production and was previously an external at Bangor University for BAs in film and media and MA film-making. More recently, I have been an external for MA Documentary at Liverpool John Moores University. Furthermore, I have served as a member of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ Teaching Committee, who promote the development of pedagogy in film and media studies programmes internationally.
Research
I have published broadly on a range of topics relating to American independent cinema and cult Japanese cinema. I am the author of Performance in the Cinema of Hal Hartley and have also published several journal articles and book chapters on Hartley’s films and actors associated with his work. In 2018, my book Transnational Cinema: An Introduction was released, giving an overview of how cinema has changed in the era of globalisation and the intensification of border-crossing. Other published work covers issues relating to the reception and promotion of Japanese cinemas in the UK, especially the films of Takashi Miike and the kaiju eiga (monster movie). My most recent book looks at the global spread of the monster movie, from Godzilla to the cycle of Legendary Monsterverse films. It charts shifts in global cultural power and the ways in which popular cinema engages with tropes of transnational anxiety.
Along with Martin Hall and Lauren Stephenson, I am co-investigator on the Cinema and Social Justice Filmmaking project. Funded by the Screen Industries Growth Network, the project investigates how cinema engages audiences with questions of social justice and how young people understand faces that aim to challenge the status quo. The project also aims to inspire students to tell stories of their own experience with social justice topics. As part of the project, I co-executive produced the film Cost of Living. Commissioned by the project and made by the Yorkshire and North East Film Archives, the film reveals our collective memories of past economic crises, and the cries for social and economic justice that continue to ring so loudly in our ears today. The research project was nominated the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Practice Research Award in 2023 and the film has played multiple film festivals across the UK. The film has also been featured on BBC’s Look North, ITV Calendar, BBC Radio York and in a number of regional and national publications.
I have worked as peer reviewer for over a dozen journals and academic publishers. In 2011, I was the academic co-ordinator of an international conference exploring the partnership between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann. I also convened a conference in 2018 about transnational monstrosity in popular culture. In addition, I have presented many masterclasses and panels at the Aesthetica Short Film Festival with a range of organisations, including multiple film festivals, the British Film Institute, and several BAFTA and Oscar winners.
My research supervision has included PhDs on: spectacle in contemporary documentary; digital cellphone cinema; Hans Zimmer’s film music; transnational cultural flows in British Taiko drumming; transnational and transmedia narratives in The Witcher; representations of Jewish women in contemporary TV comedy; post-millennial teen and coming of age cinema; Native American and First Nation visual and performance artists. While I have also supervised MAs by research on video game adaptation and mythology, contemporary genre television and gender, British social realism, Killing Eve and queerness, Grunge design, the Hollywood studio system, and the films of Alfred Hitchcock. My other research interests include: Independent American Cinema; crowdfunding and transformations in film production processes; the relationship between Japanese, South Korean and Hong Kong cinemas and contemporary Hollywood; transnational cinema and genre; film acting; quality TV, technology and post-broadcast environments. Furthermore, I have examined several research degrees at UK institutions.
Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7908-8249
Publications
Books
- Transnational Monsters: Reframing Monstrosity and Global Crisis (ed. With Martin Hall) (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, forthcoming)
- Transnational Kaiju: Exploitation, Globalisation, and Cult Monster Movies (Edinburgh University Press, 2022)
- Transnational Cinema: An Introduction (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018)
- Partners in Suspense: Critical Essays on Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock (ed. with K. J. Donnelly) (Manchester University Press, 2016)
