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Dr Joana Jacob Ramalho
Senior Teaching Fellow
SELCS
Faculty of Arts & Humanities
- Joined UCL
- 1st Jan 2010
Research summary
My research focuses on:
• the Gothic (film, television, music and literature)
• the connections and overlaps between Romanticism, the Gothic and Victorianism
• cinematic representations of death, memory, mourning and the senses
• intermediality and generic hybridity
• gender politics
• film musicals and musical moments in film and television
• radical humour and political correctness
• dark/punk cabaret
I have published on thresholds, haptic motifs and sensory contagion in Gothic terror cinema; thing theory and the figure of the doll in Gothic and horror productions; and the role of portraits in 1940s psychological thrillers. I have presented my work at several international conferences in the UK, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Austria and Portugal. I am a reviewer for the online journal Fantastika.
My current research project deploys the concept of carnival to investigate the ways in which specific forms of entertainment (low art, film, live-cinema, and dark cabaret artists) rewrite and externalise the convoluted dispute between an official culture and its rejects, while commenting on the failings of post-millennial socio-political systems and their neglect of subcultures and gender minorities. This research has so far resulted in three book chapters that explore marginal films and musicians.
To date, I have undertaken UG and PGT dissertation supervision in Comparative Literature, Language and Culture (BALC), Film Studies, and Translation Studies on a range of topics including Francoist cinema, Almada Negreiros, Beyoncé's Lemonade and intermediality, film musicals, Gothic and Romantic literature and poetry, and melancholy (Heimweh) and disenchantment (Entzauberung).
From 2020-21, I am jointly supervising a doctoral candidate working towards a PhD in Creative Critical Writing (CMII).
I welcome proposals for UG, MA and PhD projects that focus on or overlap with any of the research specialisms above.
Teaching summary
I currently convene three UG modules on Portuguese language and Lusophone culture (PORT0001, PORT0005 and PORT0008). At PGT level, I deliver two modules for the MA in Comparative Literature: The Gothic - Literature and Film (CMII0140) and Musical Satire (CMII0078).
I often teach Portuguese language post-A level modules (Portuguese Language Portfolio I and II) and contribute to the Translation Studies MA (PORT0011 Translation From and Into Portuguese). I have convened two film modules, Spanish Film From the 1990s (SPAN0042) and Gothic Cinema (ELCS6096), and an MA-level Comparative Literature module, The Gothic: Reading for Defilement.
Education
- University College London
- Doctorate, Doctor of Philosophy | 2015
- University College London
- Doctorate, Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy | 2015
- University College London
- Other higher degree, Master of Arts | 2009