Dr Matthew Jones

Matthew is a specialist on mid-twentieth century British cinema and audiences. He is particularly interested in the relationship between cinema and memory, popular film and television genres, and the social experience of cinema-going. He holds a British Academy Rising Stars Engagement Awards grant on ‘Cinema, Memory and the Community’ and his next monograph, ‘Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain: Recontextualising the Golden Age’ will be published by Bloomsbury in 2017. He has worked with colleagues at UCL on a major AHRC-funded project, ‘Cultural Memory and British Cinema-going of the 1960s’ and is currently co-authoring a monograph on this topic. He also produced an immersive theatre experience to deliver public impact from this research. With Dr Joan Ormrod (Manchester Metropolitan University) he has edited a collection of essays on time travel narratives in various media formats.

Cinema and Television History (CATH)

Click here to view a full listing of Matthew Jones' publications and outputs.

• Cultural memory
• Cinema-going
• Cinema audiences
• 1950s and 1960s film history
• Film and television genres
• Science fiction cinema and television

• Film and television audiences
• Fan cultures
• Film reviewing

• BA Hons Drama (University of Manchester)
• MA Screen Studies (University of Manchester)
• PhD (University of Manchester)

• MEDS3401: Audiences and Fandom
• FILM1401: Writing, Reviewing and Film Criticism

• British Academy Rising Stars Engagement Awards - ‘Cinema, Memory and the Community’, March 2016
• De Montfort University Oscars Award - ‘innovation in internationalisation’,  2016 (Finalist)
• De Montfort University Oscars Award - ‘contribution to the University’s globalisation’, 2015 (Finalist)
• MeCCSA Conference Poster Paper Award - ‘Hunting psychos: Using Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and Gus Van Sant’s Psycho (1998) to destabilise American performance tradition’,  2008

• History of Moviegoing, Exhibition and Reception research network (HoMER)
• Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA)
• British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS)

Invited talks/keynote lectures:

• ‘1960s Cinema-going – Live’. AHRC-funded Still Swinging: 1960s British Cinema and Popular Culture in the 21st Century conference. September 2016. University of East Anglia.
• ‘The 1930s in the 1960s: Memory, Periodization and the Ghosts of Decades Past’. AHRC-funded Frameworks for British Film History conference. April 2016. University of York.
• ‘Reigniting the Blaze: Hammer’s Unmade Remake of The Day the Earth Caught Fire’. Hammer Film Productions: A Laboratory for Modern Horror. June 2015. Paris.

Conference / symposium papers:

• ‘Living Memories: Connecting Modern and Historical Cinema Audiences through Immersive Theatre’. NECS. July 2016. Potsdam.
• ‘Opening the Archive: British Film Periodicals’. Co-presented with Prof Steve Chibnall. Turning the Page – DICIS and NORMMA conference. November 2016. Ghent.
• ‘Leicester Goes to the Pictures: A Collaborative Approach to Local Cinema History’. What is Cinema History? – HoMER annual conference. June 2015. Glasgow.
• ‘Capturing the Intangible: The Physical Forms of Leicester’s Cinema-going Memories’. SCMS. March 2015. Montreal.
• Roundtable discussion on cultural memory. Mediated Pasts: Visual Cultures and Collective Memory conference. June 2014. De Montfort University, Leicester.
• ‘“Windows on the world”: Memories of European cinema in 1960s Britain’. Co-presented with Prof Melvyn Stokes. NECS. June 2014. Milan.
• ‘Cultural Memory and Rural British Cinema-going of the 1960s’. Associate Research Fellow Day, Cinema and Television History Research Centre. May 2014. De Montfort University, Leicester.
• ‘Cultural Memory and British Cinema-going of the 1960s’. Co-presented with Dr Melvyn Stokes. 23rd International Screen Studies Conference. June 2013. Glasgow.
• Invited presentation at ‘Life Beyond the Screen PhD’ postgraduate training conference. University of Manchester. June 2013. Manchester.
• Plenary address and ‘Why Bother with Film History?: Facing Up to Research Impact’. Impact - Cultivating Research postgraduate symposium. May 2012. University of Manchester.
• ‘The British Reception of 1950s Science Fiction Cinema’. Screen Research seminar series. April 2012. University of Salford.
• ‘Carries Bradshaw Tells You Lies: Surface and Depth in Sex and the City (2008)’. Co-presented with Ally Khalid. Screen research seminar series. March 2009. University of Manchester.
• ‘Army of Ghosts: Sight, Knowledge and the Invisible Aggressor in Doctor Who’. Film and History conference. November 2008. Chicago, Illinois.
• ‘Army of Ghosts: Sight, Knowledge and the Invisible Aggressor in Doctor Who’. Whoniversal Appeal: An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference on Doctor Who and Its Spin-Offs. November 2008. Cardiff.
• ‘Gender in Peril: Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)’. Screen Research seminar series. May 2008. University of Manchester.
• ‘Parallel Worlds: Investigating Gendered Audience Responses to the Double in Parallel World Science Fiction Television’. Alternate Visions: Trash/Cult/Experimental/Avant-Garde/Extreme Cinema and Television conference. April 2008. Plymouth, New Hampshire.
• ‘Parallel Worlds: Investigating Gendered Audience Responses to the Double in Parallel World Science Fiction Television’. Southwest and Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Associations conference. February 2008. Albuquerque, New Mexico.
• ‘Hunting Psychos: Using Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and Gus Van Sant’s Psycho (1998) to Destabilise American Performance Tradition’. Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) conference. January 2008. Cardiff.

• Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain: Recontextualising the Golden Age. London and New York: Bloomsbury. In press.
• Cultural Memory and British Cinema-going of the 1960s. Co-authored with Prof Melvyn Stokes and Dr Emma Pett. London: BFI Palgrave Macmillan. Forthcoming 2017.
• ‘Memories of British Cinema’, in I. Q. Hunter, Laraine Porter and Justin Smith (eds.). Routledge History of British Cinema. London: Routledge. In press.
• ‘Windows on the World: Memories of European Cinemas in 1960s Britain’. Memory Studies. Co-authored with Melvyn Stokes. In press.
• ‘Far from Swinging London: Memories of Non-urban Cinema-going in 1960s Britain’, in Judith Thissen and Clemens Zimmerman (eds.). Cinema Beyond the City: Small-Town and Rural Film Culture in Europe. London: BFI. In press.
• ‘Monsters of Hammer: A Screen Bestiary’. A public exhibition of materials from the Hammer Scripts Archive. Heritage Centre, De Montfort University. October 2016 – May 2017. Curator.
• ‘Leicester Cinema History’. A public exhibition based on research into the cinema-going history of Leicester. Heritage Centre, De Montfort University. October 2016 – May 2017. Curator.
• ‘A Night at the Cinema in the 1960s’. Two large-scale immersive theatre performances recreating the experience of 1960s cinema-going. Picture house Central, London (July 2016) and Phoenix Cinema, Leicester (March 2016). Director, producer and actor.
• Time Travel in Popular Media: Essays on Film, Television, Literature and Video Games. Co-edited with Dr Joan Ormrod. 2015. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
•  ‘1950s Science Fiction Cinema’s Depersonalisation Narratives in Britain’. Science Fiction Film and Television, 7 (1). January 2014. 31-54.
• ‘Post-colonial Britain?: David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia in History and Memory’. British Politics Review 8 (4). Autumn 2013. 11-13. Co-authored with Melvyn Stokes.   ‘Butch Girls, Brittle Boys and Sexy, Sexless Cylons: Some Gender Problems in Battlestar Galactica’, in Roz Kaveney and Jennifer Stoy (eds.). 2010. Reading Battlestar Gallactica: Flesh, Spirit and Steel. London: I. B. Tauris. 154-184.
• ‘Aliens of London: (Re)reading National Identity in Doctor Who’, in Christopher Hansen (ed.). 2010. Ruminations, Peregrinations and Regenerations: A Critical Approach to Doctor Who. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 85-99.
• ‘Army of Ghosts: Sight, Knowledge and the Invisible Terrorist in Doctor Who’, in Melissa Beattie, Una McCormack and Ross Garner (eds.). 2010. Impossible Worlds, Impossible Things: Cultural Perspectives on Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 45-61.