- Performance in the Cinema of Hal Hartley (Cambria, 2011)
- Basics-Filmmaking: The Language of Film (with Robert Edgar-Hunt and John Marland) (1st ed. AVA Books, 2010; 2nd ed. Fairchild/Bloomsbury, 2015)
Book Chapters
- The Dark Pedagogies of Kaijū in the Anthropocene, in eds. Rawle and Hall, Transnational Monsters: Reframing Monstrosity and Global Crisis (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, forthcoming)
- The Silent (Film) Woman: Sweet and Lowdown’s mute muse, in ed. Martin Hall, Women in the Work of Woody Allen (Amsterdam University Press, 2021)
- Globalizing Legendary Entertainment: Transnational Finance meets Transculturality, in eds. Uğur Baloğlu and Yıldız Derya Birincioğlu, Transcultural Images in Hollywood Cinema: Debates on Migration, Identity, and Finance (Lexington, 2021), 9-32
- How Godzilla vs. Kong Memes Turned Titans into Pandemic Superheroes, in eds. Elise Fong and Paul Booth, A Celebration of Superheroes (De Paul Popular Culture Conference, 2021), 280-302
- ‘Ōru kaijū dai shingeki (All monsters attack!): The regional and transnational exploitation of the kaijū eiga’, in eds. Ken Provencher and Mike Dillon, Exploiting East Asian Cinemas: Genre, Circulation, Reception (Bloomsbury, 2018), 37-62
- ‘The locality of Hal Hartley: the aesthetics and business of smallness’, in ed. Steven Rybin, The Cinema of Hal Hartley: Flirting with Formalism (Columbia University Press, 2017), 60-76
- ‘How Could You Possibly be a Hitchcocko-Herrmannian?: Digitally Re-narrativizing Collaborative Authorship’, in eds. Rawle & Donnelly, Partners in Suspense: Critical Essays on Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock (Manchester University Press, 2016), 197-210
- ‘Waitress (2007): Tragedy and Authorship in an Indie ‘Meta-movie’’, in eds. Claire Perkins and Constantine Verevis, S Independent Filmmaking After 1989: Possible Films (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 177-186
- ‘The Ultimate Super-Happy-Zombie-Romance-Murder-Mystery-Family-Comedy-Karaoke-Disaster-Movie-Part-Animated-Remake-All-Singing-All-Dancing-Musical-Spectacular-Extravaganza: Miike Takashi’s The Happiness of the Katakuris as “cult” hybrid”’, in eds. Leon Hunt, Sharon Lockyer and Milly Williamson, Screening the Undead: Vampires and Zombies in Film and Television (IB Tauris, 2013), 208-232
- ‘Hal Hartley’s “Look-out-Martin-Donovan’s-in the-house!’ shot”: The transformative cult indie star-director relationship and performance “idiolect”’ in eds. Kate Egan and Sarah Thomas, Cult Film Stardom: Offbeat Attractions and Processes of Cultification (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013), 126-143
- ‘Reconstructing the Past: Visual Virtuality in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’, in eds. Terence McSweeney, Amresh Sinha, Millennial Cinema: Memory in Global Film (Wallflower/Columbia University Press, 2012), 37-54
- ‘Video Killed the Movie: Cultural Translation in Ringu and The Ring’, in ed. Kristen Lacefield, The Scary Screen: Media Anxiety in The Ring (Ashgate, 2010), 97-114
- ‘Real-imagining Terror in Battlestar Galactica: Negotiating Real and Fantasy in BSG’s Political Metaphor’, in eds. Roz Kaveney and Jennifer Stoy, Battlestar Galactica: Investigating Flesh, Spirit and Steel (IB Tauris, 2010), 129-153
Journal Articles
- Guest editor,"Size Really Does Matter: Giant Monsters in Global Popular Culture", Humanities, 2022-3, https://www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities/special_issues/0418802S92
- ‘Ringing One Missed Call: franchising, transnational flows and genre production’, East Asian Journal of Popular Culture 1:1, 2015: 97-112
- ‘Transnational, Transgeneric, Transgressive: Tracing Miike Takashi’s Yakuza Cyborgs to Sukiyaki Westerns’, Asian Cinema, 22:1, Spring/Summer 2011: 83-98
- ‘From The Black Society to The Isle: Miike Takashi and Kim Ki-Duk at the Intersection of Asia Extreme’, Journal of Japanese & Korean Cinema2, 2009: 167-184
- ‘Hal Hartley and the Re-Presentation of Repetition’, Film Criticism1, Fall 2009: 58-75
Book Reviews
- American Smart Cinema by Claire Perkins, Journal of American Studies of Turkey 38, Fall 2013, 95-98
- Not Hollywood: Independent Film at the Twilight of the American Dream by Sherry B. Ortner; Indie, Inc.: Miramax and the Transformation of Hollywood in the 1990s by Alisa Perren; Hollywood’s Indies: Classics Divisions, Specialty Labels and the American Film Market by Yannis Tzioumakis, Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies, February 2014
Other Articles
- ‘"The biggest star in the world": re-animating the king in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)’, Fantasy/Animation 3 March 2020.
