People
Dr. David Christopher
Lecturer in Popular Screen Cultures

School/Department: School of Arts, Media, and Communication - Department of Film and Art History
Email: dc435@leicester.ac.uk
Profile
I received my Ph.D. in the Critical Cultural Studies of Media and Cinema from the University of Victoria (Canada) in 2019. I also hold an MA in Film Studies, an MA in Theatre History, and a BA Honours in English Literature. Before joining the University of Leicester, I taught at the University of Victoria, the University of the Fraser Valley (Canada) and the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (China). For these endeavours I was awarded Fellowship in the UKPSF Advance Higher Education (FHEA). I am also an Executive Co-Director of the Festival of Media Stories inaugurated in 2023-24. My research and teaching covers film theory and history, ideology and cultural studies, digital cinema, Canadian cinema, anarchist cinema, international science fiction and apocalypse cinema, horror video games and cinema, reception and perception analyses, theatre history, and media studies more broadly.
I welcome inquiries and applications towards the supervision of graduate studies in any of these areas of study:
Science Fiction - Literature, Cinema, and Television
History of the Star Wars Franchise
Horror Film - Nostalgia and Gender Issues
Horror Video Games - Perception/Reception Studies and/or Ideology, Gender, and Identity Issues
Anarchist Philosophy and Cinema
Canadian Film and Television History
Apocalypse Cinema and Ideology
Shakespeare on Screen and Cultural Capital
Transnational Cinemas and Ideology
Guerrilla Cinema - Parody and Satire
Zombies, COVID-19, and Panic Journalism
Indigenous or First Nations Cinema and Reconciliation
Research
Research Statement:
The study of media and culture generally, and cinema specifically, is a field of increasing importance in an era in which students are witness to a tectonic shift in electronically mediated social relations and the destabilized global-capitalist socio-political environments in which they emerge. An understanding of the cumulative impact of modern media is paramount for responsible global cultural citizenship and the development of a global ideology that can move progressively towards a sustainable and equitable social, political, and ecological economy. As I state in my summary for the J. H. Stewart Reid Memorial Fellowship website, “cinema requires analytical tools that contribute to an understanding of both its socio-political underpinnings and the significance of its material conditions of production.” I wish “to understand the role media and cinema play in reproducing, subverting, or challenging contemporary political power dynamics.”
Research History:
My first monograph published in June 2025 with the Manchester University Press is an historical examination of the apocalypse and apocalyptic films of the so-called Toronto New Wave through the analytical lens of a Žižekian/anarchist theoretical paradigm that I argue is necessary for an accurate contemporary understanding of the socio-political import of Canadian cinema. The book establishes an anarchist-inflected methodological approach to the analysis of apocalyptic films and posits a specific progressive ideological mandate to their construction. Anarchist cultural studies are partly informed by certain strands of feminist theory, queer theory, and diaspora studies, and my work specifically situates them within the Canadian context.
My broader dossier of research and publications are comprised of contemporary media studies at the cusp of cultural studies and political economy, concerned with the socio-political import and impact of media and cinema content across the fields of ludic perception, social mental health, third cinema, indigenous cinema, transnational and international cinema, horror and sci-fi cinema, ideology studies, eco-criticism, anarchist theory, and pedagogical practice.
Current Research:
Currently I am contracted by Bloomsbury Press in association with the British Film Institute for 100 Apocalypse Films, a historical survey of international contributions to this genre and their socio-political import.
In the position of virtual Visiting Scholar for 2021-22 to the Centre for Cinema and Media Studies at the University of British Columbia, I began collaborating with Italian-American-Canadian auteur Vincenzo Natali on a book-length monograph regarding the cinema and cult reception of his works, a focused follow-up to my first monograph.
I am also in the process of researching for a book-length monograph entitled Technophilia and Technophobia in the Age of Convergence: Star Wars as a Touchstone for Contemporary Capitalist Commodity Fetishism based on research conducted for a recent course module I developed in my role as a Lecturer of Popular Screen Cultures for which I presented the findings at the XJTLU 2021-22 Department of Media and Communication Speakers’ Series.
