Dr Neil Ewen

Senior Lecturer

Department of School of Media and Film

NEIL.EWEN@winchester.ac.uk

+44 (0) 1962 624520

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Biography

Dr Neil Ewen is a Senior Lecturer in Film and Media Studies and the Programme Leader for the Media and Communication suite of degrees. He earned his BA at the University of Stirling (2001) and his MA (2003) and Ph.D. (2010) at the University of East Anglia. Prior to arriving at Winchester in 2015, he taught at UEA, the University of Southampton, and the University of Portsmouth. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. 

Neil’s research interests lie in the politics of contemporary media and culture. From a critical media and cultural studies perspective, he writes about celebrity, sport, politics and politicians, film, television, and journalism. He regularly presents his work at conferences in the UK and abroad, and his writing has appeared in a variety of academic publications. He is the co-editor of First Comes Love: Power Couples, Celebrity Kinship, and Cultural Politics (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), Capitalism, Crime and Media in the 21st Century (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2020), and special issues of Television and New Media on the TV show Friends and Celebrity Studies on populist political celebrities in contemporary Europe (Sept 2020). He has edited the Cultural Report section of the journal Celebrity Studies (Routledge) since 2015.

At Winchester, Neil sits on the Faculty RKE and Senate RKE committees as a representative for his department and faculty. He is Co-convener of the Culture-Media-Text Research Centre and sits on the REF2021 Working Group for Unit 34. He organized the Faculty of Arts Research Seminar Series for five years from 2015.

Externally, Neil is an Affiliated Member of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) at the University of Amsterdam. He is a member of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA), and the Political Studies Association (PSA). He also serves as the External Examiner for the MA Film Studies at University College Dublin (2018-2021), the BA Social Media Management at the University of Sunderland (2018-2022), and the BAs in Film Studies and Creative Writing and Film Studies at Liverpool John Moores University (2020 - 2024).

Areas of expertise

  • Critical media studies | Cultural Studies | Celebrity Studies
  • Critical Theory | Ideology | Political Economy
  • Globalization | Capitalism | Nationalism | National identities
  • Nostalgia | cultural memory
  • Generation X and 1990s popular culture

Publications

Books

Edited Special Issues

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Book Chapters

Book Reviews

Editorial

Other publications

Conference Presentations

  • "Talk to each other like it's 1995: 90s nostalgia in the era of media saturation". The Analogue Idyll symposium. University of Winchester (online). (25 August 2020).
  • "Jonathan Meades: The anti-celebrity as public intellectual". SCMS, Seattle, WA. (March 2019).
  • "I'm trying to work on my social anxiety: Capitalism, 90s nostalgia and the crisis of masculinity in Mr Robot". Console-ing Passions, Bournemouth University (July 2018).
  • An unholy alliance: Trump and Farage’s Celebrity Populism".  Celebrity Studies Conference, Sapienza University, Rome (June 2018). 
  • "Where is my mind?: Capitalism, Crisis and 90s Nostalgia in Mr. Robot".  SCMS, Toronto, Canada (March 2018).
  • Somewhere between a Martin Scorsese film and a scene from the heyday of the Third Reich: Trump and Farage’s blossoming populist union. Love Across the Atlantic: An Interdisciplinary Conference on US-UK Romance, University of Roehampton (June 2017).
  • All Political LivesEnd in Failure: Enoch Powell, Nigel Farage, and the Limits of the Celebrity Politician. Political Studies Association Annual Conference. University of Strathclyde (April 2017).
  • All Political LivesEnd in Failure: Enoch Powell, Nigel Farage, and the Limits of the Celebrity Politician. Culture-Media-Text Research Centre Symposium, University of Winchester (April 2017).
  • "Celebrity Politics and Englishness" Sharing Expertise in English Issues Seminar, University of Winchester (March 2017). 
  • "Nigel Farage, Celebrity Politics, and the rise of Populism in Europe" Political Studies Association, Media and Politics Group, Annual Conference, London School of Economics and Political Science (December 2016). 
  • "Slackerwipe: Contemporary Celebrity Journalists and Generation X Authenticity", Celebrity Studies biennial conference, University of Amsterdam (July 2016).
  • "Hiding in Plain Sight on the ‘Anti-Establishment’ Right: Nigel Farage, Celebrity Politics, and Affective Eccentricity, RKE Symposium, University of Winchester (April 2016).
  • "Taking Down This Virtual Reality: Corporate Crime and Capitalist Realism in Mr Robot", Capitalism, Crime and Media conference, University of Winchester (April 2016.
  • "If I don't input those numbersit doesn't make much of a difference: Insulated Precarity and Gendered Labour in Friends", Console-ing Passions, UCD, Dublin (June 2015).
  • "Hiding in Plain Sight on the 'Anti-Establishment' Right: Nigel Farage, Celebrity Politics, and Affective Eccentricity", SCMS Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada (March 2015).
  • "Behind Every Man? The Value of the WAG in Western Media Culture", co-authored with Shelley Cobb, Celebrity Studies biennial conference, Royal Holloway, University of London (June 2014).
  • "Pomp, Circumstance, and 'Multicultural Crap': A Critical Analysis of the London 2012 Olympic Ceremony and Other Recent British Events", SCMS annual conference, Seattle, WA. (22 March 2014).
  • "In a Galaxy Far, Far Away?: The Beckhams as a Globalized Couple", 2007 the Present SCMS annual conference, Chicago, IL. (9 March 2013).
  • "John Terry and the Betrayal of English Football: The Historical Decline of National Character and Style", British Society of Sport History annual conference, London, (11 September 2010).
  • "Doesn't it make you proud to be Scottish?: political devolution and cinematic representations of Scottishness", National PCA/ACA Conference, San Diego, CA. (26 March 2005).
  • "The flowering of Scotland: Glasgow in cinema since 1990", City and Literature Conference, Oxford University (20 September 2003).