- ‘Sam Mendes’ 1917 – and five other films that really are continuous single takes’, The Conversation, 12 December 2019, https://theconversation.com/sam-mendes-1917-and-five-other-films-that-really-are-continuous-single-takes-128278
- ‘Hollywood’s mega-monsters head back east’, The Conversation 3 July 2018, http://theconversation.com/hollywoods-mega-monsters-head-back-east-98675
Conferences
Conferences
- Convener, Screen Industries Education: a curriculum fit for all purposes?, Screen Industries Growth Network, April 20th 2022, York St John University
- Convener, Of Borders and Monsters: Transnational Monstrosity in Popular Culture, June 3rd, 2017, York St John University
- Academic co-ordinator, Partners in Suspense: Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock, an international symposium, March 24-26th 2011, York
- Partners in Suspense also included a public season of films organised in conjunction with City Screen Picturehouse in York, and performances by The Tippett Quartet
Conference Presentations
- Giant Mobilities: The Case of Trans-East Asian Kaijū Movies, De-Westernizing Horror Cinema, King’s College London, November 2022
- The absent cult auteur: the disappearance of Ishirō Honda, Cine-Excess XVI: Mavericks, Rebels and Rule Breakers in Cult Film, October 2022
- How Godzilla vs. Kong Memes Turned Titans into Pandemic Superheroes, De Paul Popular Culture Conference: A Celebration of Superheroes, May 2021
- ‘Will the True Godzilla Please Stand Up?: Putting the National Back into Transnational Monster Movies’, Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, Toronto, March 2018
- ‘The Silent (Film) Woman: Sweet and Lowdown’s mute muse’, Men Writing Women: Women in the Work of Woody Allen and Beyond, York, January 2018
- ‘Kaijū the world: The transnational kaijū eiga and genrifying fandom’ Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, Chicago, March 2017
- ‘Godzilla, Gorgo and… Superman? Cultification through Generic Fragmentation in the Kaijū eiga’, Cine-Excess X, Birmingham, November 2016
- ‘Ōru kaijū dai shingeki (All monsters attack!): The regional and transnational exploitation of the kaijū eiga’, Global Exploitation Cinema conference, Lincoln, May 2015
- ‘Up from the depths’: The transnational encounter between Godzilla and Gojira’, Global Studies Association Conference, York, June 2014
- ‘Muddying local and transnational barriers: crowdfunding's interventions in independent filmmaking’, MeCCSA conference, Bournemouth, January 2014
- 'Transcending nation(ality): Film Studies and the Transnational Researcher', Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, Chicago, March 2013
- “Nobody even knew there was a book”: Global Remaking-by-Numbers in One Missed Call (2008)’, Cultural Translation and East Asia Conference, Bangor, September 2012
- ‘An Actor Ages: The Actor’s Subjectivity, Aging and Television’, Playing the Small Screen symposium, York, July 2012
- ‘Cross-Cultural Film Remakes’ (roundtable participant), Media Across Borders conference, London, June 2012
- ‘Industry-Standard Practice/Critical Theory: A Pedagogical Response for Overcoming Binarism’ (workshop presentation: ‘Teaching Film Studies in a Broadcast Environment’), Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, Boston, March 2012
- ‘Performance and the Indie Film Star: Negotiating Hollywood, Television, and Independent Cinema Labour Structures’, Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, Boston, March 2012
- ‘How Could You Possibly be a Hitchcocko-Herrmannian?: Digitally Re-narrativizing Collaborative Authorship’, Partners in Suspense: Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock, York, March 2011
- ‘Reconfiguring Independence: Dispersed Space and Digital Authorship’, Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, New Orleans, March 2011
- ‘Body of fiction, fiction of (social) bodies: The Monstrous Case of Hal Hartley’s No Such Thing’, Cine-Excess IV: the Fourth International Conference on Global Cult Film, London, April 2010
- ‘Visitor M: The Selling of Miike Takashi as an International Auteur’, Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Los Angeles, March 2010
- ‘The Ultimate Super-Happy-Zombie-Romance-Murder-Mystery-Family-Comedy-Karaoke-Disaster-Movie-Part-Animated-Remake-All-Singing-All-Dancing-Musical-Spectacular-Extravaganza: Miike Takashi’s The Happiness of the Katakuris as “cult” hybrid’, Cine-Excess III: An International Conference on Global Cult Film Traditions, London, May 2009
- ‘“I am Iron Man”: Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo and the New Kaiju Eiga’, Cine-Excess II: An International Conference on Global Cult Film Traditions, London, May 2008
- ‘The Black Society to The Isle: Miike Takashi and Kim Ki-Duk at the Intersection of Asia Extreme’, Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Philadelphia, March 2008
- ‘International Horror Cinema and the Spectre of War’, Hidden Histories: Global Education Seminar, York, January 2008
- ‘DOA?: The “Other” Miike Takashi’, Cine-Excess: An International Conference on Global Cult Film Traditions, London, May 2007
- ‘Reconstructing the Past: Visual Virtuality in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’, Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Chicago, March 2007
- ‘Eternal Recurrence of the Same: Compulsions to Repeat in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, Screen Studies Conference, Glasgow, July 2005
- ‘Somebody’s Watching You: Performance in the Public Eye in Hal Hartley’s Flirt’, Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, London, April 2005
- ‘Repeating the Essential: Hal Hartley, Repetition and the Notion of Cult’, Association for Research in Popular Fictions’ Audiences Conference, Liverpool, November 2004
