Dr Helen Hughes
Senior Lecturer in German and Film Studies
BA (London) PhD (London)
Biography
Helen Hughes studied for her BA and PhD at University College London and joined the Department of Linguistic and International Studies at the University of Surrey in 1994. Since then she has taught in different departments at the University moving from the School of Arts to her current position as Senior Lecturer in Film Studies in the School of Literature and Languages in 2015.
Areas of specialism
Documentary Studies; German-language Cinema; Film and the Environment
University roles and responsibilities
- Deputy Chair of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Ethics Committee
Affiliations and memberships
Research
Research interests
Helen Hughes' research focuses on documentary film and German-language cinema with a special emphasis on representations of the environment. She has published journal articles and chapters on West German cinema, experimental film, Kafka adaptations, GDR and new Austrian documentary cinema, and eco docs. She co-edited Deutschland im Spiegel seiner Filme (2000) and translated Alexander Kluge's Cinema Stories (2007) with Martin Brady. She has published a monograph Green Documentary (2014). Recently she edited a collection of essays with Catalin Brylla entitled Documentary and Disability (2017) and she is currently working on a project on documentary and nuclear power funded by a British Academy small grant.
Supervision
Postgraduate research supervision
I am currently co-supervisor for one project in the School of Literature and Languages:
Jessica Marsh - On the role and function of 'mal' in German televised programmes
I supervised two projects to completion as principle supervisor in the School of Arts:
Eun Hi Kim The path to oppositional practice from a dancer's perspective
Kate Lawrence Up, down and amongst : perceptions and productions of space in vertical dance practices
Courses I teach on
Undergraduate
Postgraduate research
Film Studies PhDMy publications
Publications
Brady M, Hughes H (2006)Downfall and Beyond: Hitler Films from Germany, In: GFL-Journal (German as a Foreign Language)3pp. 94-114
Hughes HA (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), In: The German Quarterly81(3)pp. 361-362 Wiley
Hughes HA (2016)Review: The Autobiographical Turn in Germanophone Documentary and Experimental Film eds by Robin Curtis and Angelica Fenner, In: Seminar: a journal of Germanic studies52(3)pp. 349-351
Hughes HA, Wölfel U (2009)Women in the workplace and the Development of DEFA documentary style., In: Glossen(29)
Hughes HA (2012)Framing Humans and Wild Animals in the Environmental Documentary Film., In: The Cultural Framing of Environmental Discourse (online)
Hughes Helen (2017)Coming to Terms with the Present: Andreas Dresen's Wichmann Films (2003/2012), In: Preece J, Hodgin N (eds.), Andreas Dresen(7) Peter Lang
Hughes HA (2010)Review 'Shell Shock Cinema: Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War', In: Sight & Sound magazine20(4)pp. 93-93 British Film Institute
Hughes HA (2011)Humans, sharks and the shared environment in the contemporary eco-doc, In: Environmental Education Research17(6)pp. 735-749 Taylor & Francis
Hughes Helen (2017)On Andrew Kötting's Mapping Perception, In: Hughes Helen, Brylla C (eds.), Documentary and Disabilitypp. 275-289 Palgrave Macmillan UK
Brady M, Hughes Helen (2008)'Import and Export: Ulrich Seidl's Indiscreet Anthropology of Migration', In: Journal German as a Foreign Language (GFL)(1)pp. 100-122 GFL
Hughes HA (2012)The visual rhetoric of climate change documentary, In: Carvalho A, Peterson TR (eds.), Climate Change Politics: Communication and Public Engagementpp. 87-120 Cambria Press
Hughes HA (1997)"Die verschobene Antigone" Boll's contribution to the film Deutschland im Herbst, In: Dayton Review24(3)
Hughes Helen (2013)The Visual Rhetoric of Climate Change Documentaries: Aerial Shots and Interviews, In: Proceedings of the Conference on Communication and the Environment IECA
