Dr Kay Dickinson
- Reader (School of Culture & Creative Arts Administration Office)
telephone:
0141 330 2000 ext. 0985
email:
Kay.Dickinson@glasgow.ac.uk
Biography
Prior to my appointment at Glasgow, I held positions at Concordia University, Montreal (2013-2021), Goldsmiths, University of London (2005-2012), King’s College, University of London (2003-2005) and Middlesex University (1997-2003). In the academic year of 2010-11, I was a Fellow at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University and, in 2019, the Distinguished Visiting Professor at MICA (Mudra Institute of Communications) in Ahmedabad, India.
Research interests
My research examines how revolutionary, anti-colonial and popular media from the Arab world functions amidst and in resistance to transnational global capital. I have co-edited anthologies on these topics and published two monographs: Arab Cinema Travels: Transnational Syria, Palestine, Dubai and Beyond (British Film Institute Press, 2016) and Arab Film and Video Manifestos (Palgrave, 2018). Shorter, more recent projects focus on Arab migrants’ contributions to the creative economy in Europe and the Arabian Gulf.
A constant concern for labour practices, histories and rights inflects my work. My first monograph, Off Key: When Film and Music Won’t Work Together (Oxford University Press, 2008), sought to understand the film and music industries’ traditions of production, representation, dissemination and consumption in line with the broader employment landscapes of so-called post-Fordism and the rise of creative economy culture. My most recent, Supply Chain Cinema: Producing Global Film Workers (British Film Institute Press, 2024), continues in this vein through investigations of offshored film production in the UK and the UAE and the educational structures that support it.
I am currently completing a short book entitled Fernando – A Song by Abba for the Duke University Press Singles series. In it, I examine how this particular pop mega-hit expresses sympathies with anti-capitalist, Third World and other liberation struggles whilst remaining an unrepentant commodity, riding new and usually antithetical waves of global trade set in motion during the 1970s.
Grants
- 2024-2026: “Stand-Ins and Extras: Precarious Migrant Film Labour”. BA/Leverhulme Small Grants Scheme (Principal Investigator)
- 2016-2021: “Video Cultures of the Arab Uprisings: Archives of Revolution, Revolutionizing the Archive”. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Principal Investigator)
- 2012: “An Active Archive for the Videos of the Arab Revolutions”. Middle East Institute/Brismes Network Award (Network Lead)
- 2012: “Revolutionary Change and Revolutionary Continuity Amidst the Current Arab Uprisings”. Council for British Research in the Levant (Principal Investigator/Senior Residential Research Fellow, Amman, Jordan)
Supervision
I would welcome students whose interests align with my established specialisms, be that media of the Arab world, revolutionary culture, or creative industries and labour. I am particularly interested in supporting projects that seek to prioritize Global Southern and anti-colonial approaches and topics.
- Alashqar, Akram H A
The Soundtrack in Palestinian Films: The Aesthetics and Relevance of Using It - Khan, Nomaan
Bollywood's Others: Hindi Cinema, Hindutva & The Othering of the Muslim Subject.
I have nearly twenty years of supervisorial experience across a broad range of subjects that have included: the economies of Palestinian cinema; precarity and racialized artistic labour; famine history and rhetoric; media representations of veiling; resource extraction cinema; and media infrastructure in post-financial crisis Ireland.
Teaching
- Convenor of MA Creative Arts and Industries
- MLitt Advanced Topics in Film Studies
- MA Introduction to Creative Industries
Additional information
- Editorial board member for the following academic journals: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (formerly Cinema Journal), New Formations, The Soundtrack, World Picture, Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media, Velvet Light Trap (until May 2017) and Sound, Music and the Moving Image (until January 2019)
- Editorial board member for the following book series: The Cultural Histories of Cinema (British Film Institute Press), Cinema Cultures in Contact (University of California Press), Cinema and Media Cultures in the Middle East (Peter Lang Publishing), Moving Image (Legenda)
- Contributor to the following film festivals and series in various capacities: Ramallah International Film Festival; Shashat Women’s Film Festival, Palestine; Regards palestiniens and syriens, Montreal, Présence Autochtone Festival, Montreal
- Advisory board member of ArteEast, Middle East Arts Platform, New York
- Adjudication committee member for: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant (Communications, Media Studies, Gender Studies, Library and Information Sciences), Society for Cinema and Media Studies Student Writing Award, Society for Cinema and Media Studies Middle East Caucus Student Writing Award