Staff in Film and Creative Writing



Head of Department

Dr Richard Langley

Dr Richard Langley

Lecturer in Film
Head of Department of Film and Creative Writing

With an academic grounding in American and Canadian Studies, and professional experience of television and film production, I am interested in multidisciplinary approaches to teaching and research. In particular, I am keen to develop a fusion of theory and practise by way of a multifaceted audio-visual academia that can function as a versatile teaching tool, and as a mode of publication and ...

Academic staff

Dr Kavita Bhanot

Teaching Fellow

I am a writer, translator, editor, researcher and organiser. I have edited three short-story collections, including Too Asian, not Asian Enough and Book of Birmingham. I also co-edited Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation with translator Jeremy Tiang and my translation of Anjali Kajal’s Hindi stories Ma is Scared was published recently. My work unpacks how literature can perpetuate ...

Dr Isabel Galleymore

Dr Isabel Galleymore

Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing

Ecopoetics, environmental writing, and interdisciplinary practice.

Dr Dai George

Dr Dai George

Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing (Poetry)

I am a poet, critic and novelist, with an academic specialism in modern poetry and syntax. I have published two collections of poetry and am currently working on a general audience nonfiction book called How to Think Like a Poet.

Professor Ruth Gilligan

Professor Ruth Gilligan

Professor in Creative Writing

Contemporary literature, transnational fiction, form and narratology, Irish Studies.

Dr Richard House

Dr Richard House

Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing

Long-form fiction and screenwriting, and I have an interest in writing for new forms (performance, live art, and for digital platforms).

Nina Jones

Nina Jones

Film Manager

As the department's Film Manager my work focuses on making sure all the students have access to the best filmmaking equipment and professional expertise we can offer, as well as managing these resources by keeping them aligned with the evolving digital media landscapes.
  
I also have a lead role in teaching the students how to use anything from cameras, microphones and lenses all the way ...

Professor Luke Kennard

Professor Luke Kennard

Professor of Creative Writing

Prose poem, Absurdist and Surrealist technique in contemporary poetry, Transatlantic influence and publishing trends in contemporary British poetry

Dr Catherine Lester

Dr Catherine Lester

Associate Professor in Film and Television

My current research focuses on the intersections between children’s culture and the horror genre. My other teaching and research interests include children’s cinema, animation, and representation in film and television.

Dr Anna Metcalfe

Dr Anna Metcalfe

Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Writing

Short stories, interculturality, human rights narratives and fiction in translation (especially from French and Mandarin).

Dr Chris Nunn

Dr Chris Nunn

Assistant Professor of Film (Education Focused)

Chris Nunn is the former Festival Director of Screentest: The UK’s National Student Film Festival, and has been championing aspiring filmmaking talent for nearly a decade. Passionate about filmmaking education, he has recently completed his PhD entitled Towards a New Film Pedagogy: Recrafting Undergraduate Filmmaking Education for an Expanded Field (2019) and plans to continue and broaden ...

Dr Bohdan Piasecki

Dr Bohdan Piasecki

Assistant Professor

I am a poet with a background in performance and interests in multilingualism/translation, site specific work, and hybrid storytelling.

Dr Ellena Savage

Dr Ellena Savage

Teaching Fellow

Ellena Savage (she/her) is an Australian author and scholar. Her debut essay collection Blueberries (Text Publishing and Scribe UK, 2020) was shortlisted for the 2021 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and longlisted for the Stella Prize.

Dr Alaina Schempp

Dr Alaina Schempp

Lecturer in Film

My academic film research focuses on cognition, emotions, and timing in moving images. I specialise in the micro-analysis of comic and suspense timing in contemporary cinema, especially genres such as comedy, action, horror, and the suspense-thriller. My other research interests include analytic-cognitive media studies (e.g. video games, comics, and online video) as well as analytic-cognitive ...

Professor Rob Stone

Professor Rob Stone

Professor of Film Studies
Co-director of B-Film: The Birmingham Centre for Film Studies

World Cinema, European Cinema, American Independent Cinema, Spanish, Basque, Cuban and Latin American Cinema, Film Theory. Film and Philosophy, The Politics of Film Aesthetics.

Dr Dan Vyleta

Dr Dan Vyleta

Reader in Creative Writing and Literary Studies

Ethics and aesthetics of the literature of perpetration; ethical and epistemological implications of aesthetic choices made in fiction more generally; theories outlining the role of narrative for our lives in a wide variety of contexts.

Professor James Walters

Professor James Walters

Professor of Screen Aesthetics and Criticism

Fantasy film and television, film aesthetics and close analysis, television studies, political satire, performance, Hollywood, film and television criticism.

Dr Christina Wilkins

Dr Christina Wilkins

Lecturer in Film and Creative Writing

Contemporary film, television, and literature. I have a particular research focus on adaptation studies and mental health, as well as queer representation and the body.

Ella Wright

Ella Wright

Digital and Media Technician

As Digital and Media Technician, I work across Film and Creative Writing, English Literature and Language and Linguistics, Drama and Theatre Arts, Shakespeare Institute and Digital Media and Communications, to make sure students have access to the best filmmaking equipment and professional expertise we can offer, as well as managing these resources by keeping them aligned with the evolving ...


Honorary Fellows