Dr Polona Petek
Lecturer, Screen Studies
Qualifications
PhD (Uni. Melb.); MA (Cinema Studies, Uni. Melb.); BA Hons (Comparative Literature, Literary Theory, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Biography
Polona Petek has recently completed her PhD in Cinema Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She has been teaching in the programme of Cinema Studies and has published articles on the psychoanalytic interpretations of the double in cinema, the relevance of the myth of Echo and Narcissus to spectatorship theories, and the Lacanian notion of the gaze in the films of David Cronenberg.
Research strengths
Polona's research and publications thus far have engaged mainly in feminist, psychoanalytic and poststructuralist debates in film scholarship, with a specific focus on spectatorship theories and the notions of the uncanny and the doppelgänger. Her current research centres on the recent revival and reinvention of the studies of European cinema with a specific focus on the cinemas of Europe's eastern and southern regions. The project addresses the geopolitical, socio-economic, demographic and cultural changes in contemporary Europe and their manifestations in European cinema. It reconfigures the conceptual basis of the studies of European cinema, and problematises its key rubrics (e.g. national cinema). The project utilises the concepts which have already been given prominence in other academic disciplines and which are indispensable to any informed consideration of contemporary European cinema (e.g. transnationalism, cultural diaspora, hybridity).
Recent presentations (from 2002)
- "Nostalgic Collisions: Fatih Akin's Gegen die Wand and contemporary European multiculturalism". To be presented at the 2006 European Cinema Research Forum, Films Without Frontiers, the University of Swansea, Wales, 30 Jun-2 Jul 2006.
- "Highways, Byways and Dead Ends: The road movie in contemporary European cinema". To be presented at the Migrant and Diasporic Cinema in Contemporary Europe conference, hosted by Film Studies and the Institute for Historical and Cultural Research at the Oxford Brookes University, Lincoln College, Oxford, 6-8 Jul 2006.
- "Head-on Against the Walls of Global Culture". Lecture given in Globalna kultura [Global Culture], Department of Social Theory, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, 11 Jan 2006.
- "Echo and Narcissus: The Protean Myth of Subjectivity". Paper presented in the Screen & Culture research seminar series organised by Cinema and Cultural Studies programs, The University of Melbourne, Australia, 9 Sept 2004.
- "Narcissus and Echo at the Movies". Paper presented at the What Lies Beneath Postgraduate Symposium, The University of Melbourne, Australia, 6 Nov 2003
- "Différance and the Myth of Echo and Narcissus". Presentation at the contemporary visual culture reading group meeting Viva la différance, The University of Melbourne, Australia, 15 Sept 2003.
- "The Double in Cinema". Presentation at the FACSA Postgraduate Research Symposium, The University of Melbourne, Australia, 7 Jun 2002.
Publications
Book chapters (from 2002)
- "Belles With Attitude. Genealogies of the new Hollywood wisecracking action heroine". To be published in Women Willing to Fight, eds Silke Andris and Ursula Frederick, by Cambridge Scholars Press.
Journal articles (from 2002)
- "'I deserve the best and I accept the best'. Exploring the female narcissism in Me Myself I". Voicing Dissent, New Talents 21C: Next Generation Australian Studies, No. 76, 2003, pp. 159-68.
Other publications (from 2002)
- "Hitchcock's Cryptonymies, Volume 1: Secret Agents by Tom Cohen (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2005. Book Review". Senses of Cinema: an online journal devoted to the serious and eclectic discussion of cinema http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/books/06/38/hitchcocks_cryptonymies.html.
- "Susan E. Linville, History Films, Women, and Freud's Uncanny (University of Texas Press) Austin, 2004. Book Review". Senses of Cinema: an online journal devoted to the serious and eclectic discussion of cinema http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/books/05/36/history_films.html.
- "Nikki Sullivan, A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory (Edinburgh University Press) Edinburgh, 2003. Book Review by Polona Petek". Australian Feminist Studies, Vol. 19, No. 45, Nov 2004, pp. 390-2.
- "Australian Science Fiction Film Festival, May/June 2002". Festival review, scope-an on-line journal of film studies, Aug 2003, http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/filmreview.php?issue=aug2003&id=731§ion=film_rev
- "Videodrome". Film review, scope-an on-line journal of film studies, May 2003, http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/filmreview.php?issue=may2003&id=728§ion=film_rev.