I am also collaborating in establishing and obtaining funding for the Media Health Project, an online periodical initiative spearheaded with Prof. Ernest Mathijs, Head of the Centre for Cinema and Media at the University of British Columbia, and Dr Marco Pellitteri, Associate Professor of Media Studies at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. We have developed an analytical lens that deploys the pervasive metaphor of health to three pillars of research: health in media (representation), health of media (political economy), and health by media (participatory culture).
Publications
Books
Toronto New Wave Cinema and the Anarchist Apocalypse: Kissing This World Goodbye. Manchester University Press, 2025.
100 Apocalypse Films. Forthcoming, British Film Institute and the Bloomsbury Press.
Technophilia and Technophobia in the Age of Convergence: Star Wars as a Touchstone for the Contemporary State of Capitalist Fetishism. Forthcoming, MUP.
The Cinemas of Vincenzo Natali: Anarchist Revelations and Cult Receptions. Forthcoming, MUP.
Book Chapters
Wicked Clowns and the Therapeutic Anarchist Footprint. Here come the clowns: critical essays on the circus of popular culture. Forthcoming, contracted with American Press.
Cinema and Outer Space - An Ideological History: From Cold War Colonization to Cold Space Terror. Humanising Space – Edited Collection. Forthcoming, contracted with Leicester Institute for Space.
Articles
- Post-Covid Zombie Video Games and the Epidemiological Sublime. Forthcoming, intended for SAGE Games and Culture, 2025.
- From Elm Street to The Red Door: A 'New Nightmare' of Negligence, Misogyny, and Transphobia. Forthcoming, intended for Intellect Horror Studies, 2025.
- Flipping the Flipped Classroom: Student Preferences in Lectures vs. Interactive Activities. Forthcoming, intended for Journal of Pedagogical Inventions and Practices.
- Guerrilla Satire and the Rebound Effect: From Borat to “Pepe the Frog.” In press, The Journal of Popular Culture (2025).
- Beyond the Fifth Filter: COVID-19 and the Rise of Panic Journalism. In peer review, Intellect Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies.
- The Virtual Network City and the Long-Tail of Social Media Alienation. Svetovi/Worlds Ann. 3 No. 2 (2025)
- Ong E. and Christopher D. The ‘Aesthetic of Anxiety’ in the Hong Kong Pre- and Post-Transition Films of Wong Kar-wai. In press, Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media (2025).
- Indirectly Addressing Archives in Film Studies at the University of Leicester. In final revisions, Synoptique Issue 11.1 “Teaching Media Archives” (2025).
- Flexing Armageddon: Displacing Climate Change Anxiety through Soft Power Nationalist Interests in GuoFan’s The Wandering Earth. Brill - Youth and Globalization Journal: Cultural Production in Asia, Vol. 6 (2025).
- Toward an Anarchist-Apocalypse Cinema Theory. Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies: Special Issue – Anarchism and Film: New Perspectives, Vol. 2024 No. 1 (2024): pp. 177-217. (Guest Editor: Dr. David Christopher.) https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/adcs/article/view/21934
- Horror and the Cube Films: An Unlikely Vehicle for the Negotiation of Nationalist-Cultural Ideologies. Mutual Images – On Politics of Visual Media in Asia, Issue 11 (2024): pp. 139-170.
(Co-edited and with and Introduction by Dr. David Christopher and Dr. Marco Pellitteri, pp. 53-59). https://doi.org/10.32926/2023.11.8 - Early Cronenberg and the Anarchist-Apocalypse. Anarchist Studies, Volume 30, Issue 1 (2024): pp. 12-42. https://doi.org/10.3898/as.32.1.01
- Subversive Horror, Patriarchal Poison, and Progressive Apocalypse in Jeff Barnaby’s Rhymes for Young Ghouls and Blood Quantum. Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 62: 2 (Winter 2023): pp. 56-79.
