Who's who
Dr Dario Llinares
Lecturer
BA, MA, PhD
Academic interests
I attended Sheffield Hallam University between 1999 and 2002 studying Film History, Theory and Criticism. The course not only enhanced by fascination with all things cinema but it introduced me a wide range of cultural theory. After completing the BA I enrolled on an MA in Cultural Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University. This course deepened my interest cultural and social theory - particularly structuralism and post-structuralism, notions of discourse and power, gender theory and links between representation and identity - which have influenced my teaching and research ever since. My MA thesis - entitled Contemporary Cinema and the Representation of Masculinity in Postmodern Society - interrogated expressions of masculine 'crisis' in films such as Fight Club, American Psycho and American Beauty.
After completing the MA I began studying for a PhD at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies (CIGS) in the University of Leeds. The centre provided a challenging and exciting environment for postgraduate study and also gave me a grounding in gender theory and methodogy which informed my project.
Supervised by Professor Ruth Holliday, (Director of Studies at CIGS), and Dr Denis Flannery (Senior Lecturer in American Literature) my thesis focused on cultural constructions of masculinity developing ideas around how the media produces idealised iconographies and mythologies around particular masculine forms. I wanted my project to interrogate this process, how it worked, how discourses of power and gender hierarchies emerge, and how such meanings shift over time. I decided to focus my analysis on one specific image of idealised masculinity: The Astronaut. Each chapter deals with a different media form - photography, journalism, literature and film - and examines the textual and contextual dynamics which have served to embed the astronaut as an iconic figure in the cultural imaginary. I completed my viva on 27 November 2009 and graduated in July 2010. My thesis was published by Cambridge Scholars Press in August 2011 as a single authored monograph entitled The Astronaut: Cultural Mythology and Idealised Masculinity.
Throughout my PhD study I lectured on a part-time basis in Media, Communications and Culture (Leeds Metropolitan University), Gender Studies, Cultural Studies and Sociology (University of Leeds), and Television Studies (University of York). In my new role as Lecturer in Film and Digital Media at University College Falmouth I will be teaching on Criticism, Analysis, Theory (Level 1), Film, Postmodernity and New Media (Level 2) and British Cinema (Level 2)
Recent outputs
I have just finished co-organising a conference with Dr Zoe Thompson and Dr Fiona Philip entitled Austere Cultures/Cultures of Austerity: Reactions to the Erosion of Critical Spaces, which took place at Leeds Metropolitan University, 8-9 September 2011.
Current projects/forthcoming outputs
I am engaged in a range of ongoing research projects. I am co-editing a special edition of Journal of European Popular Culture (September 2012) and an edited collection which will publish the best work from the conference. I am also writing an article on representations of violence, masculinity and the prison as an arena of cinematic spectacle, focused on two British films: Hunger (McQueen, 2008) and Bronson (Refn, 2009) and am preparing to write a article on non military heroism for an collection edited by Dr John Price.
Contact
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