University of Lethbridge

Office Hours

By appointment - 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM

About Me

Aaron Taylor is an Associate Professor in the Drama Department and a Board of Governors Research Chair (Tier 2) at the University of Lethbridge, where he specializes in Film Studies. He is editor of THEORIZING FILM ACTING, co-editor of SCREENING CHARACTERS, and the author of numerous essays on film acting, American cinema, and comic books. His research projects include investigations of the psychology of screen acting and the transmedia relationship between comics and the superhero film.

Biography

PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS

July 2019 - present: University of Lethbridge (Drama); Associate Professor

July 2012 - June 2019: University of Lethbridge (New Media); Associate Professor

July 2007 - June 2012: University of Lethbridge (New Media); Assistant Professor

July 2005 - July 2007: Brock University (CPCF); Term Assistant Professor

Sept 2003 - May 2005: Western University (Film) & Huron College (English); Sessional lecturer


EDUCATION

University of Kent (Canterbury, Kent, UK)
PhD - Film Studies (April 24, 2006)
Thesis: "Cain's Homecoming: Villainy and the Cinema" (Advisor: Dr. Murray Smith)


Carleton University (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)
MA - Film Studies (August 2000)
Thesis: "World Without End: Historicity and the Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema"


Western University / Huron College (London, Ontario, Canada)
Hons. BA, with Distinction - English / Cinema Studies (May 1999)

Selected Publications

EDITED ANTHOLOGIES:

Screening Characters. New York: Routledge, 2019. With Johannes Riis.

Theorizing Film Acting. New York: Routledge, 2012.


SELECT JOURNAL ARTICLES
"Why So Serious? Clowning, the Method, and Performative Adaptations of the Joker." [in]Transition 9.2, 2022. Co-authored with Blake Evernden, Ryan Harper-Brown, and Bryn Hewko.

"Watchmen Remembered and Remixed: Memory and Performance in Complex Transmedia Television." Literature/Film Quarterly 49.4 (2021). https://bit.ly/3BSuU4b.

"The Continuing Adventures of the 'Inherently Unfilmable' Book: Zack Snyder's Watchmen." Cinema Journal 56.2 (2017): 125-31.

"Thinking Through Acting." [in]Transition 3.4. 22 November, 2016. Co-authored with Bryn Hewko. https://bit.ly/3oYqkfO.

"Blind Spots and Mind Games: Performance, Motivation and Emotion in the Films of Stanley Kubrick." Velvet Light Trap 77 (2016): 5-27.

"Avengers Dissemble! Transmedia Superhero Franchises & Cultic Management." Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance 7.2 (2014): 181-94.

"A Cannibal's Sermon: Hannibal Lecter, Sympathetic Villainy and Moral Revaluation." Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image 4 (2014). http://cjpmi.ifl.pt/4-contents/.

"Uncelebrated Lives: Reflections on the Supporting Player." Quarterly Review of Film and Video 29.2 (2012): 114-28.

"Angels, Stones, Hunters: Murder, Celebrity and Direct Cinema." Studies in Documentary Film 5.1 (2011): 45-60.

"Twilight of the Idols: Performance, Melodramatic Villainy and Sunset Boulevard." The Journal of Film and Video 59.2 (2007): 13-31.

"He's Gotta' Be Strong and He's Gotta' Be Fast and He's Gotta' Be Larger Than Life: Investigating the Engendered Superhero Body." The Journal of Popular Culture 40.2 (2007): 344-60.

"Blood in the Maple Syrup: Canon, Popular Genre and the Canuxploitation of Julian Roffman." Cineaction 61 (2003): 18-28.

"Rough Beasts Slouch Toward Bethlehem to Be Born: Eraserhead and the Grotesque Infant." The Canadian Journal of Film Studies 9.2 (2000): 55-69.


SELECT BOOK CHAPTERS
"Twin Peaks and the Performative Poetics of Complex Television." Cognition, Emotion, and Aesthetics in Contemporary Serial Television. Ed. Héctor J. Perez & Ted Nannicelli. Routledge, 2022. 193-213.

"Genre and Superhero Cinema." From Panel to Frame. Ed. Barry Keith Grant and Scott Henderson. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019.

"Fool for Love: Jean-Pierre Léaud in Stolen Kisses." Close-Up: Great Cinematic Performances. Vol.2. Ed. Murray Pomerance and Kyle Stevens. Edinburgh University Press, 2018. 205-16.

"Playing Peter Parker: Spider-Man and Superhero Film Performance." Make Ours Marvel: Media Convergence and a Comics Universe. Ed. Matt Yockey. University of Texas Press, 2017. 268-96.

"How to See Things Differently: Tim Burton's Reimaginings." The Works of Tim Burton: From Margins to Mainstream. Ed. Jeffrey Weinstock. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 99-116.

"Adam Sandler: An Apologia: Anger, Arrested Adolescence, Amour Fou." Millennial Masculinity: Men in Contemporary American Cinema. Ed. Timothy Shary. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013. 19-51.

"Acting, Casually and Theoretically Speaking." Theorizing Film Acting. Ed. Aaron Taylor. New York: Routledge, 2012. 1-16.

"Thinking Through Acting: Performative Indices and Philosophical Assertions." Acting and Performance in Moving Image Culture: Bodies, Screens, Renderings. Ed. Joerg Sternagel, Deborah Levitt, Dieter Mersch. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2012. 395-412.

"Playing to the Balcony: Screen Acting and Distance." Stages of Reality: Theatricality in Cinema. Ed. André Loiselle & Jeremy Maron. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012. 185-203.

"Straight Outta' Hogtown: Sex, Drugs and Bruce McDonald." Great Canadian Film Directors. Ed. George Melnyk. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2007. 199-225.

"Direction." The Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film. Vol. 2. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Farmington Hills: Thomson Gale, 2006. 61-71.

"Everyone Wants a Piece of Pooh: Winnie, from Adaptation to Market Saturation." Rethinking Disney: Private Control and Public Dimensions. Ed. Mike Budd. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. 181-98.

Research Interests

Film acting

Cognitive film theory

Comic books

American cinema & Hollywood

Film & philosophy

Narratology and aesthetics

Curriculum Vitae

My CV

Internet Links

https://www.uleth.ca/fine-arts/study/faculty-and-staff/aaron-taylor