Daniel Sheppard
Daniel is a PhD candidate in the Birmingham School of Media, fully funded by the AHRC Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership. He has written for Horror Homeroom and Screening Sex, contributed to such edited collections as Monsters: A Companion (2020), and presented at various international conferences.
Current Activity
- Co-convenor, LGBTQ+ Screen Studies SIG
- Co-founder, Social Media and Publicity Officer – Midlands Network of Popular Culture
Areas of Expertise
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Film and Television Studies
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Gender and Sexuality
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Horror Studies
Qualifications
- PGCert Research Practice, Birmingham City University
- MA Film Studies, University of East Anglia
- BA (Hons) Film and Television, University of Lincoln
Memberships
- British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies
Research
Gays, Women and Chainsaws: Queer Approaches to Characterisation and Identification in Contemporary Slasher Film and Television, 1996-2019
Drawing on the contemporary slasher subgenre, this doctoral thesis examines gay male screenwriters working in Hollywood and their scripting of heterocentric narratives that erase LGBTQ+ representation.
While their films and television shows are often approached in heteropatriarchal terms, which has gentrified gay histories of mainstream production, the thesis argues that these texts critique heteronormative ideology through Camp, thereby encouraging queer positionalities.
This structures the spectatorial trajectories of both women and gay men who are invited to identify with characters and narratives in accordance to their cultural experiences.
Here, spectatorship is not necessarily determined by gendered and sexual identity, as film and television studies assumes. Rather, spectatorship is influenced by the heteropatriarchal discourse that dictates the cultural experiences of women and gay men.
Postgraduate Supervision
Publications
Publications:
Sheppard, D. (2020) Serial Killers: Bates Motel (Ehrin, 2013-2017) – The Queer Monster. In: S. Bacon (ed.) Monsters: A Companion. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 175-181.
Sheppard, D. (2019) An ‘alarming cautionary tale’: Castrating the Faux Feminism of Teeth (2007). Screening Sex. Available from https://screeningsex.com/2019/01/11/an-alarming-cautionary-tale-castrating-the-faux-feminism-of-teeth-2007/.
Sheppard, D. (2018) Sleepaway Camp and the Transgressive Possibilities of Queer Spectatorship. Horror Homeroom. Available from http://www.horrorhomeroom.com/sleepaway-camp-and-the-transgressive-possibilities-of-queer-spectatorship/.
Conferences:
Invited Speaker: ‘Queer Fears: Network Screening and Roundtable Discussion of Knife+Heart (2018)’ – Gender Studies Film Club, University of Stirling (16 July 2020)
‘Theory in the Flesh: The Babadook and New Realisations of the Monster Queer’ – Queer Fears: A One Day Symposium on New Queer Horror Film and Television, University of Hertfordshire (28 June 2019)
‘Gays, Women, and Chainsaws: Queer Perspectives on North American Slasher Cinema’ – Fear 2000: Contemporary Horror Worldwide, Sheffield Hallam University (1-2 June 2019)
‘His Body, Himself: Mark Patton and the Performance of Heterosexuality in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)’ – Cine-Excess XII: I Know What You Starred In Last Summer – Global Perspectives on Cult Performance, Birmingham City University (8-10 November 2018)
‘Dressed to Transgress: Reclaiming the Queer Monster in Horror Cinema’ – Critically Queer Symposium, University of East Anglia (30 April 2018)
‘Theory in the Flesh: The Babadook and New Realisations of the Monster Queer’ – Fear 2000: Horror Media Now, Sheffield Hallam University (6-7 April 2018)
‘AIDS and Other Killers: Queer Villainy in 1980s Slasher Cinema’ – Cine-Excess XI: Fear and the Unfamiliar – Wrong Time, Wrong Place, Wrong Crowd, Birmingham City University (9-11 November 2017)
‘Diane Keaton: Stardom, Sexuality and Agency in Annie Hall and Looking for Mr Goodbar’ – Remembering Annie Hall: A One-Day Conference, University of Sheffield (31 May 2017)