Dr Karen McNally, Professor of American Film, Television and Cultural History, has been awarded a prestigious Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship commencing in 2024.
Date: 11 January 2024
During the three-year project, Professor McNally will be working on a historical biography of the American actress Lana Turner, focusing on the experience of female stardom in the US screen industries. This examination of Turner’s almost 50-year career will foreground women’s lived experience of abuse and inequality and highlight often unrecognized work and skills.
A key aspect of Karen’s research will be the persistence of gendered structures and their relationship to US culture, history and politics. Turner’s experiences will be contextualized by those of other female stars and relationships between the American film and television industries and, for example, government organizations, organized crime, the FBI and the press. This historical biography of Turner seeks to substantially disturb and revise approaches to Hollywood history.
Professor McNally is one of only 30 senior scholars in the humanities and social sciences selected from over 220 applicants to receive the fellowship in 2024.
The Leverhulme Trust, with its longstanding commitment to supporting research and education since its inception in 1925, continues to play a crucial role in fostering academic excellence. This fellowship further underscores the Trust’s dedication to advancing knowledge and facilitating in-depth investigations in various scholarly domains.
