Dr Helen Hughes
Senior Lecturer in Film Studies
Qualifications: BA, PhD (London)
Email: h.hughes@surrey.ac.uk
Phone: Work: 01483 68 2837
Room no: 13 NC 01
Office hours
My regular office hours for this semester are Thursdays 1-3 pm.
Please email h.hughes@surrey.ac.uk if you wish to make an appointment at any time.
Further information
Biography
Helen Hughes is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies in the School of Arts at the University of Surrey. She is researching and writing a book entitled Green Documentary on environmental documentaries in the twenty-first century, exploring the use of documentary film for environmental activism as well as the representation of communities as situated in particular environments.
After studying German and Linguistics at University College London, Helen Hughes wrote her PhD, The Bureaucratic Muse on the relationship between bureaucracy and literature in Austrian prose fiction referring to: the writer, landscape painter, pedagogue and conservationist Adalbert Stifter; the writer and insurance lawyer, Franz Kafka; the writer, database manager and cybernetics expert, Oswald Wiener; and the writer, playwright, sometime court reporter and farmer, Thomas Bernhard.
She was a lecturer in German at the University of Surrey from 1994 to 2002 when she worked with the Association of German Studies, organizing a series of conferences on German Film with the Goethe-Instituts in London, and Glasgow. Some of the papers from these conferences were published in an edited volume entitled Deutschland im Spiegel seiner Filme, Modern German Studies 1, CILT, London, 2000. She also wrote articles and chapters on German-language film, analyzing works by Valie Export, Volker Schlöndorff, and Andreas Voigt, developing a particular interest in the documentary films of the former German Democratic Republic. She extended her interests beyond German-language cinema through comparative work on representations of landscapes in Robert Bresson's Lancelot du Lac and Adalbert Stifter's Witiko, and on Kafka adaptations.
In 2002 she was promoted and became the programme director for the BA in Culture, Media and Communication and was briefly Head of Department before moving to the Department of Dance, Film, and Theatre in 2008 where she now leads the Film Studies programme and the Surrey Documentary Group.
Research Interests
I am currently working on the issues that arise out of the use of documentary film in raising environmental awareness.
I am also interested in documentary more generally, particularly in contemporary Austrian documentary and the documentary of the former GDR or DEFA documentary.
I am interested in the exploration of perception in avantgarde and experimental filmmaking.
Research Collaborations
Helen Hughes has worked extensively on German-language film with Dr Martin Brady (King's College London).
She has also collaborated with Dr Ute Wölfel (University of Reading) on representations of gender and the workplace in DEFA documentary film.
In 2008 she collaborated with Kate Lawrence and Stuart Andrews on a project with the Surrey Ion Beam Research Centre performed during British Science Week.
Publications
Journal articles
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(2013) 'Arguments without words in Unser täglich Brot (Geyrhalter, 2005)'. Taylor & Francis Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/763280/
Abstract
In this article, I discuss the film Our Daily Bread [Geyrhalter, N. 2005. Unser täglich Brot [Motion Picture]. Austria: The ICA] as an almost wordless film, asking why the decision not to include interviews, intertitles or commentary, and to use carefully composed, often symmetrical framing, appears to have led reviewers to see it as an unusually democratic documentary. In my discussion, I refer to Richards' [1930. Practical Criticism. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner] four kinds of meaning in poetry, and Sperber and Wilson's ([1986]1995 Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell) model of inferential communication guided by the principle of relevance, as a means to explore how authorial feeling about the subject is suppressed in the film, and how this might encourage the belief that the viewer makes up his/her own mind about what is made visible or ‘mutually manifest’. Sperber et al.'s [2010. Epistemic Vigilance. Mind & Language 25, no. 4: 359–393] work on ‘epistemic vigilance’ and on the links between argumentation and communication is also drawn on in order to understand how separate kinds of reasoning involved simultaneously in the interpretation of the film create a dynamic ambiguity or ambivalence, which itself is the basis for the use of formal aesthetic devices in political art cinema.
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(2012) 'Scrutiny and Documentary: Hubert Sauper’s documentary film, Darwin’s Nightmare'. Oxford University Press Screen, UK: 53 (3) Article number 3 , pp. 246-265.Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/734151/
Abstract
This article is an attempt to understand the significance of the considerable textual complexity and fraught reception history of the film Darwin’s Nightmare which was made in Mwanza, Tanzania, at the beginning of the millennium, released in 2004, screened on French television in 2006, and discussed in court in Paris in 2008 and 2009. The film is discussed as an example of recent activist documentary which seeks to make visible the impacts of modernisation and globalisation on local communities. Problems that arise out of such ventures concern evaluation of the documentary’s truth claims. The article suggests that a model of communication and cognition initially developed as Relevance Theory by Dan Sperber and Deidre Wilson and developed more recently in articles on epistemic vigilance and argumentation, offers a way to maintain the truth claims made by activist documentary filmmakers, while acknowledging the creativity of both the production process and the process of interpretation.
