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I am a Senior Lecturer in Film at Manchester Metropolitan University. Following the completion of my PhD in 2011, I taught at the University of Essex for three years, lecturing in film studies, U.S. lit., and critical theory (psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, modernism/post-modernism).Mys doctoral thesis focused on the complex historical relationship between American frontier mythology and the Hollywood Western from 1939 to date. Considering the genre as a form of ideology critique, I argued for the importance of the Western’s socio-cultural, historical, and political dimensions. My teaching is research-informed and focuses primarily on American Cinema from 1945-date, in particular, Westerns, Science Fiction, and Horror, but also independent films. I also lecture on various European national cinema movements such as the Franch New Wave, Italian Neorealism, and the New German Cinema.
In a media saturated age, moving images go a long way toward structuring our identities and our perception of the world. One could go so far as to say that our entire lives are mediated through images. They are undoubtedly among the most powerful forces shaping both our contemporary lives, how we perceive others, and how we interpret culture, politics, and history. Therefore, our ability to read and interpret the images, ideas, and stories that films deliver is crucial to how we understand both ourselves and our world. This is why I teach.
2012, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)
2011, PhD in Film, the University of Essex
2005, MA in Art History and Theory, the University of Essex
2004, BA (Hons) in Film and Literature, the University of Essex
2014-2017: Senior Lecturer in Film, Television, and Cultural Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University Cheshire, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
2011-2014: Part-time Teacher in Film, Literature, and Critical Theory, University of Essex, Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies
2013-2014: Teacher in Critical Approaches to Creative Media Products, Colchester Institute, Centre for Creative Arts
2007-2011: Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Essex, Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies
Undergraduate Admissions Tutor, Department of English
An education in Film Studies is a most profound skill and a most fulfilling accomplishment. This is why you should study film.
Currently, I am Unit Leader for Histories of Cinema (Level 4) and teach on American Spaces (Level 5) and Cinema and Nation (Level 6)
External Examiner, BA Film Studies programme, University of Worcester (2014-18)
The bulk of my research has focused on American frontier mythology. In particular, I have considered the intersections between myth and history and of the powerful ideological role played by the Hollywood Western throughout the 20th Century (and into the 21st) in shaping and analysing social, political, and historical attitudes and beliefs in the US and beyond. Intrisic to this research is my attempt to disentangle the complex interrelations of history and myth in the popular memory-landscape of the American West, and the Western. I have adopted a range of approaches from aesthetic and theoretical analysis, considerations of industrial context, ideology critique, and how film mediates representations of history, to develop a historically grounded and critically informed approach to Film Studies.
I am the author of the monograph, Myth of the Western: New Perspectives on Hollywood's Frontier Narrative (2014), and the co-editor (with Andrew Patrick Nelson) of The Films of Delmer Daves (2016), which is a part of Edinburgh University Press's ReFocus: The American Directors Series. I have also published chapters in the edited collections Contemporary Westerns: Film and Television Since 1990 (2013), The Post-2000 Film Western: Contexts, Transnationality, Hybridity (2015), and America: Justice, Conflict, War (2016). Other articles and reviews have featured in various peer-reviewed journals, including the European Journal of American Studies (EJAS), the IUP Journal of American Literature, and Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media.
I am currently developing my research to encompass generic hybridity and transnationalism by considering films outside the Hollywood orbit and those which fuse elements of Horror and Science Fiction to themes of frontier mythology and the Western. So far, this angle of my research has produced an article for the Polish journal Studia Filmoznawcze (Film Studies), a book chapter for the edited collection Unbridling the Western Film Auteur: Contemporary, Transnational and Intertextual Explorations (2018), and a co-edited (with Marek Paryz) Special Issue of the American journal Papers on Language and Literature entitled "The Visual Language of Gender and the Family in the Western". Marek and I (along with M. Elise Marubbio) have recently finished co-editing another Special Issue, this time for the German journal Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik (Journal of English and American Studies) on the subject of the "Degeneration of Settler Colonialism in Contemporary Cinematic Depictions of the US West".
I am now researching for another project, reuniting with my collaborator on the Delmer Daves project, to co-author a book on the films of Tobe Hooper.
M. Carter (2020). The Perpetuation of Myth: Ideology in Bone Tomahawk. Zeitschrift fuer Anglistik und Amerikanistik: a quarterly of language, literature and culture. 68(1), pp.21-35.
ME. Marubbio, M. Paryż, M. Carter (2020). Degeneration of Settler Colonialism in Contemporary Cinematic Depictions of the U.S. West: Introduction. Zeitschrift fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik. 68(1), pp.3-5.