• Rebecca Jones, PhD, 1st supervisor – Female robots and androids in science fiction film and television
• Georgina Griffiths, MRes, 1st supervisor – The Rocky Horror Show and online audiences
• Kieran Foster, PhD, 2nd supervisor – Hammer’s unmade films
• B Jones, PhD, 2nd supervisor – Adaptations of The Avengers

‘Cinema, Memory and the Community’, British Academy, Rising Star Engagement Awards, March 2016-March 2017, Primary investigator.

• DMU Square Mile community projects, De Montfort University. ‘Mapping Leicester Cinema History’. 2016. £2500. Principal investigator.
• Research Investment Fund competition, De Montfort University. ‘Developing and testing an impact delivery prototype for cinema history research using immersive theatre techniques’. 2015. £3,775. Principal investigator.
• Interdisciplinary Resource Sharing Fund competition, De Montfort University. ‘Opening the archives – Mass resource digitisation’. 2015. £733. Principal investigator.
• Research Capital Investment Fund competition, De Montfort University. ‘Media, history and the digital document’. 2014. £25,000. Principal investigator.

Impact projects:

• Curated two exhibitions at Leicester’s Heritage Centre on Hammer Film Productions and the history of cinema-going in the city. October 2016 – May 2017.
• Organisation of two large immersive theatre events informed by my research on 1960s cinema-going. Picturehouse Central, London and Phoenix, Leicester. March and June 2016.
• Lecture and screening of Pleasure Domes and Flea Pits: Leicester’s Cinema History (2015), a documentary film that I produced which emerged from my research on the history of Leicester cinema-going. Directed by Kieran Chauhan.

Media appearances:

•  ‘The Future of Binge Watching’. The Guardian, print edition and website. 17 October 2016.
• Interviewed about my exhibition on Hammer Film Productions at Leicester’s Heritage Centre. BBC Radio Leicester. October 2016.
• Interviewed for ‘Hammer horror archive opens to public for first time’. BBC News website. October 2014. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-29832511.
• Interviewed for Who is Who? BBC Radio 4. November 2013.
• Interviewed by PodAcademy for a podcast about my research into 1960s cinema memories. July 2013. http://podacademy.org/podcasts/lives-through-a-lens/.
• Numerous appearances on BBC Leicester and articles in Times Higher Education, The Independent and various local newspapers.

Public lectures:

• ‘Locating Leicester Cinema History’. Phoenix Arts Centre, Leicester. 9th September 2015.
• ‘This is Where We Came In: Memories of ‘60s Cinema-going’. UCL Festival of the Arts. 28th May 2014.
• ‘Remembering Kes’. Theatre Royal, Wakefield. 20th October 2013.
• ‘Memories of 1960s Cinema-going’. Bedford Public Library. 16th October 2013.
• ‘Remembering 1960s Cinema-going in London’. Jacksons Lane. London. 26th September 2013.
• ‘Remembering Dr. No’. Eden Court, Inverness. 15th September 2013.
• ‘Remembering Breakfast at Tiffanys’. Delivered on the Screen Machine mobile cinema in Tomintoul, Newtonmore and Fort William. September 2013.
• ‘Remembering Bonnie and Clyde’. The Cinema Museum, London. 17th July 2013.
• ‘Smoking at the Odeon: Memories of 1960s Cinema-going’. UCL Festival of the Arts. 10th May 2013.

www.cinemamemories.org