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(2011) 'Humans, sharks and the shared environment in the contemporary eco-doc'. Taylor & Francis Environmental Education Research, 17 (6), pp. 735-749.Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/27648/
Abstract
Focussing on the film Sharkwater directed by Rob Stewart (2006), this article discusses formal interpretive aspects of recent environmental documentaries which are intended to raise awareness about environmental issues. It is argued that contemporary environmental documentaries seek to persuade audiences to protect the shared physical environment by increasing the amount of information and imagery available to a shared cognitive environment. An integral part of this process is the conscious awareness of attitudes towards information presented. In the case of recent environmental films about threatened species it is argued that the inclusion of the human and the wild animal in the frame is a technique used to raise awareness of the complex questions concerning human attitudes towards other animals as well as towards other human beings. It is argued in particular that activist films are concerned to make visible the necessity for human cooperation in the protection of endangered species.
- . (2008) 'Review of 'Verschollen im Meer der Medien: Kafkas Romanfragment "Amerika": Zur Rekonstruktion und Deutung eines Medienkomplexes (Lost in a media seascape: Kafka's fragmentary novel "America": the reconstruction and interpretation of a media complex)'. Wiley The German Quarterly, 81 (3), pp. 361-362.
- . (2008) ''Import and Export: Ulrich Seidl's Indiscreet Anthropology of Migration''. 2008 Edition. GFL Journal German as a Foreign Language (GFL), Germany: (1), pp. 100-122.
- . (2006) 'Downfall and Beyond: Hitler Films from Germany'. GFL-Journal (German as a Foreign Language), 3, pp. 94-114.
- . (1997) '‘Die verschobene Antigone’ Böll's contribution to the film Deutschland im Herbst'. Dayton Review, 24 (3)
- . (1996) '‘daß er jetzt ein Exemple statuieren werde’: on Thomas Bernhard's Exempel'. German Life and Letters, XLIX (3), pp. 373-386.
- . (1994) 'Death in Berlin: Reflections on Celan's DU LIEGST'. EONTA, 2 (2), pp. 12-15.
- . (1994) 'visible bodies: introducing valie export's unsichtbare gegner'. EONTA, 2 (1), pp. 11-15.
Conference papers
- . (2012) 'The toxic materiality of the ecodoc'. Boston USA: The Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference
- . (2012) 'Framing Humans and Wild Animals in the Environmental Documentary Film.'. Cultural Framing of Environmental Discourse (CFOED) The Cultural Framing of Environmental Discourse (online), Bath: The Cultural Framing of Environmental Discourse
- . (2012) 'The Everyday Between Heaven and Earth in Michael Pilz's 'Himmel und Erde' (Austria 1979-82)'. King's College London: The Politics of the Home: Domestic Culture in Post-War Germany and Austria
- . (2009) 'Local Geography'. University of Aberystwyth: Living Landscapes
- . (2009) 'Women in the workplace and the Development of DEFA documentary style.'. Carlisle, PA : Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA Glossen, Cardiff School of European Studies: Made in the GDR: Visual Culture in the Other Germany (29)
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(2007) 'Beautiful Food: Representing the Gap between the Production and Representation of Food'. University of East London: Cultural Studies Now!
[ Status: Unpublished ] - . (2007) 'WE FEED THE WORLD: Contemporary European Documentaries on the problem of Food Production'. Coventry: MeCCSA with AMPE conference 2007
Books
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(2014) Green Documentary: Contemplation, Irony, Argument. Bristol : Intellect
[ Status: Submitted ] - . (2000) Deutschland im Spiegel seiner Filme. Association for Modern German Studies
- . (1993) German Feature Films. Glenbuck Films, BFI, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Goethe-Institut
Book chapters
- . (2012) 'Humans, sharks and the shared environment in the contemporary eco-doc'. in Blewitt J (ed.) The Media, Animal Conservation and Environmental Education London, New York : Routledge Article number 3
- . (2012) 'The visual rhetoric of climate change documentary'. in Carvalho A, Peterson TR (eds.) Climate Change Politics: Communication and Public Engagement New York : Cambria Press , pp. 87-120.
