Research

My primary research is in contemporary film and media, with an emphasis on popular modes and the relationship between aesthetics and ideology. I have written a book on the recent phenomenal proliferation of the French romantic comedy and co-edited two collections: one examining the status of European cinema in today's increasingly globalised age and another looking at women producing genre narratives in film and television globally. My research has mainly to date tracked two interrelated axes: the transnational circulation and shaping of French identity through the nation's audiovisual production and the significance of women's contribution to genre narratives on screen, principally in France and Hollywood. I also have an interest in popular representations of couples and related social groups, in romcom and beyond; of contemporary girlhood; and of the body in general.

In March 2018 I was awarded a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award to fund a series of events on the theme of 'Imagining "We" in the Age of "I": Romance and Social Bonding in Contemporary Culture'.

I also sit on the editorial board of Studies in French Cinema.

Teaching and supervision

I specialise in teaching French film and society and, together with Douglas Morrey, am responsible for the second- and final-year French Cinema module, which covers French cinema from the early 1930s to the present, as well teaching the final-year module States of the Nation: French Cinema From 1990 to the Present .I also teach a final-year module looking at Gender and Representation in French Media since 1970, which encompasses an interdisciplinary focus across film, television and written media, and at MA level on various courses (e.g. History and Film and running specialised modules from French Gender Studies to Genre in French Film History).

In addition, I have taught a second-year module in Hispanic Studies on Contemporary Spanish Cinema and teach on the cross-language module Languages and Cultures Beyond Boundaries.

In 2016-17 I was Visiting Scholar in Comparative Media Studies and Writing at MIT and Visiting Lecturer at Brandeis University, MA, where I taught modules on Introduction to the Moving Image and Genre, Gender and Women's Filmmaking.

I am interested in supervising PhDs on a range of topics in European and US film and media, emphasising popular modes and/or cultural and gender studies.

Publications

Books

M. Harrod and K. Paszkiewicz (eds), Women Do Genre in Film and Television, Routledge (2017). Nominated for the Kraszna-Krausz Best Moving Image Book Award 2018 (only edited collection nominated) and shortlisted for the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Best Edited Collection Prize for 2019.

From France with Love: Gender and Identity in French Romantic Comedy, I.B. Tauris (2015). Shortlisted for the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Best Monograph 2017.

M. Harrod, M. Liz and A. Timoshkina (eds), The Europeanness of European Cinema: Identity, Meaning, Globalization, I.B. Tauris (2015).

Journal Special Issues

M. Harrod and P. Powrie (eds), ‘New directions in contemporary French comedies,’ Studies in French Cinema 18:1 (2018).

Articles and chapters

• M. Harrod and P. Powrie, ‘New directions in contemporary French comedies: From nation, sex and class to ethnicity, community and the vagaries of the postmodern,’ Studies in French Cinema 18:1 (2018) pp. 1-17.
• 'Parisian Lovers in the Contemporary Romcom,' in A. Phillips and G. Vincendeau (eds), Paris in the Cinema - Beyond the Flâneur, Palgrave (2017), pp. 156-166.
• ‘The Myth of Lena Dunham,’ in M. Harrod and K. Paskiewicz (eds), Women Do Genre in Film and Television, Routledge (2017), pp. 179-197.
• ‘Introduction,’ (with Paszkiewicz), in M. Harrod and K. Paskiewicz (eds), Women Do Genre in Film and Television, Routledge (2017), pp. 1-20.
• Translation from Spanish (with Paszkiewicz) of Barbara Zecchi’s ‘Comedy as a Feminist Strategy: Spanish Women Filmmakers Reclaim Laughter,’ in M. Harrod and K. Paskiewicz (eds), Women Do Genre in Film and Television, Routledge (2017), pp. 91-105.
• ‘Cinephilia as Multilingualism in The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, 2011) and Blancanieves (Pablo Berger, 2012),’ in T. Mamula and L. Patti (eds), The Multilingual Screen, Bloomsbury (2016), pp.69-89.
• ‘“As If a Girl’s Reach Should Exceed Her Grasp”: Gendering Genericity and Spectatorial Address in the Work of Amy Heckerling,’ in F. Smith and T. Shary (eds), Refocus on the Films of Amy Heckerling, Edinburgh University Press (2016), pp. 53-72.
• ‘Girlfriends, Postfeminism and the European Chick-Flick in France,’ in F. Handyside and K. Taylor (eds), International Cinema and the Girl: Local Issues, Transnational Contexts, Palgrave Macmillan (2015), pp.35-49.
• ‘Danièle Thompson: French Women’s Screenwriting Goes Global,’ in J. Selbo and J. Nelmes (eds), Women Screenwriters: An International Guide, Palgrave Macmillan (2015), pp. 346-351.
• ‘Franglais, Anglais and Contemporary French Comedy,’ in M. Harrod, M. Liz and A. Timoshkina (eds), The Europeanness of European Cinema: Identity, Meaning, Globalization, I.B. Tauris (2015), pp. 145-158.
• Introduction,’ (co-authored with Liz and Timoshkina) in M. Harrod, M. Liz and A. Timoshkina (eds), The Europeanness of European Cinema: Identity, Meaning, Globalization, I.B. Tauris (2015), pp.1-13.
• ‘Auteur Meets Genre: Rohmer and the Rom-Com,’ in L. Anderst (ed.), The Films of Eric Rohmer: French New Wave to Old Master, Palgrave Macmillan (2014), pp.101-113.
• Three entries, Directory of World Cinema: France, T. Palmer and C. Michael (eds), Intellect (2013).
• ‘Sweet Nothings? Imagining the Inexpressible in Contemporary French Romantic Comedy,’ Studies in French Cinema, vol. 13, no. 2 (2013), pp.171-187. Winner of the 2013 Susan Hayward Prize.
• ‘The Réalisatrice and the Rom-Com in the 2000s,’ Studies in French Cinema, Special Issue on ‘Women’s Filmmaking in the 2000s,’ vol. 12, no. 3 (2012), pp.227-240.
• ‘Linguistic Difference as Ontological Sameness in Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis (Boon 2008),’ Studies in French Cinema vol. 12, no. 1 (2012), pp.75-86. Winner of the 2012 Susan Hayward Prize.
• ‘The Aesthetics of Pastiche in the Work of Richard Linklater,’ Screen vol. 51, no.1 (2010), pp.21-37.

