Dr James Walters BA (Kent), MA, PhD (Warwick)

Photograph of Dr James Walters

Department of Film and Creative Writing
Reader in Film and Television Studies

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 415 8333
Email
j.r.walters@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

I research and teach film and television aesthetics. My work involves close reading and, particularly, I am interested in the relationship between this critical practice and questions of value and achievement.

Qualifications

BA, MA, PhD

Biography

I completed my PhD at Warwick University before spending a year as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Westminster. I joined the University of Birmingham in 2007 and was Head of American and Canadian Studies before becoming Founding Head of Film and Creative Writing in 2014.

Teaching

At Birmingham, I have taught classes on film performance, Hollywood cinema, fantasy film, filmmaking practices, documentary, and television aesthetics. 

Postgraduate supervision

I welcome postgraduate applications in the areas of film and television studies.

Find out more - our PhD Film Studies  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

My work is divided between film and television studies. I have written two monographs on aspects of screen fantasy, Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema and Fantasy Film, and a third monograph on the television series The Thick of It. I have co-edited the international collection Film Moments with Tom Brown and Television Performance with Lucy Fife Donaldson.

Other activities

I have acted as external examiner for courses at King’s College London, University of Bedfordshire and Bath Spa University. I have delivered keynote addresses at University of Lisbon, King’s College London and University of St Andrews.

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Walters, J 2023, Television and Repetition. 1st edn, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003265283

Fife Donaldson, L & Walters, J 2019, Television Performance. Red Globe Press.

Walters, J 2016, The Thick of It. TV Classics, British Film Institute, London.

Walters, J 2011, Fantasy Film: A Critical Introduction. Berg.

Article

Walters, J 2023, 'Finding words: Aesthetic criticism and television', Critical Studies in Television, pp. 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020231154462

Walters, J 2022, 'V.F. Perkins and Television', Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism, no. 10, pp. 74-83. <https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/scapvc/film/movie/contents/movie_issue10_perkinsandtelevision.pdf>

Walters, J 2020, 'Contesting the Wheel: Hitchcock's Female Drivers', Film Studies, vol. 21, pp. 97-112.

Walters, J 2020, 'Small screen psychics: Television performance as dubious achievement', Journal of Popular Television, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 349-367.

Walters, J 2019, 'Moments Apart', Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism, no. 8, pp. 1-6. <https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/film/movie/walters_moments_apart.pdf>

Walters, J & Fife Donaldson, L 2018, 'Inter(acting): Television, performance and synthesis', Critical Studies in Television, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 352–369. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749602018781465

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Walters, J 2023, Storms and Teacups: Russell T Davies, the epic and the everyday. in S Cardwell, J Bignell & L Fife Donaldson (eds), Epic / Everyday: Moments in Television. The Television Series, Manchester University Press, pp. 140-162. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526170231.00014

Walters, J 2022, Depth in Two Dimensions: Complex/Simple Moments in Rick and Morty. in S Cardwell, J Bignell & L Fife Donaldson (eds), Complexity / Simplicity: Moments in Television. The Television Series, Manchester University Press, pp. 84-103. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526148766.00012

Walters, J 2021, Skip Intro? Sense8’s Title Sequence. in D Shaw & R Stone (eds), Sense8: Transcending Televison. 1st edn, Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 57-70. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781501352904.ch-003

Walters, J 2017, Perpetual Motion Pictures: Sisyphean Burden and the Global Screen Franchise. in R Stone, P Cooke, S Dennison & A Marlow-Mann (eds), The Routledge Companion to World Cinema. Routledge, Oxon/New York, pp. 382-392.

Walters, J 2013, Better or differently: Style and repetition in The Trip. in J Jacobs & S Peacock (eds), Television Aesthetics and Style. Bloomsbury Academic, UK, pp. 113-123.

View all publications in research portal