- . (2010) 'Import and Export: Ulrich Seidl’s Indiscreet Anthropology of Migration'. in von Dassanowsky R, Speck OC (eds.) New Austrian Film New York, Oxford : Berghahn Article number 15
- . (2005) '“Diese Deutschen, Diese Briten: Documentary Filmmaking in Newcastle and Rostock”'. in Berger S, Laporte N (eds.) The other Germany: Perceptions and Influences in British-East German Relations, 1945-1990 Augsburg : Wißner, Augsburg 52
- . (2002) 'Kafka Adapted to Film'. in Preece J (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Kafka Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , pp. 226-241.
- . (2001) 'The Material World: A Comparison between Adalbert Stifter's historical novel Witiko and Robert Bresson's film Lancelot du Lac'. in Preece ODAJ (ed.) Travellers in Time and Space/Reisende durch Zeit und Raum. The German Historical Novel/Der deutschsprachige historische Roman Amsterdam/New York : Rodopi , pp. 199-208.
- . (2000) 'Films and Texts'. in Hughes HA, Brady M (eds.) Deutschland im Spiegel seiner Filme London : CILT, AMGS , pp. 3-13.
- . (1999) 'Documenting the Wende: The Films of Andreas Voigt'. in Allan S, Sandford J (eds.) Defa: East German Cinema 1946-1992 New York, Oxford : Berghahn Article number 16 , pp. 283-301.
- . (1998) 'German Cinema'. in Kolinsky E, Will WVD (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to Modern German Culture Cambridge : Cambridge University Press Article number 14 , pp. 302-321.
- . (1997) 'The Hand as Text and Image: On Valie Export's 'Koerpersplitter''. in Morrison J, Krobb F (eds.) Text into image, image into text Amsterdam/Atlanta : Rodopi 20
- . (1995) 'German Film After the Wende'. in McKenzie JRP, Lewis D (eds.) The new Germany Exeter : Univ of Exeter Pr Article number 13 , pp. 276-296.
Performances
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(2009) Particles in Space. Ion Beam Centre, British Science Festival, University of Surrey:
[ Status: Unpublished ]Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/741308/Abstract
Particles in Space is a model of tourist performance for revealing ideas in a scientific laboratory, in which technology can appear more dominant than the practices and ideas being applied. As scientists examine the back-scattering of particles fromthe use of an ion beam, this performance intervention creates a similar back-scattering of multiple, fragmentary and divergent artistic practices, to be considered by participants. The tourist performance walk engages in scattered practices, which are themselves responses to laboratory practices. The research reframes the movement of tourist practice, using performance to reveal ideas, practices and effects of intervention.
Other publications
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(2013) History and Obstinacy. New York : Zone Books
[ Status: In preparation ] - . (2012) Introduction to Peter Nestler's 'The Waiting' (1985) and 'The North Calotte' (1990/1) at Tate Modern London on 10th November 2012.
- . (2010) Review 'Shell Shock Cinema: Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War'. British Film Institute Sight & Sound magazine, 20 (4), pp. 93-93.
- . (2010) Seven Love Stories. Paris : Shakespeare and Company The Paris Magazine, (4), pp. 79-93.
- . (2007) Cinema Stories. New York : New Directions
Theses and dissertations
- . (1994) The Bureaucratic Muse: On Thomas Bernhard's 'Exempel', Adalbert Stifter's 'Der Kuss von Sentze', Franz Kafka's 'In der Strafkolonie', and Oswald Wiener's 'die verbesserung von mitteleuropa, roman'.. University College London
Teaching
Module Leader 2012-3
Level 2 Documentary Film History and Concepts
Level 3 Director Study (Werner Herzog), Green Film, Experimental and Avant-garde Cinema
Departmental Duties
BA Programme Director: Film Studies and Film Studies with Creative WritingRecent conference presentations
January 2007 ‘We Feed The World: Contemporary documentary films on the problem of food’(At the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies conference at Coventry University (MeCCSA))
July 2007 Panel on ‘The Cultural Politics of Food’ with paper ‘Beautiful Food: Representing the Gap between the Production and Representation of Food’ (At the conference Cultural Studies Now, University of East London)
April 2008 ‘Women in the workplace and the Development of DEFA documentary style.’ At the one day seminar: Made in the GDR: Visual Culture in the Other Germany at the Cardiff School of European Studies
June 2009 Panel on 'Points in and on space: Buildings, beaches and bothersome relatives'. Paper entitled 'Local Geography' at the Arts and Humanities Research Council conference Living Landscapes in Aberystwyth
March 2011 'Wild Animals and the Environmental Documentary Film.' At the AHRC network on 'The Cultural Framing of Environmental Discourse' in Bath http://cfoed.co.uk/143/hughes-wild-animals-and-the-environmental-documentary-film/
March 2012 'The toxic materiality of the ecodoc' At the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Boston, USA