Hughes HA (1998)German Cinema, In: Kolinsky E, Will WVD (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Modern German Culture(14)pp. 302-321 Cambridge University Press
Brady M, Hughes H (1993)German Feature Films Glenbuck Films, BFI, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Goethe-Institut
Hughes HA (2000)Films and Texts, In: Hughes HA, Brady M (eds.), Deutschland im Spiegel seiner Filmepp. 3-13 CILT, AMGS
Hughes HA (2013)Arguments without words in Unser täglich Brot (Geyrhalter, 2005), In: Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies Taylor & Francis
Hughes HA (2012)Humans, sharks and the shared environment in the contemporary eco-doc, In: Blewitt J (eds.), The Media, Animal Conservation and Environmental Education(3) Routledge
Hughes HA (1994)visible bodies: introducing valie export's unsichtbare gegner, In: EONTA2(1)pp. 11-15
Hughes HA (1997)The Hand as Text and Image: On Valie Export's 'Koerpersplitter', In: Morrison J, Krobb F (eds.), Text into image, image into text20 Rodopi
Brady M, Hughes Helen (2010)Import and Export: Ulrich Seidl's Indiscreet Anthropology of Migration, In: von Dassanowsky R, Speck OC (eds.), New Austrian Film(15) Berghahn
Hughes HA, Brady M (1995)German Film After the Wende, In: McKenzie JRP, Lewis D (eds.), The new Germany(13)pp. 276-296 Univ of Exeter Pr
Hughes HA (2015)Adrian J. Ivakhiv (2013) Ecologies of the Moving Image: Cinema, Affect, Nature, In: Film-Philosophy
Hughes Helen (2019)History Comes Rolling in on the Clouds, In: Robins Laurie (eds.), Free Trade Or Else South London Gallery
Hughes HA (2015)Documentary and the survival of the film auteur: Agnès Varda, Werner Herzog and Spike Lee, In: Marcus D, Kara S (eds.), Contemporary Documentarypp. 142-155 Routledge
Brylla Catalin, Hughes Helen (2017)Introduction: The Bricolage of Documentary and Disability, In: Brylla Catalin, Hughes Helen (eds.), Documentary and Disabilitypp. 1-10 Palgrave Macmillan UK
Hughes HA (1999)Documenting the Wende: The Films of Andreas Voigt, In: Allan S, Sandford J (eds.), Defa: East German Cinema 1946-1992(16)pp. 283-301 Berghahn
Hughes HA (2016)'The essential is sufficient': the Kafka adaptations of Orson Welles, Straub-Huillet, and Michael Haneke, In: Biderman S, Lewit I (eds.), Mediametamorphosis: Kafka and the Moving Image Wallflower
Hughes Helen (2018)Literally Documenting her Voice: Valie Export's Vocal-Visual Experiments with Screen Media, In: Pramaggiore Maria, Honess Roe Annabelle (eds.), Vocal Projections: Voices in Documentary Bloomsbury Academic
Andrews S, Lawrence K, Hughes H Particles in Space
Hughes Helen Book Review - German Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene, In: Green Letters Taylor & Francis
Hughes HA (2012)Scrutiny and Documentary: Hubert Sauper's documentary film, Darwin's Nightmare, In: Screen53(3)3pp. 246-265 Oxford University Press
Hughes Helen, Brady M (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, 1945-199052 Wißner, Augsburg
Hughes H (2001)The Material World: A Comparison between Adalbert Stifter's historical novel Witiko and Robert Bresson's film Lancelot du Lac, In: Preece ODAJ (eds.), Travellers in Time and Space/Reisende durch Zeit und Raum. The German Historical Novel/Der deutschsprachige historische Romanpp. 199-208 Rodopi
(2017)Documentary and Disability Palgrave Macmillan UK
Hughes HA (1996)"Dass er jetzt ein exempel statuieren werde": on Thomas Bernhard's exempel, In: German Life and LettersXLIX(3)pp. 373-386
Hughes H, Brady M (2002)Kafka Adapted to Film, In: Preece J (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Kafkapp. 226-241 Cambridge University Press
Hughes HA (2014)Review: Catherine Wheatley, Michael Haneke’s Cinema: The Ethic of the Image, Berghahn, New York, Oxford: 2009, In: Studies in European Cinema11(2)
Hughes Helen (2019)The Story of Atoms at Work (Crown Film Unit, 1952), In: Screen60(1)pp. 172-180 Oxford University Press