GWYNNE Joel Robert

Joel Gwynne is an Associate Professor in the ELL Academic Group.

He began his career as a postcolonial literary studies scholar. However, in recent years his research has moved towards gender and popular culture across a range of forms, particularly cinema and television. His research on media culture in Anglo-America and Asia is linked by a focus on the global impact of postfeminist and neoliberal discourses. He is especially interested in the cultural representations of girls and women – and indeed the ‘girling’ of women - in Western and Asian popular culture, and the nexus between the two. Guided by this aim, his published research has explored gender and popular culture across a number of contexts and genres, including: Hollywood cinema’s engagement with feminism, Japanese cinema and the ‘girling of womanhood’, the sexualisation of schoolgirls in graphic novels and manga, girls’ agency in contemporary adolescent literature, postfeminist ‘politics’ and women’s memoirs, women’s use of the Internet in transnational popular fiction, the representation of feminist activism and female politicians in Singapore, and young women’s lifestyle blogs in Singapore and Malaysia. 

His research has appeared in international journals such as the Journal of Postcolonial Writing (Routledge), the Journal of Literary Studies (Routledge), Film International (Intellect), Film, Fashion and Consumption (Intellect), the Journal of Contemporary Asia (Routledge), the Journal of Gender Studies (Routledge), Women's Studies International Forum (Elsevier), Feminist Theory (Sage), Feminist Media Studies (Routledge), the International Journal of Cultural Studies (Sage). 

He is especially interested in the cultural representations of girls and women – and indeed the ‘girling’ of women - in Western and Asian popular culture, and the nexus between the two. Guided by this aim, his published research has explored gender and popular culture across a number of contexts and genres, including: Hollywood cinema’s engagement with feminism, Japanese cinema and the ‘girling of womanhood’, the sexualisation of schoolgirls in graphic novels and manga, girls’ agency in contemporary adolescent literature, postfeminist ‘politics’ and women’s memoirs, women’s use of the Internet in transnational popular fiction, the representation of feminist activism and female politicians in Singapore, and young women’s lifestyle blogs in Singapore and Malaysia. 

He has supervised research on a diverse range of topics on popular culture, including chick lit, adolescent literature, Bollywood cinema and vampire narratives in fiction and film. He welcomes applications for graduate research on all areas of gender and popular culture, especially their intersections with postfeminism and neoliberalism. 

• NIE ERFP Tier 1: 'Globalization, Citizenship and Postfeminist Media Culture in Singapore' 2013 - 2016 ($89,696) 
• NTU "Complexity" Tier 1: 'A Complex Network Approach to Analysing Literary Texts' 2013 - 2015 ($59,340)    

Journal of International Women’s Studies, Bridgewater State University, USA. 
Journal of Gender Studies, Routledge, UK. 
Journal of Contemporary Asia, Routledge, UK. 
Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Sage, UK. 
European Journal of Cultural Studies, Routledge, UK. 
Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, Taylor and Francis, Australia.  
Women’s Studies International Forum, Elsevier, France. 
Citizenship Studies, Routledge, USA. 
Journal of Popular Film and Televison, Routledge, USA.
Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Routledge, USA
Women’s Studies in Communication, Routledge, USA.
Pedagogies: An International Journal, Routledge, Singapore.
Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Routledge, UK. 
Gender, Place and Culture, Routledge, Australia.
Journal of Communication Inquiry, Sage, USA. 
Cinema Journal, University of Texas Press, USA.