Contact: Ian Conrich

About Ian Conrich

A writer, theorist, and historian with work in film, media, visual and popular culture. The author or editor of eighteen books, Ian also has extensive experience of working with corporate sponsors, local and national governments, film commissions and schools; curating film festivals, cultural programmes, museum exhibitions, and international conferences.

Ian Conrich is a Professor at the University of Vienna, leading masters classes in visual and material culture. Previously, he was Professor of Film and Visual Culture at the University of Derby and Associate Professor and Associate Head of School: Research, at the University of South Australia. Chair of the New Zealand Studies Association since 1997, he was the founder and Director of the Centre for New Zealand Studies, Birkbeck, University of London, and in 2008 he was named Air New Zealand New Zealander of the Year in the UK. The Times Higher Education has described him as "the driving force behind New Zealand Studies in the UK". Ian has been a guest speaker at Harvard University, University of California Berkley, and the Universities of Auckland and Hawai'i. He was the 2005 MacGeorge Visiting Scholar at the University of Melbourne, 2005-6 was a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University in the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, and 2001 a Visiting Scholar at the University of Waikato. Most recently, in 2019, he was a Visiting Scholar at University of Ss Cyril and Methodius, Trnava, Slovakia.

He has been a jury member of the Hawai'i International Film Festival, guest speaker at the Jogja Asian Film Festival, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and the guest curator of major film festivals in Poland and Israel. He has been a guest speaker at the National Film Theatre, the British Museum, Twickenham stadium, the Imperial War Museum, Barts Pathology Museum, the Old Operating Theatre, the Canadian and Australian High Commissions, an advisor to FilmFour and the BBC, a guest on radio and television in Poland, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and the UK, and an after-dinner speaker at the New Zealand High Commission, London. For 2011-2014, he was the curator of a series of exhibitions, Easter Island, Myths, and Popular Culture, which travelled to the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum, Marton, the Kon-Tiki Musuem, Oslo, and the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney.

Major publications - as author and editor

  1. The Cinema of Sri Lanka: South Asian Film in Texts and Contexts (2020, co-author)
  2. John Carpenter Interviews (2021, co-editor)
  3. Gothic Dissections in Film and Literature: The Body in Parts (2017, co-author)
  4. Rapa Nui – Easter Island: Cultural and Historical Perspectives (2016, co-editor)
  5. Moai Culture: Easter Island and Popular Imagination (2014, author)
  6. Small Nations, Big Neighbours: New Zealand & Canada (2011, co-editor)
  7. New Zealand, France and the Pacific (2011, co-editor)
  8. Easter Island, Myths, and Popular Culture (2011, author)
  9. Studies in Travel Writing (2010, co-editor of a special issue on New Zealand)
  10. Horror Zone: The Cultural Experience of Contemporary Horror Cinema (2009, editor)
  11. The Cinema of New Zealand (2009, in Polish, editor)
  12. Studies in New Zealand Cinema (2009, author)
  13. Harvard Review (2008, guest editor of a special issue on New Zealand literature)
  14. Asian Cinema (2008, co-editor of a special issue on Sri Lankan Cinema)
  15. New Zealand Film - A Guide (2008, in Polish, author)
  16. Contemporary New Zealand Cinema (2008, co-editor)
  17. New Zealand Filmmakers (2007, co-editor)
  18. Film's Musical Moments (2006, co-editor)
  19. Journal of British Cinema and Television (2006, co-editor of a special issue on The Cinema-going Experience)
  20. Post Script (2005, guest editor of a special double issue on Australian and New Zealand Cinema)
  21. The Cinema of John Carpenter: The Technique of Terror (2005, co-editor)
  22. Journal of Popular British Cinema (2000, co-editor of a special issue on Forbidden British Cinema)
  23. New Zealand - A Pastoral Paradise? (2000, co-editor),

Ian is the Principal Editor of the Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies, and was the founding Editor of the NZSA Bulletin of New Zealand Studies. Currently, he is an Associate Editor of Film and Philosophy, and the Journal of British Cinema and Television, and an advisory board member of Asian Cinema, Interactive Media, Notes of the Anthropological Society Vienna and Studies in Australasian Cinema. His work has been translated into French, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, Persian, Hungarian, and Hebrew.

Research interests

Asia-Pacific film (primarily New Zealand, Polynesia, Australia, Japan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh), visual, material, and popular culture of the Pacific Islands (with a focus on Easter Island and New Zealand), marginalised cinemas, migration and diaspora, transnationalism and multiculturalism, indigenous cinema and digital film practices, film in relation to post-settler societies and film regions of the commonwealth (especially Maori, Samoan, and Inuit film), pre-cinema (early photography, magic lantern slides and stereoviews), film genres (the musical, comedy, horror, and the fairy tale), consumption and merchandising, film and masculinity, dystopian and utopian film, film and philosophy, British cinema, especially film censorship, genres, and 1930s cinema, post-classical Hollywood cinema, and American cinema before and after the conversion to sound.

    NEWS

  • Co-author of the book, Gothic Dissections in Film and Literature: The Body in Parts, published December 2017.
  • Co-author of the book, The Cinema of Sri Lanka: South Asian Film in Texts and Contexts, forthcoming 2020.
  • Co-author of the book, New Zealand Cinema, forthcoming 2020.
  • Guest editor of the special issue of Post Script, on Islands and Film, winter 2018/ spring 2019. And contributor of an article on island films and climate change.
  • Principal Editor of the Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies. Issue 8.1 out soon.
  • Organiser of the conference, 
    A Sea of Islands: The View From the Pacific, American College of Greece, 2–5 July 2019.
  • Keynote speaker at the 2nd Biennial International Conference on Redefining Australia and New Zealand, University of Warsaw, 16-17 September 2019.
  • Guest speaker at Cinema in Transition in the Indian Ocean: From Bioscope to Digital, University of La Réunion, 20–21 November 2019.
  • Guest speaker at the 11th Jogja Asian Film Festival, on Islandscapes, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 28 November to 3 December 2016.
  • The co-edited book Rapa Nui – Easter Island: Cultural and Historical Perspectives, is now published.
  • The edited collection Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film has now been published. Contribution on the Grand Slasher.
  • The edited collection The Zombie Renaissance in Popular Culture has now been published. Contribution on zombie culture.