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Prof Deborah Martin
Professor of Latin American Film and Culture
SELCS
Faculty of Arts & Humanities
- Joined UCL
- 1st Oct 2012
Research summary
My research focuses on Latin American cultural production with a particular emphasis on cinema. I draw on a broad range of methodologies, including film theory, gender and sexuality studies, and childhood studies. My most recent book The Child in Contemporary Latin American Cinema was published in 2019. In 2016 I published The Cinema of Lucrecia Martel, a detailed study of the films of the Argentine director, and in 2017, together with Prof Deborah Shaw (Portsmouth University), I published a co-edited volume of essays, Latin American Women Filmmakers: Production, Politics, Poetics.
I am currently researching the relationship between activism and film / visual arts in Latin America, with a particular focus on feminist and environmentalist politics. Case studies thus far include the groundbreaking anti-rape performances of Chilean theatre collective LasTesis (2019-20), and the Mexican eco-film Resurrección (Eugenio Polgovsky, 2016).
You can hear me discuss the child in Latin American film, for the Fly! Higher Film Festival, August 2020, here (Interviewer: Lorena Pino), and talk about the films of Lucrecia Martel, here (24 mins in)
Teaching summary
I teach modules and lectures on Latin American film at all levels of the SPLAS provision, and at MA level I teach a module on The Child in Film. I also contribute to the MA in Gender, Society and Representation.
Education
- University of Cambridge
- Doctorate, Doctor of Philosophy | 2008
- University of Cambridge
- Other higher degree, Master of Philosophy | 2004
- University of Edinburgh
- First Degree, Bachelor of Arts | 2002
Biography
I joined Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at UCL in September 2012, having previously lectured at the University of Bath (2008-2012), and having held an AHRC Early Career Fellowship (2011-12) for my work on the figure of the child in Latin American Cinema. My PhD, which was on Colombian women's cultural production -- painting, literature and film -- was awarded by the University of Cambridge in 2008, and before that I studied for my Undergraduate degree at the University of Edinburgh (2002). During my time at Edinburgh studying Modern Languages and later during my PhD research, I spent several extended periods of time in Medellín, Colombia.