University Of Birmingham

Graduate Student, American and Canadian Studies

College of Arts and Law

About

John Horne is a research student in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Birmingham, where he previously completed an MA in Transatlantic Studies. He is currently finishing an MPhil thesis examining representations of terminal illness in contemporary visual culture, focusing on the role film and photography plays in challenging or compounding public taboos around death and the social exclusion of the dying. This project originates from John’s previous work as a research assistant to Dr Michele Aaron, his supervisor, analysing a photography exhibition held by NHS West Midlands in 2009 as part of the national end of life care reforms. Two chapters based on this work are forthcoming in 2012/3 in separate edited collections.
      John also has a strong research interest in representations of madness, especially concerning the intersections between social policy and popular culture. His MA dissertation – Entertaining Madness: Questioning the Continual Appeal of the Screen Asylum – examined cinematic depictions of psychiatric institutions across the twentieth century.
      John has taught on a first-year undergraduate ‘Introduction to Film Studies’ module and both lectured on and designed the content for two topics (silent film and avant-garde cinema) on a second-year film studies module. For the past year, John has been a co-editor of the North American Studies journal 49th Parallel. He is currently an editorial assistant at the Journal of American Studies and the technical and community director of EA WorldView, where he is also an occasional writer.

JEH807@bham.ac.uk

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