- Christopher D. and Leuszler A. The Doors of Perception: Horror Video Games and the Ideological Implications of Ludic Virtual Reality. SAGE Games and Culture 18:3 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120221097414
- Christopher D. and Leuszler A. Horror Video Games and the “Active-Passive” Debate. SAGE Games and Culture 18:2 (2023): pp. 209-228. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120221088115
- Framing the Mentally Ill: An Anarchist-Theoretical Understanding of Two ‘Jokers.’ Bright Lights Film Journal (4 December 2021): https://brightlightsfilm.com/framing-the-mentally-ill-an-anarchist-theoretical-understanding-of-two-jokers/#.YbfCwL3MKXI.
- The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance. Journal of English Literature and Language (IGRPS). Issue 2, No. 1 (2021). 1-17. https://doi.org/10.31829/2767-2964/jell2021-2(1)-104
- Evil is the Root of All Money: Performing Usury and Homosocial Credit in Elizabethan/Jacobean England. Journal of English Literature and Language (IGRPS). Issue 2, No. 1 (2021): pp. 1-10. https://doi.org/10.31829/2767-2964/jell2021-2(1)-105
- Review: Skepticism Films: Knowing and Doubting the World in Contemporary Cinema. Canadian Journal of Film Studies. 27:2 (2019): 107-110. https://utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/cjfs.27.2.br02
- Patriarchy in Crisis: The God Myth vs. The American Father in Contemporary Cinema. Cutting Edge: The [UBC] Journal of Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies – Volume 5: Spirituality in the Modern Western World (Winter 2018): pp. 19-32.
- Excrement, Garbage, and the City: An Ideological Battlefront in Canadian Apocalypse Cinema. CineAction 99: Politics and Film Now (2018): https://cineaction.ca/issue-99/excrement-garbage-and-the-city-an-ideological-battlefront-in-canadian-apocalypse-cinema/
- Shakespeare and Social Politics in New Millennium Bollywood. Film International. 16:3 (2018): pp. 63-79.
- Patriarchal-Industrial Anxiety and the Eco-Critical Simian Monster. ARTiculate 2:2 (2017): pp. 7-57.
- The Dialectic of Fantasy Displacement and Uncanny Allegory in the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. The Word Hoard 1:5 (2016): pp. 96-114.
- Zombieland and the Inversion of the Subaltern Zombie. Intellect Horror Studies. 7:1 (April 2016): pp. 111-124.
- Stalin’s ‘Loss of Sensation’: Subversive Impulses in Soviet Science-Fiction of the Great Terror. MOSF Journal of Science Fiction. 1:2 (May 2016): pp. 18-35.
- Discourse of the Damned: On Canadian Horror Cinema. Intellect Horror Studies 6:2 (2016): pp. 283-303.
- The Capitalist and Cultural Work of Apocalypse and Dystopia Film. CineAction 95: Global Nightmare: Horror and Apocalypse (2015): pp. 56-65.
- Insidious and the Return of the Negligent Parent: The Elm Street Kids Come of Age. The Word Hoard 1:3 (2015): pp. 55-66.
- The Tragedy of Modern Media in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo+Juliet. International Journal of Arts and Humanities 3:6 (2014): pp. 88-90.
- Whose Fault was the Holocaust that Never Occurred?: Made-for-Television Fantasies of Nuclear Displacement in the 1980s. Film International. 12:2 (2014): pp. 18-30.
- Constructions of Non-Diegetic Hope in Don McKellar’s Last Night (1998). CineAction 92 (2014): pp. 60-3.
- The Allegory of Apartheid and the Concealment of Race Relations in District 9. International Journal of Arts and Humanities. 2:2 (2013): pp. 40-6.
- Matthew Lewis’s The Monk and James Boaden’s Aurelio and Miranda – From Text to Stage. Theatre Notebook. Volume 65, No. 3 (2011): pp. 152-170.
Supervision
Before joining the University of Leicester, I taught in the areas of cultural studies, film history, and media theory at The University of Victoria, the University of the Fraser Valley (Canada) and the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (China). For these endeavours I awarded Fellowship in the UKPSF Advance Higher Education (FHEA).
At the University of Victoria, I worked as my departmental Teaching Assistant Consultant for five years. This position required the mentorship and quality control of between five and ten graduate students annually in their roles as Teaching Assistants for various courses across the curriculum.
