History of Art and Film

Professor James Chapman

Professor of Film Studies

Contact Details:

• Email: jrc28@le.ac.uk
• 0116 252 2866 (departmental office) or 0116 252 2865 (direct line).

Research Summary Current Research Projects Recent Publications Teaching & Admin

Research Summary

James Chapman took his BA (History) and MA (Film Studies) at the University of East Anglia and then undertook his doctoral research at Lancaster University, completing his thesis on the role of official film propaganda in Britain during the Second World War. In 1996 he joined The Open University where he taught a broad range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses and was principal contributing author to the university’s first dedicated course on Film and Television History. He joined Leicester University as its founding Professor of Film Studies in January 2006. He is a Council member of IAMHIST (International Association for Media and History) and is book reviews editor for the Journal of British Cinema and Television. When Professor Chapman is not lecturing his students on why we should take James Bond seriously or decoding the semiotics of Diana Rigg, he can usually be found either listening to Test Match Special or discoursing in the Marquis of Wellington.

Current Research Projects

Professor Chapman’s research focuses on British popular culture, especially cinema and television in their historical contexts. He is interested in the role of the mass media as propaganda, the representation of war and history, and the cultural politics of popular fictions including, but not limited to, Dick Barton, Dan Dare, James Bond, The Avengers and Doctor Who. He is currently writing a short book on War and Film and is planning future projects on cultural production in Britain during the Second World War and on television swashbucklers.

Recent Publications

Authored books/monographs

The British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda, 1939-1945 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998)

Licence To Thrill: A Cultural History of the James Bond Films (London: I.B. Tauris, 1999; also published in a separate North American edition by Columbia University Press, New York, and in Japanese translation by Tokuma Shoten of Tokyo)

Saints and Avengers: British Adventure Series of the 1960s (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002)

Cinemas of the World: Film and Society from 1895 to the Present (London: Reaktion, 2003)

Past and Present: National Identity and the British Historical Film (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005)

Inside the Tardis: The Worlds of Doctor Who – A Cultural History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006)

Edited volumes

Windows on the Sixties: Exploring Key Texts of Media and Culture, co-edited with Anthony Aldgate and Arthur Marwick (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000)

The New Film History: Sources, Methods, Approaches, co-edited with Mark Glancy and Sue Harper (forthcoming from Palgrave in 2007)

Articles in refereed journals

‘The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) Reconsidered’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 15/1 (1995), pp.19-54.

‘“The Yanks Are Shown to Such Advantage”: Anglo-American rivalry in the production of The True Glory (1945)’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 16/4 (1996), pp.553-54.

‘“Excellent stupidity, silly excellence”: Visual style in The Avengers’, Visual Culture in Britain 1/1 (2000), pp.89-108.

‘“The true business of the British movie”: A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and British film culture’, Screen 46/1 (2005), pp.33-49.

‘The BBC and the Censorship of The War Game (1965), Journal of Contemporary History, 41/1 (2006), pp.75-94.

‘“Sordidness, corruption and violence almost unrelieved”: Critics, censors and the postwar British crime film’, Contemporary British History (forthcoming).

Chapters in edited books

‘Celluloid Shockers’, in Jeffrey Richards (ed.), The Unknown 1930s: An Altermative History of the British Cinema, 1929-1939 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998).

‘British Cinema and the People’s War,’ in Nick Hayes and Jeff Hill (eds), Millions Like Us: British Culture in the Second World War (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999)

‘Cinema, propaganda and national identity’, in Justine Ashby and Andrew Higson (eds), British Cinema, Past and Present (London: Routledge, 2000)

‘Why We Fight: Pastor Hall and Thunder Rock’, in Alan Burton, Tim O’Sullivan and Paul Wells (eds), The Family Way: The Boulting Brothers and British Film Culture (Trowbridge: Flicks, 2000).

‘God Bless Us, Every One: Movie Adaptations of A Christmas Carol’, in Mark Connelly (ed.), Christmas at the Movies: Images of Christmas in American, British and European Cinema (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000).

‘The Avengers: Television and Popular Culture during the “High Sixties”’, in Anthony Aldgate, James Chapman and Arthur Marwick (eds), Windows on the Sixties: Exploring Key Texts of Media and Culture (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000)

‘The World at War: Television, Documentary, History’, in Graham Roberts and Philip M. Taylor (eds), The Historian, Television and Television History (Luton: University of Luton Press, 2001).

‘Action, spectacle and the Boy’s Own tradition in British cinema’, in Robert Murphy (ed.), The British Cinema Book 2nd edn (London: British Film Institute, 2001)

‘Cinema, monarchy and the making of heritage: A Queen Is Crowned’, in Claire Monk and Amy Sargeant (eds), British Historical Cinema (London: Routledge, 2002).

‘Quatermass and the origins of British television SF’, in John R. Cook and Peter Wright (eds), British Science Fiction Television: A Hitch Hiker’s Guide (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005).

‘Bond and Britishness’, in Edward P. Commentale, Skip Willman and Steven Watt (eds), Ian Fleming and James Bond: The Cultural Politics of 007 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005).

Teaching, Supervision and Administration

Professor Chapman teaches the second-year survey course Researching World Cinemas (a core module for film studies) and third-year special options on British cinema and society 1930-1950 and British television drama. He is also convenor of a new first-year core module Reading Film, planned for first presentation in the 2006/7 academic year. He is able to offer research supervision in most areas of British cinema and television history and has recently seen his first PhD student through to successful completion at The Open University.