- ‘Animated Chaos: Violence, gesture and body motion in Hal Hartley’s The New Math(s) and the films of Chuck Jones’, Shifting Boundaries, 1st Annual College of Arts and Social Sciences' Postgraduate Conference, University of Aberdeen, June 2004
Invited talks and Public Engagement
- Keynote panel: Cinema and Social Justice and the Yorkshire Film Archive, Heritage, Community, Archives: Methods, Case Studies, Collaboration, Sheffield Hallam University, June 2023
- Cost of Living, The Future is Northern: Skills and Training Conference, Screen Industries Growth Network, March 2023
- Filmmaker Q&A – Shorts Competition, panel discussion, Hebden Bridge Film Festival, March 2023
- Can Film Affect Change?, panel discussion, Hebden Bridge Film Festival, March 2023
- Cinema and Social Justice, Conversations in Social Justice Podcast, March 2023, https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/isj/episodes/Cinema-and-Social-Justice-e20biua
- ‘The One with Steve Rawle’, interviewee, Kaiju Curry House Podcast, November 2022, http://ukkaiju.com/transnational-kaiju-exploitation-globalisation-and-cult-monster-movies
- Chair, Filmmaker Insights Panel: Establishing a Unique Style; Building Your Crew: How to Find a Producer; host, Closing Awards Ceremony, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, November 2022
- Chair, The A-Z of Filmmaking: Turning an Idea into Reality; Documentary Filmmaking: Delivering Authenticity; Independent Filmmaking: Working to Budget; Funding Models: Accessing Finance, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, November 2021
- Chair, From Idea to Reality: Bringing a Vision to Life; Recipe for Success: Producing Award-Winning Film, in conversation with producer David Parfitt, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York (virtual), November 2020
- Transnational Kaiju, School of Languages and Linguistics Colloquium, York St John University, April 2020
- Everything I know about the world, I learned from kaiju movies, Pint of Science York, March 2020 (invited but cancelled due to Covid-19)
- Chair, The A-Z of Filmmaking; BFI Network Masterclass; Programmers Secrets: Film Festival Insights Masterclass; In conversation with producer and BFI executive Mary Burke, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, November 2019
- Chair, Coffee Morning: From Script to Screen: Developing a Must-See; BFI Network Masterclass; Programmer Insights: Finding Success at Festivals, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, November 2018
- Chair, 2016 Showcase Screenings + Q & A; Coffee Morning: Understanding the Process from Script to Screen; York St John Media Production Showcase, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, November 2017
- Chair, Q&A with Adam Shakinovsky, producer of Acoustic Kitty, Aesthetica Short Film Festival Showcase, York, June 2017
- Chair, Programming Film Festivals Masterclass (involving programmers from six major UK national and international film festivals), Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York November 2016
- Chair, 2015 Showcase Screenings + Q & A, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, November 2016
- Chair, 5th Anniversary Screening + Q & A, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, November 2015
- Chair, Evolution of Short Film Masterclass, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, November 2015
- ‘Tragedy and the legacy of an Indie ‘Meta-Movie’: Adrienne Shelly and Waitress (2007)’, Indie Cinema (and Women) symposium, Liverpool, May 2015
- Introduction/interviewer, Japanese Screening, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, November 2014
- ‘The Cinematic Frame of the Contemporary Television: Aesthetics, Technology and Breaking Bad’, TV is the New Cinema Symposium, Liverpool, May 2014
- 'Digital independent cinema, authorship, and crowdfunding: An alternative approach to conceptualising cinema outside the Hollywood system', Research Seminar Series, Aberystwyth University, 4 May 2012
- Public Introduction, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, November 2012
- Media and additional public talks: appearances on BBC Radio York, BBC Radio Leeds, Yorvik Radio, ITV Calendar, That’s York TV & introductions at City Screen & Everyman Cinema, York
External Research Funding, Consultancy, Awards and Film Credits
External Research Funding
- 2023: North Yorkshire County Council, ‘The Workforce Gap in North Yorkshire Screen Industries: Perceptions of Skills and Inclusion Gaps Amongst Screen Industry Employers’, Project Lead, £15000
- 2022: Screen Industries Growth Network, Cinema and Social Justice Filmmaking, Co-PI, £17500
Consultancy
- 2023: North Yorkshire County Council, ‘The Workforce Gap in North Yorkshire Screen Industries: Perceptions of Skills and Inclusion Gaps Amongst Screen Industry Employers’
- 2019: Guild of Media Arts, ‘The Need for Film Production Services in York’
Awards
- 2023: British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies, Practice Research Award, Nominee (with Martin Hall and Lauren Stephenson), Cost of Living. Special Mention.
Film Credits
- Executive Producer, Cost of Living, 2022
- Commissioned by The Cinema and Social Justice Project, funded by Screen Industries Growth Network, produced by Yorkshire and North East Film Archive
- Nominee, FOCAL International Awards, Best Use of Archive in a Short Production
- Project details and press (Sunderland Echo, BBC Online, The Big Issue, The Film Magazine, Newcastle Chronicle, Yorkshire Post, BBC Look North, ITV Calendar): https://filmfreeway.com/projects/2595044
View film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23gNHStA5Cw
