Dr Alix Beeston

(she/her)

BA Dist, Hons First Class, PhD (Sydney)

Publication

• Date
• Type

Research

Incomplete

My latest book is Incomplete: The Feminist Possibilities of the Unfinished Film, which I coedited with Stefan Solomon (Macquarie University, Sydney). Published in 2023 as part of the Feminist Media Histories book series at the University of California Press, it was awarded Best Edited Collection by the British Association of Film, Television, and Screen Studies and received Honourable Mention for the Susan Koppelman Award for the Best Anthology, Multi-Authored, or Edited Book in Feminist Studies in Popular and American Culture. It was also shortlisted for the Media, Communication, and Cultural Studies Association Edited Collection of the Year (award to be announced in September 2024) and longlisted for the Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Award.

This field-defining collection establishes unfinished film projects—abandoned, interrupted, lost, or open-ended—as rich and underappreciated resources for feminist film and media studies. In a series of deeply researched and creatively conceived chapters, scholars join with film practitioners in approaching the unfinished film as an ideal site for revealing the lived experiences, practical conditions, and institutional realities of women's film production across historical periods and national borders. Incomplete recovers projects and practices marginalised in film industries and scholarship alike, while also showing how feminist filmmakers have cultivated incompletion as an aesthetic strategy.

The recording of the online launch of Incomplete is available to view here. I have talked about this project on Finnish Radio, BBC Radio Wales Arts Show, BBC 3's New Thinking, and the podcasts Unfinishing and New Books Network.

In November 2022 in Cardiff, Stefan and I co-curated a film festival and workshop series in connection with this work, which featured film practitioners and scholars from around the world. Unfinished: Women Filmmakers in Process was presented in partnership with Chapter Arts Centre and funded by a grant awarded by Cardiff's College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Innovation for All fund. The festival programme, featuring essays by myself, Stefan, Hannah Hamad, Mathilde Rouxel, and Karen Redrobe, is available to view here. Articles about the festival appeared on Wales Arts Review and the Feminist Studies Association newsletter.

Image Encounters

I am currently finishing a new scholarly–trade book, tentatively titled Image Encounters: Photography and the Feminist Art of Being Seen, which offers a richly illustrated, creative–critical account of women in photography. Composed of interlinked critical–creative microessays that contemplate specific images of women and girls from across photography’s histories, Image Encounters embraces what it theorizes, namely the photograph as an object that entangles, a site of encounter: of self and other, viewer and viewed; of past and present, here and elsewhere; of thought and feeling, observation and imagination. In these image encounters, I argue, there is a feminist energy which may turn seeing and being seen into a transgressive, liberatory art.

I published a short excerpt from this manuscript at the Visualities forum of Modernism/modernity Print Plus. I am also writing a methodological reflection on this work for an upcoming special issue of Feminist Media Histories.

Image Encounters reimagines and extends an earlier digital project on Instagram called Object Women: A History of Women in Photography. Launched in March 2018, and making use of the collections of the George Eastman Museum, this project featured images from early photography to the present, accompanied by microessays exploring the representation of women. You can read the introductory essay here and another article about the project on the Oxford University Press blog. Object Women was also discussed in this write-up of the 2018 Modernist Studies Association Conference; in 2020, I reflected on the project in this feature on contemporary art and Instagram at ASAP/J.

In and Out of Sight

My first book, In and Out of Sight: Modernist Writing and the Photographic Unseen, was published as part of the Modernist Literature and Culture Series at Oxford University Press in 2018; a paperback version was released in 2023. Drawing on work in visual culture studies that emphasises the interplay between still and moving images, this book provides a new account of the relationship between photography and modernist literature—literature that has long been considered to trace, in its formal experimentation, the influence of modern visual technologies. Work from and adjacent to this project appeared in PMLA, Modernism/modernity, and Arizona Quarterly.

In The Year's Work in English Studies, Shawna Ross praised the innovative and interdisciplinary methodology of In and Out of Sight, stating that the book "may be the most thrilling offering of 2018." In and Out of Sight was also reviewed in Modernism/modernity as a "probing, artful, and original" study that, in its methodology of "critical montage," "poses important questions for the future of modernist studies." The reviewer for American Literary History called it “powerful and persuasive,” “one of several exciting and innovative accounts of the relation between literature and photography to appear in recent years," while the reviewer for MFS: Modern Fiction Studies described it as a “daring,” “effective,” and “impressive first book [that] makes significant contributions not just to the reading of literary and visual modernism but to the understanding of gender, race, and class in twentieth-century American culture.” Further positive reviews have appeared in The Modern Language Review, The Modernist Review, NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, and Feminist Modernist Studies.