At XJTLU, I was responsible for the development advisement, supervision, and grading of several Final Year Projects and Masters Dissertations.
2023-present: doctoral supervision - Xiyuan Gao, “Female Star Wars Fan Communities and ‘Substitution Creation.’”
2023-present: doctoral supervision - Yiming Song, “Interactive Battlefields: Exploring National Identitiy and Moral Choices in U.S. and East Asian War Video Games."
2023-present: doctoral supervision - Linjun Cheng, “Spiritual Connotations in Uncanny Video Games: Childhood Trauma and the Therapeutic Socialist Footprint.”
Teaching
University of Leicester (UK)
- EN 1030 – Literature and Film Adaptation, team-teaching group led by Prof. Martin Halliwell
- HA 1005 – Reading Television, co-taught with Prof. James Chapman
- HA 1307 – Reading Film
- HA 1115 – Film/Video as Art-Event/Installation
- HA 2030 - Researching World Cinema, team-teaching group led by Dr. Gozde Naiboglu
- HA 2227 – Independent Research Project and Video Essay, co-taught with Dr. Claire Jenkins
- HA 2429 – Film Production
- HA 3439 – Film and Art Journalism
- HA 3488 – Star Wars: A Cultural History
- HA7209 – Masters Seminar in Transnational Cinemas
Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (China)
- COM 407 – Masters Seminar in Interactive and Emerging Media Technologies
- COM 337 – Film Studies for the Digital Age
University of the Fraser Valley (Canada)
- MACS 110 – Introduction to Media and Mass Communications Theory
- MACS 130 – Mass Communications in Canada
- MACS 210 – History of Mass Communications
- MACS 221 – Media and Popular Culture
- MACS 230 – Canadian Cultural Industries in Mass Media
- MACS 240 – Media, Money, and Power
- MACS 299G – Star Wars: A Cultural History
- MACS/JRNL 369 – Media Law and Ethics
- MACS 399H – Canadian Cinema in its Media Industry
- MACS 399I – Anarchist Cinema and Media Practices
- MACS 490IS1 – Directed Study in Horror Video Games
University of Victoria (Canada)
- AHVS 370 – Canadian Cinema
- AHVS 311 – Horror Video Games
- AHVS 392 – Star Wars: A Cultural History
- AHVS 392 – Anarchist Cinema
- AHVS 392 – Dreams in Cinema
- SLST 450 – The Cold War on Film
- UNI 201 – Introduction to Film Studies
Press and media
Anarchist Essays (ARG) – Spotify
- 3 June 2024: Essay #82: Early Cronenberg and the Anarchist-Apocalypse: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1u5j8AuYtSzUMKAaCns9v0
Facuti.net – Arts and Humanities
- 7 May 2024: Horror Video Games and the Ideological Implications of Ludic VR: https://faculti.net/the-doors-of-perception-horror-video-games-and-the-ideological-implications-of-ludic-virtual-reality/
Out of the Blank – Spotify
- 17 Feb 2023: #1348 - David Christopher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL40bsykTo4
NOW with Dave Brown – Accessible Media Inc.
