Stephen Gundle

Stephen Gundle is a Professor in the Film and Television Studies Department. As a specialist in film and media and cultural and political history, his work tends to focus on cinema as a social practice and as an industry, as well as on film as entertainment and propaganda.

He has written mostly about the relations between cinema and television, politics and consumption in Italy from the Fascist period to the present, as well as the Italian and European star system, and the concept of glamour.

In recent years, he has been principal investigator on two large AHRC research projects. The first of these was concerned with the personality cult of the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. The second, run in partnership with the Cineteca di Bologna, dealt with the role of producers and production practices in the history of the Italian film industry. 

He has been a visiting professor at Sciences-Po, Paris and the Université de Paris II and X. He was Chair of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy from 2009-14 and 2015-16.

Currently, he's an associate editor of the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies and a member of the editorial committee of several journals, including Modern Italy and Memoria e ricerca.