School of Computing and Digital Media staff profiles content store_hidden Mike Chopra-Gant Our staff

Dr Chopra-Gant teaches the undergraduate modules, History of the Mass Media and Researching Culture and Communications. At postgraduate level, he teaches Researching Communications and also convenes the MA Dissertation module.

• PhD. University of London (Goldsmiths College), June 2002
• MRes (Media and Communications). University of London (Goldsmiths College), September 1998
• BSc (Hons), Applied Social Science (Communications and Cultural Studies), First Class. University of North London September 1997 

Dr Chopra-Gant has broad research interests in American popular culture and modern American cultural history (especially the 1940s and 1950s), particularly Hollywood film, cinema exhibition, contemporary US television, genre theory and representations of masculinity, families and national identity. He would be interested to hear from any prospective research students (MRes, MPhil or PhD) with interests in any of these areas.

Dr Chopra-Gant is the convenor of the London Metropolitan University research group in American Popular Culture: History, Theory, Analysis.

A member of the editorial advisory board for the Journal of Popular Culture, Dr Chopra-Gant is also a member of MeCCSA, ECREA, IAMHIST, the Institute of Historical Research, the Popular Culture Association, the War and Media Network and the International Cinema Audiences Research Group. He has peer-reviewed articles for the Journal of American Studies, Men and Masculinities and Popular Communication in addition to his reviews of book proposals for Routledge, Cengage International and Pearson Education.

Books

• Hollywood Genres and Postwar America: Masculinity, Family and Nation in Popular Movies and Film Noir. London: I. B. Tauris. ISBN 1850438153(HB) 1850438382(PB). 2005.
• Cinema and History: the Telling of Stories. London: Wallflower Press. 2008. ISBN 978-1-905674-59-6.
• The Waltons: Nostalgia, Myth and Seventies America. London: I. B. Tauris. 2009 (in preparation)

Journal articles

• 'Absent fathers and "moms", delinquent daughters and mummy's boys: envisioning the postwar American family in Hitchcock's Notorious'. Comparative American Studies Vol.3 No. 3 (September 2005) ISSN: 1477-5700 (Print) 1741-2676 (Online). 
• 'The Law of the father, the law of the land: power, gender and race in The Shield'. Journal of American Studies Vol. 41 No. 3, December 2007, 659-673. ISSN 0021-8758 EISSN 1469-5154.
• '"Greatest Pictures of the Year": Exhibition Research and the Legacies of Film Studies'. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. Submitted and under review.
• 'What’s Playing at the Chief?: Movie Exhibition in an Independent Small Town Cinema in 1940s America'. In preparation.

Chapters in anthologies

• '"So what kind of film is it?": genre, publicity and critical practice' in Dowd, G. and Stephenson, L. and Strong, J. eds. Genre Matters: Essays in Theory and Criticism. Bristol: Intellect Press. ISBN 1841501077. 2005. 
• 'Representing the postwar family: the figure of the "absent father" in early postwar Hollywood films' in Jacqueline Furby and Karen Randell eds. Screen Methods: Comparative Readings in Film Studies. London: Wallflower Press. ISBN 1904764355 (HB) 1904764347 (PB)(2006).
• '‘Hollywood’s "moms" and postwar America’ in Addison, H., Goodwin-Kelly, M. K. and Roth, E. eds Motherhood Misconceived. Albany: S.U.N.Y. Press (2008).
• ‘"I’m a thirty year old boy’: capitalism and male infantilization in Fight Club’ in Shary, T. ed. American Movie Masculinity. Albany: S.U.N.Y. Press (2008). 
• ‘"You want me to lick your balls, daddy?": race, fatherhood and power in The Shield’ in Ray, N. ed. Reading The Shield. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press (2009).

Encyclopaedia entries

• Andersen, R. and Grey, J. (eds) Battleground: The Media. Westport CT: Greenwood Press (2007) ISBN 0-313-34167-0, ISBN-13 978-0-313-34167-0. Authored entry on representations of masculinity. 

Invited research papers 

• Keynote Speaker at Biennial Film History Conference, Complutense University, Madrid. November 2008 (forthcoming)
• Exhibition studies, film studies and the Canon,given at Brunel University, December 2007
• Popular films, film noir and the postwar zeitgeist, given at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, November 2003
• Pinning down the 'postwar crisis of masculinity' given at The Present of Cinema Studies seminar series, University of Southampton, March 2001 

Conference papers 

• 'What’s Playing at the Chief?: small town independent movie exhibition in the 1940s'. European Communications Research and Education Association, Barcelona, November 2008 
• "Now Showing!": exhibition studies and the legacy of film studies. British Association of American Studies. Edinburgh University, April 2008. 
• "Now Showing!": exhibition studies and the legacy of film studies. Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Annual Conference, San Francisco, March 2008.
• "I shot her above the kneecap! She can still walk": legitimising white male violence on contemporary American television. NAAS Conference. University of Tampere, Finland, May 2007.
• 'Unputdownable television: narrative structure, character and the 'addictive' text. Screen Conference, Glasgow University, July 2006. 
• "You want me to lick your balls, daddy?": race, fatherhood and power in The Shield. Western Social Sciences Association Annual Conference, Phoenix, Arizona, April 2006.
• The law of the father, the law of the land: power, gender and race in The Shield. BAAS conference, Cambridge University, April 2005. 
• American ambivalence and the postwar small town movie. BAAS conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, April 2004. 
• "So what kind of film is it?": genre, publicity and critical practice. Genre Conference, Thames Valley University, September 2002. 
• Classlessness, democracy and masculinity: Alan Ladd, Gary Cooper and the performance of American myth in Two Years Before the Mast (John Farrow 1946 USA) and Saratoga Trunk (Sam Wood 1946 USA). Exploring Masculinities and Film, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, July 2001. 
• Tough talk, hard knocks and fear of feminization: reclaiming patriarchal authority for 1950s masculinity in Dragnet (1954 USA).Point Blank: Tough Guy Film and Culture, University of Arizona, Tucson, May 2000 
• Throwing out the bathwater but keeping the baby: reinvigorating structuralism. MeCCSA conference, Sheffield University, January 2000. 
• The Shield. BAAS conference, Cambridge University, April 2005. . BAAS conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, April 2004. Genre Conference, Thames Valley University, September 2002. . Exploring Masculinities and Film, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, July 2001. Point Blank: Tough Guy Film and Culture, University of Arizona, Tucson, May 2000 MeCCSA conference, Sheffield University, January 2000. The Shield. BAAS conference, Cambridge University, April 2005. . BAAS conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, April 2004. Genre Conference, Thames Valley University, September 2002. . Exploring Masculinities and Film, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, July 2001. Point Blank: Tough Guy Film and Culture, University of Arizona, Tucson, May 2000 MeCCSA conference, Sheffield University, January 2000. 
  
  

External funding

Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Grant no. 119137. Film exhibition and the American movie audience. Period of award: October 2006 to July 2008.

Media appearances

• Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 4: 16 June 2006 - Fatherhood in Hollywood films
• The Guardian, 18 October 2006. Letter to the editor.
• The Cinema Show, BBC 4: 9 December 2006 - Fathers and sons in film. 
• The World, BBC 4/BBC Worldwide: 13 December 2006 - Conspiracy theories. 

Email: m.chopra-gant@londonmet.ac.uk