Reviews/Review articles

• Nancy Meyers by Deborah Jermyn, Feminist Media Studies, no. 2 (February 2018): 329-330. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1436904.
• French Cinema in Close-Up by M. Abecassis with M. Block (eds), Studies in European Cinema (August 2016) http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17411548.2016.1213085.
• Nationalism and the Cinema in France: Political Mythologies and Film Events, 1945-1995 by Hugo Frey, French History 2016; doi: 10.1093/fh/crw019 http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/crw019?ijkey=JmzvOjPY2MUMWHi&keytype=ref

• French Comedy on Screen: A Cinematic History by Rémi Fournier-Lanzoni, French Studies 2015, 69 (4): 573-574.
• Je t’aime...moi non plus: Franco-British Cinematic Relations by L. Mazdon and C. Wheatley (eds), Screening the Past, no. 33 (April 2012).
• Richard Linklater by D. T. Johnson, Senses of Cinema, no. 64 (September 2012)

Media and Journalism

• 'The Favourite: At Last We're Seeing Lesbianism Take Centre Stage in Popular Culture', The Conversation, January 25 2019 https://theconversation.com/the-favourite-at-last-were-seeing-lesbianism-take-centre-stage-in-popular-culture-110045 Reprinted in The New European, 7 February 2019, p.44, and The i Newspaper online, 26 February 2019.
• '#MeToo or #Moi Non Plus? How French Feminists are Divided Over Catherine Deneuve's Letter', The Conversation, 12 January 2018 https://theconversation.com/metoo-or-moi-non-plus-how-french-feminists-are-divided-over-catherine-deneuves-letter-89978#comment_1508058. Reprinted on the website Fair Observer, 13 January 2018, and in the newspaper The New European, 18 January 2018, p. 27.
• BBC News 24 with Shaun Ley, 2pm on Saturday 24 October 2017, discussing sexism in Hollywood and the Weinstein scandal https://www.dropbox.com/s/s4rc6pphy3gqror/BBC_News_Channel-2017-10-14_14-09-55.mp4?dl=0, as well as on BBC Coventry and Warwick (Thursday 12 October 'Drive-Time' with Phil Upton at 5.45) and LBC Radio (London, Friday 13 October at 9.30).
• 'Girls may be flawed, but its feminist legacy will last,' The Conversation, February 10 2017 https://theconversation.com/girls-may-be-flawed-but-its-feminist-legacy-will-last-72442. Reprinted in The Independent, Thursday 16 February 2017, p. 35.
• Discussing the French rom-com as part of 'French Thought' feature on 'Free Thinking', BBC Radio 3, Thursday 9 July 2015,10pm (at 34 mins 30s) https://www.dropbox.com/s/kgb4zlh3opob56f/Free%20Thinking%20-%209th%20July%202015.mp3?dl=0
• 'How Hollywood-style rom-coms seduced France', The Conversation, 24 June 2015 https://theconversation.com/how-hollywood-style-rom-coms-seduced-france-43680.
• I am also a repeat contributor to Sight and Sound.

Qualifications

BA (Oxford), MA, PhD (King's, London)