20082024

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Biography

Jonathan wrote his PhD thesis at King’s College London on “Female Cinematic Stardom in 1930s French Film”. He has published two books on French cinema: the first is a study of the film director Marcel Carné, who is well-known for his contributions to the Poetic Realist film movement of the 1930s and his ‘masterpiece’ Les Enfants du paradis; the second looks at 1930s film stars and is entitled The French Screen Goddess: Film Stardom and the Modern Woman in 1930s France. He has also written about Southeast Asian cinema, particularly the film star P. Ramlee and the Malay cinema of the 1950s and 1960s, and has edited a book entitled Film Stardom in Southeast Asia.

He has spoken at conferences locally and internationally on various aspects of his research and has appeared on BFM: The Business Radio Station to discuss his work on P. Ramlee. The podcast can be found here.

In the School of Arts and Social Sciences, he is the Marketing and Future Students Lead and has previously served as the Undergraduate Course Coordinator, the Deputy Head of School (Education) and the Coordinator for Film, Television and Screen Studies.

Research interests

Jonathan's research interests are in film history, film authorship and star studies. He focuses in particular on French and Southeast Asian cinemas, especially the Malay cinema of the 1950s-1960s. 

He is currently conducting research on Malay cinema and is co-editing with A/Prof Andrew Ng and Dr Marek Rutkowski (both also from the School of Arts and Social Sciences), a book called The Malayan Emergency in Film, Literature and Art: Cultural Memory as Historical Other, which is to be published by Bloomsbury and is based on a workshop they organised in 2021. 

Monash teaching commitment

Before working at Monash, Jonathan was a sessional lecturer at King’s College London, Kingston University and the University of Southampton in the UK, where he taught a wide-range of Film Studies subjects, including film history, film authorship, the representation of gender in film, and 1930s French cinema.

He has contributed to the development of the Film and Television Studies curriculum at Monash University Malaysia, helping to introduce the Major in Film, Television and Screen Studies in 2018. 

He has also created several new Screen Studies units and currently teaches three of these: Film, Television and Screen Studies: Forms (AMU1224); Film Histories: From 1895 to the present (AMU2449); Stardom: Celebrity, Society and Power (AMU3127).

Supervision interests

Jonathan is interested in supervising research in the following areas: film stardom and celebrity, film history, French cinema and Southeast Asian cinema.

Education/Academic qualification

Higher Education, GCHE, Monash University Malaysia

Jul 2013Jun 2015

Film Studies, PhD, Female Cinematic Stardom in 1930s French Film, King's College London

Oct 2005Jan 2009

Film Studies, MA, ‘Bette Davis: Acting and Context’, Sheffield Hallam University

Oct 2003Sept 2004

Film and Video, BA Honours, University of Wales

Oct 2000Sept 2003

Research area keywords

  • Star Studies
  • Film History
  • French Cinema
  • Southeast Asian Cinema
  • Malay Cinema