- 4 May 2021: The Historical and Cultural Import of the Star Wars Franchise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsF4TKIlrJE
University of Fraser Valley – EHSAAS Film Festival: Indian Cinema and Shakespeare
- 4 March 2020: Lecture and Discussion – Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool (2003)
Happy Endings: Optimism and the Apocalypse in Atomic Cinema (2019), dir. Kelly Clark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVVmZq7ft9g&t=
Awards
- Jeffrey Rubinoff Scholar in Art as a Source of Knowledge Bursary: June 2017, June 2018, and June 2019
- Departmental Nominee (declined) – UVic Andy Farquharson Teaching Excellence Award for Grad Students: 2015 / 2018
- Departmental Nominee and University Selected Candidate – 3M National Student Fellowship Competition: 2016 and 2017
- J. H. Stewart Reid Memorial National Fellowship: 2016/2017
- SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship: September 2015 - August 2018
- Howard E. Petch Research Scholarship: 2014/2015
- University of Victoria Department of Art History and Visual Studies Doctoral Fellowship: Sept. 2014 - Aug. 2015
- University of Victoria Department of History in Art Doctoral Fellowship: Jan. 2014 - Aug. 2014
Conferences
Colorado College – Living Dead Under Settler Colonialism: A Zombie Symposium for the Liberal Arts
- 1-2 May 2025: Invited Guest Speaker – The Evolution of the Zombie Narrative into the Post-Covid Era
University of Nottingham – A Nightmare on Elm Street at 40 Symposium
- 8-9 Nov 2024: From Elm Street to The Red Door: A 'New Nightmare' of Negligence, Misogyny, and Transphobia
University of Leicester – Reflecting on 35 Years Since Penny Marshall’s Big (BAFTSS)
- 19 May 2023: Starlets to Auteurism: The Uncelebrated Collaborations of Cindy Williams and Penny Marshall
IAMCR - XJTLU Pre-Conference
- 9-10 July 2022: “Flexing Armageddon: Displacing Climate Change Anxiety through Soft Power Nationalist Interests in GuoFan’s The Wandering Earth (2019).”
XJTLU EDU Community of Practice Speakers Series – Blended Learning in Different Disciplines
- 29 June 2022: “H5P and Digital Escape Rooms on the LMO.”
- 2 March 2022: “Trials and Tribulations in Integrating Technology into the Hyflex.”
XJTLU - Annual Education Transformation Conference
- 2 June 2022: “Flipping the Flipped Classroom: Action Research in Student Preferences in Lectures vs. Interactive Activities.”
XJTLU Dept. of Media and Communication - Speakers Series
- 16 May 2022: “Technophilia and Technophobia in the Age of Convergence: Star Wars as a Touchstone for the Contemporary State of Capitalist Fetishism.”
Visual Impetus – University of Victoria Department of Art History and Visual Studies
- Jan. 2022: Distinguished Alumni Keynote: Flexing Armageddon: Displaced Eco-Anxiety and National Interests in Guo Fan’s The Wandering Earth.
- Jan. 2018: Anarchist and Apocalyptic Impulses in the Films of David Cronenberg
- Jan. 2017: Keynote Address – Dreams in Cinema – Memory, Materiality, and the Beginning of History
- Jan. 2016: Anarcho-Apocalyptic Cinema Theory and the Toronto New Wave
- Jan. 2014: Canadian Horror and Apocalypse Cinema: an Unlikely Medium for the Negotiation of National Identity
- Oct. 2012: Monstrous Simians and the Postmodern Re-signification of Images
NYU Cinema Studies Virtual Conference – [Frames (Windows (Mirrors))]
- 19-20 February 2021: “The Doors of Perception: Horror Video Games and the Ideological Implications of VR.”
University of Fraser Valley – EHSAAS Film Festival: Indian Cinema and Shakespeare
- 4 March 2020: Lecture and Discussion of Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool (2003)
Annual Invitational Jeffrey Rubinoff Forum on Art History as a Source of Knowledge
- 25-27 June 2019: Art and Moral Conscience / “Progressive Apocalypse in the Works of David Cronenberg”
- 25-27 June 2018: Art and Knowledge 1900-1950
- 26-29 June 2017: Twentieth-Century Artists and their Interaction with Other Disciplinary Fields of Inquiry
Film Studies Association of Canada – Annual Congress of the Humanities
- June 2019 (University of British Columbia): general delegate
- May-June 2016 (University of Calgary): Zizek and The Return of the Return of the Repressed Eco-Critical Simian Monster
- June 2013 (University of Victoria): Made-for-Television Fantasies of Nuclear Displacement in the 1980s
University of Victoria Farquhar Auditorium Presentation of One-Man Star Wars
- 4 May 2019: Introductory Discussion Panel – The Cultural Import of Star Wars
University of Victoria Ideafest
- 6 March 2018: Art and Optimism in an Age of Worry – “Canadian Cinema and the Happy Apocalypse”
- 7 April 2014: Panel Member - discussion of Closely Watched Trains (1966 Czechoslovak film)
- 5 March 2014: Panel Member - discussion of Twelve (2007 Russian adaptation of 12 Angry Men)
Medieval Secrets and Mysteries – University of Victoria Medieval Studies Course Union
- Feb. - Mar. 2014: MedEvil Dead Stereotypes and the Displacement of Industrial Anxiety
Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conferences
- Oct. 2011 (Spokane, WA): Shakespeare as Melodrama: Actor-Managers of the 19th Century
- Oct. 2010 (Victoria, BC): Performing Usury and Homosocial Credit in Elizabethan/Jacobean England
Qualifications
Education
PhD – Critical Cultural Studies in Media and Cinema. October 2019.
