Karen McNally is Professor of American Film, Television and Cultural History and a Leverhulme Major Research Fellow.
Karen McNally
Professor Karen McNally is currently conducting research as a Leverhulme Major Research Fellow. She holds a PhD and MA (with Distinction) in Film Studies from University of Nottingham and a First Class Honours Degree in Film and Television Studies and American Studies from Brunel University. Professor McNally has previously held the role of Reader and a number of course leaderships at postgraduate and undergraduate levels at London Met, as well as a position as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University of Reading.
Professor McNally’s research focuses on Hollywood film, American television and US culture more broadly. She is currently conducting research for a historical biography of Lana Turner as a Leverhulme Major Research Fellow. Particular areas of expertise include stardom and performance, issues of gender and race, the Hollywood musical, and US history and contemporary politics. Karen is currently also editing a volume of narratives related to the female experience of inequality and abuse in Hollywood which will be publishing with University of Illinois Press. She is a member of London Met's Global Diversities and Inequalities Research Centre, and welcomes applications for doctoral research supervision on topics related to American film and television and US culture.
- Film and Television Studies BA
- Film and Television Studies (including foundation year) BA
- Journalism, Film and Television Studies BA
- Journalism, Film and Television Studies (including foundation year) BA
Books
American Television During a Television Presidency (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2022), Series: Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media. Series editor: Barry Keith Grant
The Stardom Film: Hollywood and the Star Myth (New York: Wallflower-Columbia University Press, 2020).
The Legacy of Mad Men: Cultural History, Intermediality and American Television (co-edited with Kirsty Fairclough, Jane Marcellus, Teresa Forde) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).
Billy Wilder, Movie-Maker: Critical Essays on the Films (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011).
When Frankie Went to Hollywood: Frank Sinatra and American Male Identity (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008).
Journal special issues (editor)
‘Donald Trump, the Presidency and the Media’ Special Issue, European Journal of American Culture, Vol. 41, No. 2 (June 2022).
Refereed journal articles
‘Nixon, Trump and Washington Behind Closed Doors: Fictionalizing Watergate and the prescience of the historical miniseries’, European Journal of American Culture, Vol. 41, No. 2 (June 2022), pp. 127-146.
‘Hollywood Stars vs Variety Show Hosts: The Incompatible Case of Frank Sinatra on 1950s Television’, European Journal of American Culture 31:2 (July 2012), pp. 107-121.
‘The Geordie and the American Hero: Revisiting Classic Hollywood Masculinity in When the Boat Comes In’, Journal of British Cinema and Television (May 2007), pp. 102-120.
‘“Where’s the spinning wheel?”: Frank Sinatra and Working-Class Alienation in Young at Heart’, Journal of American Studies, 41 (2007), pp. 115-133.
‘“Sinatra, Commie Playboy”: Frank Sinatra, Post-War Liberalism and Press Paranoia’, Film Studies, Hollywood Blacklist Special Issue co-edited by Steve Neale and Peter Stanfield, Issue 7:1 (Winter 2005), pp. 43-53.
‘“Your blood’s the same as mine”: The House I Live In and the Post-War Push for Tolerance’, Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies (May 2005).
‘Films for Swingin’ Lovers: Frank Sinatra, Performance and Sexual Objectification in The Tender Trap and Pal Joey’, Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies (May 2002).
Book chapters
‘The Political is Personal: Disturbing Form, Revisiting Liberalism, and Resisting Trump’s America’ in The Good Fight’ in Karen McNally (ed.), American Television During a Television Presidency (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2022), pp. 71-95.
‘Introduction: A Presidency Made for Television’ in Karen McNally (ed.), American Television During a Television Presidency (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2022), pp. 1-16.
‘Beyond the Performance: Ida Lupino and the American Business of Show’ in Phillip Sipiora (ed.), The Films of Ida Lupino (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2021), pp. 17-34.
‘Suppression, Expression and Disruption: Frank Sinatra’s Screen Image in the Hollywood Musical’ in N. T. Binh and José Moure (eds.), Le Musical Hollywoodien (Les Impressions Nouvelles/Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2021), pp.255-275.
‘“Play real pretty for the people”: Louis Armstrong, Sammy Davis, Jr., and the Racial Politics of Post-War Jazz Musicals’ in Aurélie Ledoux and Pierre-Olivier Toulza (eds.), Politiques du Musical Hollywoodien (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2020), pp. 143-156.
‘Reading Mad Men in the Era of Trump’ (with Teresa Forde) in Karen McNally, Jane Marcellus, Teresa Forde and Kirsty Fairclough (eds.), The Legacy of Mad Men: Cultural History, Intermediality and American Television (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), pp. 251-262.
‘Featuring the Nicholas Brothers: Spectacle, Structure and Racial Interventi'
Professor McNally has been interviewed for a variety of radio and television programmes and newspaper and magazine articles nationally and internationally in relation to Hollywood film and American television. She has appeared on BBC Radio 2, BBC World Service and Channel 4, published in The Conversation US, and appeared at public events at the British Film Institute and in Europe as an expert in Hollywood film.
She has contributed to a wide variety of media internationally, including the BBC, Politico, Cosmopolitan, and Tortoise Media, and is a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council's Peer Review College.
Professor Karen McNally
Professor of American Film, Television and Cultural History
Email Karen
Professor McNally is a Leverhulme Major Research Fellow. She is currently conducting research for a historical biography of Hollywood actress and star Lana Turner. The project seeks to retrieve Turner's career as an artist in the context of a study of the female experience of the American screen industries defined by the relationships between the Hollywood studios, government agencies, the press and organised crime.