Invited lectures and funding

I have been invited to give lectures connected to my research at the University of Oxford, Oxford Brookes University, the University of Bristol, the University of Exeter, the University of York, Edinburgh Napier University, University College Dublin, Harvard University, Stanford University, the University of Michigan, the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, the University of Pennsylvania, Michigan State University, the University of Chicago, Ca'Foscari University of Venice, the University of New South Wales, the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University, and elsewhere.

My research has been supported by numerous grants, including the Association for Art History Research Grant in 2023, the American Philosophical Society Franklin Research Grant in 2020, the Australian Academy of the Humanities Research Travel Grant and Publication Subsidy in 2017, the Modernist Studies Association Research Travel Grant in 2016, and the Lillian Gary Taylor Fellowship in American Literature at the University of Virginia in 2012. In 2025, as Senior Research Fellow in the International Excellence in the Humanities Program, Maison de la Création et de l’Innovation (MaCI), Université Grenoble Alpes, I will develop the next stage of my research into women's unfinished creative labour.

Teaching

I have developed and led several modules as part of Cardiff's English Literature degree programmes, each of which emerges from and feeds into my research, while also incorporating creative pedagogy and assessment. I currently teach two of the most popular optional modules in our undergraduate programmes, "Object Women in Literature and Film" and "Representing Race in Contemporary America."

Object Women in Literature and Film (second-year undergraduate)
The woman as image, as icon, as object: the history of literature and film is replete with female figures who hover between personhood and objecthood. Object women live and die by the whims and desires of the male protagonists who still stand at the narrative centers of our cultural imagination. But object women, in the view of this module, are also women who object, who resist their objectification in unexpected ways. This module draws on key theories in feminist studies—including the notions of the male gaze and of female masquerade, as well as newer theories that connect issues of gender to issues of race, sexuality, ethnicity, and class—in examining a series of literary and visual texts, mostly from the turn of the century to the 1960s. As we uncover various tropes of the object woman in this period, we will explore how literature and film stage the possibilities for women to circumvent their objectification. The final two weeks of the course are given over to discussion of two contemporary texts that engage the module’s central ideas through their complex representation of women: Beyoncé’s Lemonade: The Visual Album (2016) and Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019).

Representing Race in Contemporary America (third-year undergraduate)
This module explores contemporary representations of African American experience—from literature and film to popular music and television—in the context of a longer history of African American cultural production. It pairs very recent works such as Jordan Peele’s horror comedy Get Out, Barry Jenkins’ dramatic feature Moonlight, Jesmyn Ward’s novel Sing, Unburied, Sing, artist Janelle Monáe’s "emotion picture" Dirty Computer and comedian Issa Rae’s HBO show Insecure with others dating from the second half of the twentieth century. In examining these modern and contemporary texts in conversation with one another, we will explore how authors and makers work with and against established traditions and genres. Our discussion of issues of identity and inequity will approach race in connection with other forms of social difference, including class, gender, and sexuality.

Guest teaching at international institutions

I have also taught guest sessions for undergraduate and graduate students at the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School, Sydney; Macalester College, Saint Paul, Minnesota; the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; The New School, New York City; and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Biography

I was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. At the University of Sydney, I earned a Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communication, English, History) with Distinction, before going on to postgraduate study in the Department of English, where I received First Class Honours in 2009 and a PhD in 2015.

Following the completion of my studies, I taught widely in twentieth and twenty-first century literature and film in the Department of English at the University of Sydney, as well as in the Department of Art History at the University of New South Wales. From 2016–2017, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. I moved to Cardiff in October 2017 to assume the post of Lecturer in English; in August 2019, I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in English, and in August 2023, I was promoted to Reader to Literature and Visual Culture.

At Cardiff, I am the Director of Internationalisation for the School of English, Communication and Philosophy and a founding member of Image Works: Research and Practice in Visual Culture, which provides innovative contexts for academics and students working on visual culture to connect with artists and practitioners. I am also the External Examiner for the English Language and Literature Programme at Xiamen University Malaysia.

Honours and awards

Research fellowships and grants

• Senior Research Fellowship, International Excellence in the Humanities Program, Maison de la Création et de l’Innovation (MaCI), Université Grenoble Alpes, 2025
• Welsh Government Taith Mobility Grant, match-funded by Cardiff University, for research placement at Macquarie University, 2024
• Association for Art History Grant for Image Encounters: Photography and the Feminist Art of Being Seen, 2023
• Cardiff University College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Innovation for All Award for "In Process: Women Filmmakers, Unfinished Films," 2022
• American Philosophical Society Franklin Research Grant, 2020
• Cardiff University Research Leave Scheme (competitive award for research leave), 2019
• Australian Academy of the Humanities (AAH) Research Travel Grant, 2017
• AAH Publication Subsidy for In and Out of Sight: Modernist Writing and the Photographic Unseen, 2017
• Anglican Deaconess Ministries Senior Research Fellowship, 2017
• University of Sydney Department of English Grant for Publication, 2016
• Modernist Studies Association (MSA) Travel Grant for Annual Conference, 2016
• MSA Research Travel Grant, 2016
• MSA Travel Grant for Annual Conference, 2015
• University of Virginia Lillian Gary Taylor Fellowship in American Literature,  2012
• Pacific Ancient and Modern Languages Association Graduate Student Scholarship for Annual Conference, 2012
• University of Sydney Postgraduate Travel Grant Award, 2012
• University of Sydney Postgraduate Support Scheme Funding, 2012
• Australian Postgraduate Award for duration of PhD candidature, 2010