Master of Arts – Film Studies and Cultural Theory. December 2013.
University of Victoria – Department of Art History and Visual Studies – Victoria, BC
Master of Arts – Theatre History. June 2011.
Master of Arts (Honorary) – Theatre History and Domestic Achievement. April 2011.
University of Victoria – Department of Theatre – Victoria, BC
Bachelor of Arts Honours – English. June 2007.
Bachelor of Arts and Social Sciences – Economics and English. June 1995.
Carleton University – Ottawa, ON.
- Including the equivalent of Minors in Education Studies and Linguistics.
Professional development
PGCert HEA Accreditation Program. October 2021 - present.
Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University – Educational Development Unit (EDU)
Collegium Workshop: Engaging Online Learners. 23 August 2021.
Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University – EDU Online Teaching Professional Development Sessions
Collegium Roundtable: Challenges of Online Learning. 18 March 2021.
University of the Fraser Valley – College of Arts
Badges - UFV Online MicroCourse Series for Faculty
- Online Teaching Fundamentals 3: Assessments. 3 June 2020.
- Online Teaching Fundamentals 1: Blackboard Essentials. 9 June 2020.
Faculty Workshop: Plagiarism, International Student Supports, and Course Delivery Diversity. 21 Aug 2019.
University of the Fraser Valley – Dept. of Social, Cultural, and Media Studies
Workshop: Innovative Pedagogy in the Film and Media Classroom. 5 June 2019.
Film Studies Association of Canada Annual Conference at Congress (UBC)
Online Teaching Resources: Pearson Revel Project. 19 March 2019.
University of the Fraser Valley – Dept. of Social, Cultural, and Media Studies
New Faculty Orientation: Practices for Student Engagement. 20 August 2018.
University of the Fraser Valley
Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (LATHE) Program.
University of Victoria – Dept. of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies
- Jan. 2018 to April 2018: ED-D 610 – Contemporary Issues in Higher Education: A+/100%
- Sept. 2017 to Dec. 2017: ED-D 600 – Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: A+/93%
- Indigenous Cultural Acumen Training (ICAT). 25 September 2017.
- University of Victoria ICAT Training Program
- Certificate – Teaching Professional Development for Graduate Students. 13 April 2017.
- University of Victoria – Learning and Teaching Centre / Co-operative Education Program and Career Services
- Applying for a Learning and Teaching Development Grant - 11 April 2017.
- Beyond Accommodation: Creating an Equitable Classroom for Students Experiencing Disability - 30 March 2017.
- Developing the Teaching Dossier - 22 March 2017.
- The Digital Portfolio: A Dynamic 21st Century Tool for Network Learning - 14 March 2017.
- Optimizing the Multiple-Choice Test Item - 1 March 2017.
- Large Classes and Two-Stage Exams - 20 February 2017.
- LATHE and the Teaching Dossier Workshop - 12 January 2017.
Certificate – Peer-Teaching Facilitator Training. 12 April 2017.
University of Victoria – Learning and Teaching Centre
Diploma – Teaching English as a Second Language. November 2001
Pan Pacific International English College – Victoria, BC
250-hour - TESL Canada and BCTEAL recognized
Professional appointments
Assistant Professor of Media Studies, 2021-2022
Department of Media and Communication
Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Visiting Scholar, 2021-2022
Centre for Cinema and Media Studies
University of British Columbia
Assistant Professor, 2018-2021
Department of Social, Cultural and Media Studies
University of the Fraser Valley
Sessional Instructor, 2014-2021
Department of Art History and Visual Studies
University of Victoria