Contact details

• Ph: 04 979 3544
  Location: 7C 43, Block 7
  Campus: Wellington

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Arts (Honours) - Victoria University (2007)
• Master of Arts - McMaster University (2008)
• Doctor of Philosophy - McMaster University (2012)

Certifications and Registrations

• Licence, Supervisor, Massey University

Research Interests

Humour, Comedy and Satire

Online humour and memes

Popular Culture and Entertainment

Advertising and Consumer Culture

Cultural Theory, Cultural Studies, Cultural Politics

Visual Culture and Aesthetics

Cultural Critique and Criticism

Taste and Distinction

Thematics

21st Century Citizenship

Area of Expertise

Field of research codes
Communication and Media Studies (200100): Consumption and Everyday Life (200203): Cultural Studies (200200): Cultural Theory (200204): Languages, Communication And Culture (200000): Media Studies (200104): Screen and Media Culture (200212)

Teaching Statement

As a teacher of media and cultural studies, my goal is not just to empower my students, but to provide them with the intellectual resources and skills to be responsible, considerate, and reflexive citizens in a mediated world. I want to teach them to not just ask questions, but to gather evidence and offer answers that acknowledge complexities and make room for difference. In pursuit of these ends, my teaching is informed by a belief that to not only understand our contemporary society, but to engage with it and thrive within it, my students need to understand the media. I want to challenge my students in ways that extend far beyond the classroom and will inform their professional and personal lives as media users, consumers and producers.

I am accredited as a Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.

Graduate Supervision Statement

I'm interested in supervising, or just chatting about, any projects addressing the politics of popular culture in general, and more specifically humour (and related concepts of parody, satire, irony and comedy), advertising, meme culture, aesthetic theory, fun, entertainment, popular taste, urban wildlife, cultural studies more broadly or any combination of the above.

Please note that my research is primarily theoretical and interpretive in orientation. I am therefore not able (or interested) in supervising projects that are premised in quantitative methods, or which involve substantial use of interviews, CDA, or formal content analysis.

Current Doctoral Supervision

Main Supervisor of:

• Dan Burgess - Doctor of Philosophy
  Laughing while Māori: Humour, Culture, and Contestation in Aotearoa NZ
• Nikite Krishnamurthy - Doctor of Philosophy
  A Critical Study of the Covers and Illustrations of Indian Speculative Fiction

Co-supervisor of:

• Navid Masoudnia - Doctor of Philosophy
  Anthropocene Feminism and the Cinema of James Cameron
• Jessica Pawley Copping - Doctor of Philosophy
  Learning to Love Reading in the Digital Age: Designing for social reading as a secondary literacy programme

Completed Doctoral Supervision

Co-supervisor of:

• 2020 - Barirah Nazir - Doctor of Philosophy
  Brand Pakistan: A Reception oriented Study of Pakistani Anglophone Fiction
• 2020 - Louisa Berry - Doctor of Philosophy
  The World Inverted: Chuck Palahniuk's fiction as a challenge to contemporary capitalism

Media

• 01 Apr 2014 - Other
  The Wheat from the Chaff
  interviewed for history of Chaff Student Newspaper

Other Links

• Personal Web Site