M. Carter, M. Paryz, ME. Marubbio (2020). Figurations of Settler Colonialism in Contemporary Cinematic Depictions of the US West (Special Issue of Zeitschrift fuer Anglistik und Amerikanistik). M. Carter, M. Paryz, ME. Marubbio. Walter de Gruyter.
M. Carter, AP. Nelson (2016). ReFocus: The Films of Delmer Daves. M. Carter, AP. Nelson. Edinburgh University Press.
M. Carter, AP. Nelson (2016). 'No One Would Know It Was Mine': Delmer Daves, Modest Auteur. In: ReFocus: The Films of Delmer Daves. Edinburgh University Press, pp.1-47.
M. Carter (2016). ‘This is where he brought me: 10,000 acres of nothing’: the Femme Fatale and other Noir Tropes in Jubal. In: ReFocus: The Films of Delmer Daves. Edinburgh University Press, pp.199-222.
M. Carter (2014). Myth of the Western: New Perspectives on Hollywood's Frontier Narrative. Edinburgh University Press.
M. Carter, M. Paryz, ME. Marubbio (2020). Figurations of Settler Colonialism in Contemporary Cinematic Depictions of the US West (Special Issue of Zeitschrift fuer Anglistik und Amerikanistik). M. Carter, M. Paryz, ME. Marubbio. Walter de Gruyter.
M. Carter, M. Paryz (2018). The visual language of gender and family in the Western.
M. Carter, M. Paryz (2018). The visual language of gender and family in the Western. M. Carter, M. Paryz. Southern Illinois University.
M. Carter, AP. Nelson (2016). ReFocus: The Films of Delmer Daves. M. Carter, AP. Nelson. Edinburgh University Press.
M. Carter (2014). Myth of the Western: New Perspectives on Hollywood's Frontier Narrative. Edinburgh University Press.
M. Carter (2020). The Perpetuation of Myth: Ideology in Bone Tomahawk. Zeitschrift fuer Anglistik und Amerikanistik: a quarterly of language, literature and culture. 68(1), pp.21-35.
ME. Marubbio, M. Paryż, M. Carter (2020). Degeneration of Settler Colonialism in Contemporary Cinematic Depictions of the U.S. West: Introduction. Zeitschrift fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik. 68(1), pp.3-5.
M. Carter, M. Paryz (2017). The Family and the Problem of Gender in the Western. Papers on Language and Literature. 53(1), pp.102-103.
M. Carter (2009). ‘The dismal tide’: Shoring up the Fragments in Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men. IUP Journal of American Literature. 2(3-4),
M. Carter (2018). The post-apocalyptic frontier: reappropriating western violence for feminism in mad max: Fury road. E. Hamilton, A. Rolls. In: Unbridling the Western Film Auteur: Contemporary, Transnational and Intertextual Explorations. Peter Lang, pp.85-104.
M. Carter, AP. Nelson (2016). 'No One Would Know It Was Mine': Delmer Daves, Modest Auteur. In: ReFocus: The Films of Delmer Daves. Edinburgh University Press, pp.1-47.
M. Carter (2016). ‘This is where he brought me: 10,000 acres of nothing’: the Femme Fatale and other Noir Tropes in Jubal. In: ReFocus: The Films of Delmer Daves. Edinburgh University Press, pp.199-222.
M. Carter (2016). ‘This Country’s Hard on People’: No Country for Old Men as Political Allegory of 9/11. A. Gilroy, M. Messmer. In: America: Justice, Conflict, War, EAAS 60th Anniversary Conference Volume. Winter Universitätsverlag, pp.117-129.
M. Carter (2015). 'Crossing the Beast': American Identity and Frontier Mythology in Sin Nombre. M. Paryż, J. Leo. In: The Post-2000 Film Western: Contexts, Transnationality, Hybridity. Palgrave Macmillan, pp.89-105.
M. Carter (2015). “Crossing the Beast”: American Identity and Frontier Mythology in Sin Nombre. In: The Post-2000 Film Western. Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp.89-105.
M. Carter (2013). 'I’m just a cowboy’: Transnational Identities of the Border Country in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. AP. Nelson. In: Contemporary Westerns: Film and Television Since 1990. The Scarecrow Press, Inc., pp.149-169.
M. Carter The Horrific Border: National Identity in Savageland. Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain, 27/11/2023.
M. Carter “The Bizarre Enormity of the Mad and the Macabre.”. Manchester Metropolitan University, 5/6/2023.
M. Carter, AP. Nelson (2021). “Shoot-Out at the Genre Corral, Redux.”. University of East Anglia, 15/6/2021.
M. Carter “The Frontier Myth of the Western: Genre Hybrids and Transnational Perspectives”. Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, Site Saint Charles, 15/11/2018.