Presentations by Invitation

  • Jonathan Meades: The anti-celebrity as public intellectual. Faculty of Arts Research Seminar Series, University of Winchester. (27 Nov 2019) 
  • ‘The Celebrity, Micro-Celebrity and Anti-Celebrity of Contemporary Public Intellectuals in the New Attention Economy’. Public Intellectuals: Celebrity, Advocacy, Activism Symposium, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands (8 Nov 2019). [Invited keynote address; delivered with Shelley Cobb]. 
  • Power and Politics in Contemporary Culture and Media, PhD Masterclass, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands (7 Nov 2019). [Delivered with Shelley Cobb]. 
  • "If I don’t input those numbersit doesn’t make much of a difference: Insulated Precarity and Gendered Labour in Friends", Keynote address, MA Film and Screen Cultures Dissertation Symposium, University of Roehampton (June 2016).
  • "More than twice the influence: coupledom and kinship in stardom and celebrity culture", co-presented with Shelley Cobb, Film Department, University of Southampton, (5 May 2015).
  • "It takes two: celebrity couples, neoliberalism and aspirationalism", co-presented with Shelley Cobb, School of English, Drama and Film, University College Dublin (1 February 2012).
  • "Football, national identity, and the post-war crisis of Britishness", Sport Research Cluster, School of Education, University of Southampton (11 November 2009).
  • "Blair, Brown, Britishness and football, School of Film and Television Studies", University of East Anglia (5 February 2007).
  • "Towards the condition of cinema: Alasdair Gray's Lanark and narratives of Scottishness", Identities and Cultures in Europe: Mellon Interdisciplinary Seminar Series, University College London (2 February 2005).
  • "Scotland in the novel and fiction film since 1979", School of Film and Television Studies, University of East Anglia (17 May 2004).
  • "The early days of a better nation?: contemporary narratives of Scottishness in cinema and the novel", University of Aberdeen (28 April 2004).

Media Appearances

Professional Activities (selected)

  • Editor, Cultural Report section, Celebrity Studies (Routledge) (July 2015 present)
  • External Examiner, MA Film Studies, University College Dublin (2018 - 2021)
  • External Examiner, BA Social Media Management, University of Sunderland (2018 - 2022)
  • External Examiner, BA Film Studies & BA Creative Writing and Film Studies, Liverpool John Moores University (2020 - 2024).
  • Peer Reviewed for: Routledge books, SAGE books, Television and New Media (SAGE), Celebrity Studies (Routledge), Sport in History (Routledge), Kosmorama (Danish Film Institute), European Journal of Cultural Studies (SAGE).
  • Convener, Faculty of Arts Research Seminar Series, University of Winchester, (2015 present)
  • Co-organizer, Capitalism, Crime and Media conference, University of Winchester (22 April 2016).
  • Co-organizer, Celebrity Couples conference, University of Southampton (24 November 2012). 
  • Organizing committee, Celebrity Studies Conference, Sapienza Univerity, Rome (26 - 28 June 2018).
  • Chair of organizing committee, Transformations in Celebrity Culture: The Fifth International Celebrity Studies Conference, University of Winchester (18 - 20 June 2020). 
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