Dr Fincina Hopgood is Lecturer in Screen Studies in the Media and Communications Program, School of HASS at the University of New England, and an Honorary Associate Investigator (AI 2015) with the ARC Centre for the History of Emotions. Her research has been supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions since 2014, when she co-convened the symposium Try Walking in My Shoes: Empathy and Portrayals of Mental Illness on Screen in collaboration with The Dax Centre at the University of Melbourne as part of the Centre’s Shaping the Modern program. In 2015, Fincina was appointed Associate Investigator with the Centre for the project Empathy and portrayals of mental illness in Australian visual culture. She published her research from this project in the refereed journal Adaptation (Oxford Journals, 2016) and the edited collection Australian Screen in the 2000s (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). This project led to Fincina’s current research collaboration with senior academics in mental health and social work at Melbourne and La Trobe Universities.
Contact
fhopgood@une.edu.au
LinkedIn profile
Research Projects
Empathy and portrayals of mental illness in Australian visual culture
Publications
Refereed Articles
Hopgood, F. ‘Walking in Her Footsteps: Migration, Adaptation, and the Mother’s Journey in Romulus, My Father’. Adaptation 9.1 (2016): 22–34. Special issue ‘Adapting Australia’ edited by Imelda Whelehan and Ken Gelder, 2016 (first published online March 2015).
‘Unravelling the Myth of the Mad Genius in An Angel at my Table’, Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, special issue ‘Screening the Past: Gender Readings in History and Film’ edited by James Bennett and Josephine May, 10.2, January 2006, 53–76.
‘Melodramas of Affliction: portraits of madness on screen’, Credits Rolling! Selected Papers from the 12th Biennial Conference of the Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand, edited by Marilyn Dooley, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, 2005, 159–71.
‘“A Special Kind of Excess”: the unruly woman of comedy and melodrama in Jane Campion’s Sweetie’, antiTHESIS, ‘Excess’, 15, 2005, 91–113.
Book Chapters
‘An Angel at My Table (Jane Campion, 1990)’, Making Film and Television Histories, edited by James Bennett and Rebecca Beirne, pp. 189–93. I.B. Tauris, London, 2011.
Essays on Baz Luhrmann, Strictly Ballroom (1992), William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996), Moulin Rouge! (2001) and Australia (2008) in Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand, edited by Ben Goldsmith and Geoff Lealand, pp. 52–65. Intellect, Bristol and Chicago, 2010.
‘Caring about mental illness: the power of melodrama in contemporary Australian cinema’, Australia – Who Cares?, edited by David Callahan, pp. 253–70. Network Books, Perth, 2007.
‘Before Big Brother there was Blair Witch: the selling of “reality”’, Docufictions: Essays on the Intersection of Documentary and Fictional Filmmaking, edited by Gary D. Rhodes and John Parris Springer, pp. 237–52. McFarland, Jefferson, 2006.
Invited Research Presentations
‘The Empathy “Revolution”: an overview of current research on the emotion of empathy’, Emotions Work in the Historical Past, workshop hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, University of Melbourne, 13 November 2014.
‘Laughing in the Face of Madness: Using comedy to create empathy for mental illness on screen’, The Ethics of Empathy, symposium funded by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, University of Sydney, 22 October 2014.
‘Laughing in the Face of Madness: Using comedy to create empathy for mental illness on screen’, 2014 AFIRC Fellowship presentation, Shifting Frames Seminar hosted by the Screen Cultures Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, 2 September 2014.
‘Try Walking in My Shoes: Portrayals of mental illness on the big screen’, keynote lecture, Looking Forward Looking Back 4, mental health recovery forum, Mental Health Council of Australia and Inner Sydney Regional Council for Social Development, Redfern Town Hall, Sydney, 2 April 2014.
Selected Conference Presentations
‘Using Film for Human Rights Education’, with Professor Barbara Creed, Human Rights Tertiary Teachers’ Workshop, Law School, University of Melbourne, 21 February 2014.
‘“Laugh Along with Me”: Using comedy and autobiography to create empathy for mental illness on screen’, Try Walking in My Shoes: Empathy and Portrayals of Mental Illness on Screen, The Dax Centre, University of Melbourne, 14 February 2014.
‘Engaging with the Politics of Empathy: Teaching Human Rights on Screen’, 16th Biennial Conference of the Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand, Victoria University, Melbourne, 4 December 2012.
‘Australian Cinema as World Cinema? Redefining a nation’s cinema in a post-national era’, World Cinema Now, Research Unit in Film Culture and Theory, Second Biennial Conference, Monash University, Melbourne, 28 September 2011.
‘Ozploitation: Revisiting/Revising Australian film history’, B for Bad Cinema: Aesthetics, politics and cultural value, Research Unit in Film Culture and Theory, Inaugural Biennial Conference, Monash University, Melbourne, 15 April 2009.
‘Melodramas of Affliction: A recent history of female madness on screen’, 12th Biennial Conference of the Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand, ANU, Canberra, 4 December 2004.
‘Movie Madness: Who cares about mental illness in Australian film?’, 7th Biennial Conference of the European Association for Studies on Australia, University of Aveiro, Portugal, 27 September 2003.
Engagement & Outreach
‘Seeing the other and/in the self: The possibilities and limitations of the selfie for empathetic understanding’, panel discussion on the topic ‘How the “selfie” performs across time and space’, Crossing Paths with Vivian Maier Public Program, Centre for Contemporary Photography in collaboration with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, presented as part of The Melbourne Festival, 15 October 2014.
Guest Presenter & Facilitator, Cultural & Global Mental Health Film Initiative, School of Global & Population Health, The University of Melbourne, June 2013 & November 2014.
Judge, United Nations Association of Australia Media Peace Awards, TV categories, 2012, 2013 & 2014.
Program Advisor & Judge, Human Rights Arts and Film Festival, 2013.