M. Carter “The Roots of the Degeneration of Settler Colonialism in The Keeping Room”. King's College London, University College London, and the British Library, 4/4/2018.
M. Carter “Reappropriating Western Violence for Feminism in Mad Max: Fury Road”. Canterbury Christ Church University, 6/4/2017.
M. Carter “‘Crossing the Beast’: American Identity and Frontier Mythology in Sin Nombre”. Manchester Metropolitan University, Cheshire Faculty, Crewe, 11/7/2015.
M. Carter “Reimagining Women in the West: Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff”. University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz, 8/10/2014.
M. Carter “‘This country’s hard on people’: No Country for Old Men as Political Allegory of 9/11”. Leiden University College The Hague, 3/4/2014.
M. Carter “‘Una herida abierta’: the Migration of Myth in Three Cinematic Visions of the Borderlands”. University of Essex, 8/7/2013.
M. Carter “Transnational Identities of the Border Country in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada”. University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz, 7/10/2010.
M. Carter “‘The dismal tide’: Shoring up the Fragments in No Country for Old Men”. King’s College London, 24/6/2009.
M. Carter “‘Lunatic Logic’; or, Dr. Strangelove, the Western, and the Terrible ill-logic of Nuclear Weaponry”. University of Exeter, 15/11/2008.
M. Carter “‘Transcendence on a Pale Horse’: Speaking the Myth of the Frontier as a Language of Violence in Unforgiven”. University of Essex, 5/5/2007.
“The Frontier Myth of the Western: Genre Hybrids and Transnational Perspectives”, KEYNOTE: “Transnationalism and Imperialism: New Perspectives on the Western”, a conference organized by EMMA (Études Montpelliéraines du Monde Anglophone), CAS (Cultures Anglo-Saxonnes), and CORPUS (Conflits, Représentations et Dialogues dans le Monde Anglo-Saxon), Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, Site Saint Charles (November 2018)
“Notes on Feminism, Psychoanalysis and Narrative Cinema in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive”, Centre for Intimate Sexual Citizenship, Department of Sociology, University of Essex (February 2014). Available on SoundCloud
Roundtable: Contemporary Western Film Studies. Chair: Hervé Mayer. With Matthew Carter, Andrew Patrick Nelson, Marek Paryz, Jesús Ángel González. Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, Site Saint Charles (November 2018)
Workshop: ‘Writing and Visualizing Justice, War and Peace in the American West: Local, Regional, National and Global Perspectives’; “America: Justice, Conflict, War”, 60th European Association for American Studies (EAAS) Anniversary Conference. Chair: Neil Campbell. Leiden University College The Hague (April 2014)
I have been a peer reviewer for the European Journal of American Studies since 2014 and have acted as an external peer reviewer for renowned academic publishers such as Edinburgh University Press, the University of Nebraska Press, and Palgrave Macmillan.
Public Engagement:
"Ideas and Actions for a 21st Century Enlightenment" - 21-23 July 2010
The Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in London and the Eastern Region of the Royal Society of Arts sponsored this series of cultural programmes jointly. Their purpose is to promote an awareness of the "high culture" of the people of Poland whose presence is felt in so many areas of East Anglian life. I was responsible for delivering a number of lectures relating to the cinematic adaptation of Wladyslaw Reymont's celebrated 1898 novel The Promised Land.
"An Evening with Michael Chanan, Director of Money Puzzles Documentary" - 18 November 2016
The first UK screening of Professor Michael Chanan’s latest documentary held at the Axis Arts Centre and organised through RKE Cheshire and MMU Crewe Campus. Money Puzzles is about money and debt, austerity and solidarity, and alternative economics. Filmed in 2015 in the UK, Greece, Spain, Belgium and Argentina, it questions the myriad forms of money in modern times, and the intimate link between money and debt. Alongside the crushing effects of austerity and the neoliberal agenda of finance capitalism, the film reports on grassroots solidarity networks and ground-level anti-austerity initiatives which aim to construct an alternative social economics. I was responsible for inviting Michael, hosting the event, introducing the documentary and leading a discussion with the directory followed by a question and answer session. The event was attended by representatives from local groups and organisations including Crewe Town Council, Momentum, and local debt counsellors.
Erasmus Staff Mobility Grant (£800). April, 2016
University of Essex Doctoral Scholarship (£12,000). October 2006 - October 2009
Eccles Centre Postgraduate Award in North America Studies (£650). October 2006 - October 2007
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Full Scholarship (£11,500). October 2004 - September 2005
Editorial Advisory Board, The Popular West Series, the University of Oklahoma Press.
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)