Prizes and nominations

• Winner, British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Award for Best Edited Collection, for Incomplete: The Feminist Possibilities of the Unfinished Film, 2023
• Honourable mention, Susan Koppelman Award for the Best Anthology, Multi-Authored, or Edited Book in Feminist Studies in Popular and American Culture, for Incomplete, 2023
• Shortlisted, Media, Communication, and Cultural Studies Association Edited Collection of the Year, for Incomplete (announced September 2024) 
• Longlisted, Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Award, for Incomplete
• Nominee, Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Times Higher Education Awards, for Incomplete (announced September 2024)
• Nominee, Philip Leverhulme Prize for Early Career Research (Visual and Performing Arts), Leverhulme Trust (announced November 2024)
• Nominee, Dillwyn Medal for Early Career Research Excellence, Learned Society of Wales (announced October 2024) 
• Nominee, Library Company of Philadelphia Innovation Award, for Object Women: A History of Women in Photography, 2019

Teaching awards and training

• Nominee, Most Innovative Staff Member and Personal Tutor of the Year, Enriching Student Life Awards, Cardiff University, 2019
• Nominee, Most Innovative Staff Member, Enriching Student Life Awards, Cardiff University, 2018
• Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) Student Teaching Commendations for “Transatlantic Negotiations” and “Imagining America,” University of Sydney, 2016
• FASS Student Teaching Commendations for “Literature and Cinema,” “Imagining America,” and “Novel Worlds,” University of Sydney, 2015
• FASS Student Teaching Commendations for “Imagining America,” University of Sydney, 2014
• FASS Dean’s Citation for Excellence in Teaching, University of Sydney, 2012
• Certificate of Completion, Teaching Development Program, University of Sydney, 2011

Professional memberships

• Member of the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present
• Member of the Modern Languages Association
• Member of the Modernist Studies Association and coleader of the Special Interest Group in Film Studies
• Member of the British Association for Modernist Studies
• Member of the Irish Association for American Studies
• Member of the Women's Film and Television History Network UK/Ireland
• Member of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies
• Advisory Board Member of the Modernist Network Cymru

Academic positions

• 2023–present: Reader in English, School of English, Communication and Philosophy (ENCAP), Cardiff University
• 2021–2022: Exernal Examiner, English Literature Undergraduate Program, University of Sussex
• 2019–2023: Senior Lecturer in English, ENCAP, Cardiff University
• 2017–2019: Lecturer in English, ENCAP, Cardiff University
• 2016–2017: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney
• 2016: Sessional (Adjunct) Lecturer, Department of Art History, University of New South Wales
• 2014–2016: Sessional (Adjunct) Lecturer, Department of English, University of Sydney

Speaking engagements

Invited lectures and appearances (selected):

• "Kathleen Collins...Posthumously," Screen Studies Research Centre, University of Exeter, 8 May 2023
• "Revaluing Unfinished Creative Work," Capstone for Masters of Arts in Screen Studies, Australian Film, Television and Radio School, Sydney, 18 April 2024
• Launch event for Incomplete with screening and discussion, Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language, and Literature, Macquarie University, Sydney, 10 April 2024
• "Image Encounters and the Feminism of Photography," Writing and Society Research Centre, Western Sydney University, 5 April 2024 
• "Kathleen Collins...Posthumously," Department of English, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 4 April 2023
• "Image Encounters and the Feminism of Photography," Penn Cinema and Media Studies Colloquium, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 25 October 2023
• "The Photographic Nude: Surface, Skin, Flesh," Gender and Technology Seminar Series, School of English and Modern Languages, Oxford Brookes University, 17 February 2022 (online)
• "Kathleen Collins...Posthumously," Working Group in Literary and Visual Culture, Stanford University, 17 November 2021 (online)
• "Kathleen Collins...Posthumously," Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Research Seminar Series, Department for English Studies, Durham University (online), 4 November 2021
• Guest respondent for Ann Tartsinis, "Cut n' Paste in Reverse: Reading George Platt Lynes's Scrapbooks," Working Group for Literary and Visual Culture, Stanford University (online), Wednesday 26 May 2021
• "The Photographic Nude: Surface, Skin, Flesh," with Anne Anlin Cheng as respondent, International Seminar: New Research in Gender and Sexuality," Ca' Foscari University of Venice (online), 29 January 2021 
• "Mothering Photography: Gertrude Käsebier and the Maternal Line of Sight,” Humanities Institute and the Department of English, Drama, and Film, University College Dublin (online), 7 October 2020 

Public engagement activities (selected):

• Guest speaker, Film Screening: Some Chance Operations, Volcano Theatre, Swansea, hosted by the Feminist Studies Association, 12 December 2023
• Guest introduction, Screening of The Red Shoes (dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1948), Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, 10 December 2023
• Guest speaker, New Thinking: Rediscovering Women Making Film and Sculpture, Arts & Ideas, BBC Radio 3/BBC Sounds, 17 November 2023
• Guest speaker, Film Undone: Elements of a Latent Cinema, Silent Green and Kino Arsenal, Berlin, 20–23 July 2023
• Guest speaker, Unfinishing podcast, 30 October 2023
• Guest speaker, New Books Network: Film podcast, 2 August 2023
• Presenter, Looking for Léontine, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, 18 June 2023
• Guest speaker, BBC Radio Wales Arts Show, "Creative Women," 10 March 2023
• Guest speaker, Finnish Radio, 18 December 2022
• Curator and presenter, Unfinished: Women Filmmakers in Process, Chapter Arts Centre, 17–20 November 2022
• Host of Cardiff BookTalk on Octavia Butler's Kindred, online seminar hosted by Cardiff University, 3 March 2021
• Organiser, with Jess Cotton, and speaker, The Masked Face, online seminar hosted by Image Works: Research and Practice in Visual Culture, Cardiff University, 25 November 2020
• Organiser, host, and speaker, Instagram: A Symposium, sponsored by Image Works, National Museum of Wales, 29 February 2020

Committees and reviewing

Professional service:

• Director of Internationalisation, School of English, Communication and Philosophy (ENCAP), Cardiff University, 2024–2027
• Co-organiser, Special Interest Group in Film Studies at the Modernist Studies Association (MSA), 2023 ongoing
• Director of Recruitment and Admissions, ENCAP, 2021–2024
• Member, Judging Committee for the MSA Annual Book Prize, 2021
• Member, ENCAP Recruitment and Admissions Committee, 2019–2020
• Founding member and convenor, Image Works: Research and Practice in Visual Culture, 2018 ongoing
• Advisory board member, Modernist Network Cymru, 2018 ongoing
• Founder and convenor, Modern and Contemporary Workshop, ENCAP,  2017 ongoing
• Early Career Representative, Research Strategy Committee, ENCAP, 2018–2020
• Co-convenor, with Catherine Laing, Cardiff BookTalk, 2017–2019
• Member, Equality and Diversity Committee, ENCAP, 2017–2018

Editing and reviewing:

• Editorial advisory board member, Unmade Film and Television book series at Intellect, 2020 ongoing
• Co-editor (with Pardis Dabashi), Visualities forum, Modernism/modernity Print Plus, 2019 ongoing
• Manuscript reviewer, MIT Press, Edinburgh University Press, Oxford University Press, and Rowman & Littlefield 
• Journal reviewer, Twentieth-Century Literature, differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, ELH: English Literary History, Feminist Modernist Studies, Literature and History, Modernism/modernity, Sociologica, and Women's Studies Quarterly

Supervisions

My PhD students have produced or are producing rigorous and important scholarship that develops feminist approaches to literature, film, and visual art. I have experience supervising both research and creative practice PhDs and I have supported several successful applications for postgraduate funding through the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership.

I would be happy to hear from prospective PhD students and postdoctoral scholars who are interested in pursuing projects in areas that connect to my expertise. I am especially keen to supervise projects that engage with or sit alongside my ongoing work on the feminist incomplete. More general areas of interest include:

• modern and contemporary literature, especially in the U.S.;
• visual culture studies (photography, film, and television, including in the digital age);
• intermediality, i.e. the relationships between various media forms;
• gender and feminist studies, and;
• African American studies.

Current supervision

Josie Cray

Research student

Beth Pyner

Research student

Shaista Chishty

Research student

Past projects

• Annie Strausa, "Sensory Aesthetics and Feminist Modernisms: A Revisionary Study of Novels by Virginia Woolf, Gloria Naylor, and Naomi Mitchison (thesis passed with minor corrections, November 2023)
• Ala'a Al Ghamdi, “Arab-American Women’s Writing after 9/11” (thesis passed with minor corrections, July 2023)
• ReBecca Compton, “RPG: Role-playing Gender: The Effects of Representations of Gender in Video Games on the Real World” (thesis passed with minor corrections, July 2019)