Dr Samantha Colling

Dr Samantha Colling

Senior Lecturer

My profile

Biography

Samantha Colling is a Senior Lecturer in Film and Media and has been teaching in the field for more than ten years.

She completed her PhD, which explored the relationships between film, pleasure, and affect, at The Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design, her Masters in Screen Studies at the University of Manchester, and her BA (Hons) Drama at the University of Hull.

Samantha’s monograph The Aesthetic Pleasures of Girl Teen Film (2017) explores new ways of thinking about pleasure and fun in relation to film, with a particular focus on millennial girl teen films and the kinds of affects that they are designed to create. She has a forthcoming chapter ‘Feeling Like a Teenage Lesbian: the sex scenes in The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018) and Make Up (2019)’ in Screening Sex: The Sex Scene – Representation, Performance, Aesthetics and is currently working on a project titled Sex in Reality Television: 2000-2020.

Get in touch

0161 247 1938
101 Bellhouse

Projects

Creating Our Future Histories
This collaborative project with community organisation Dance Manchester combined qualitative research and creative co-production to examine the impact of STRIDE - a Dance Manchester project developed to engage young men in dance - on the lives of the boys involved. The output of this research included a short film co-produced with Dance Manchester.

AHRC funded Research in Translation: Public Engagement Through Exhibition Displays — Research in Translation is a public engagement and knowledge exchange project for which I was invited to adapt an aspect of my research for exhibition. I produced a short film and exhibition display about the use of music video aesthetics in girl teen film, displayed at the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester.

Research outputs

Colling, S. (2022) Holly Chard, Mainstream Maverick: John Hughes and the New Hollywood Cinema
Timothy Shary and Frances Smith (eds), Refocus: The Films of John Hughes. In Screen 63 (4), 525-528. 

Colling, S & Hilton, A (forthcoming) ’Feeling Like a Teenage Lesbian: the sex scenes in The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018) and Make Up (2019)’. In Eds Kerr, D & Peberdy, D. (Eds.), Screening Sex: The Sex Scene – Representation, Performance, Aesthetics. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.

Colling, S. (2017). The Aesthetic Pleasures of Girl Teen Film. New York, Bloomsbury.

Colling, S. (Fall 2017). ‘The Pleasures of Muscular Bonding in Bring It On and Pitch Perfect’. New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, Intellect Ltd.

Colling, S. (2016). ‘The Pleasures of Music Video Aesthetics in Girl Teen Film’. In F. Handyside & K. Taylor (Eds.), International Cinema and the Girl: Local Issues Transnational Contexts, New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

Presentations

‘Queer time, queer feeling and queer sex in The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018); Consoling Passions conference. University of Central Florida, June 23-25, 2022.

‘Pleasure and Obscenity in Hairspray (1988; 2007)’, When the Music Takes Over. Musical Numbers in Film and Television, International Conference. University of Salzburg, March 8–10, 2018

Invited: ‘Contemporary Girlhood in Word and Image’ (2017). ASAP/9 The Arts of the Present, University of California, Berkeley.

‘Spectacles of the Everyday: music video aesthetics and girl teen film.’ (2013) Console-ing Passions: International conference on television, audio, video, new media and feminism, De Montfort University.

‘Girlhood and Girl Teen Film’. (2013) Postgraduate Research in Progress: Reflecting on the Impact of Gender in Research, University of Liverpool.

‘Music Video Aesthetics’. (2012) 1st Global Conference: teenagers and contemporary visual culture, University of Oxford.

‘Cinderella’s Pleasures: the double coding of girl teen film.’ (2012) 8th European Feminist Research Conference, Central European University, Budapest.

  • Exhibitions

    Colling, S.C. (2015) Research in Translation. [Exhibition] School of Museum studies, University of Leicester, 16/6/2015 -

  • Books (authored/edited/special issues)

    Colling, S. (2017) The Aesthetic Pleasures of Girl Teen Film. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.

  • Chapters in books

    Colling, S., Hilton, A. (2023) ''Feeling Like a Teenage Lesbian: the sex scenes in The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018) and Make Up (2019)’.' Screening Sex: The Sex Scene – Representation, Performance, Aesthetics. Edinburgh University Press,

    Colling, S.C. (2016) 'The Pleasures of Music Video Aesthetics in Girl Teen Film.' International Cinema and the Girl Local Issues, Transnational Contexts. Springer,

  • Media

    Colling, S.C. Creating Our Future Histories - Dance Manchester.

  • Journal articles

    Colling, S.C. (2016) 'The pleasures of muscular bonding in Bring It On and Pitch Perfect.' New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 14(2) pp. 143-150.

  • Non-peer reviewed articles / reviews

    Colling, S. (2022) Book review: Holly Chard, Mainstream Maverick: John Hughes and the New Hollywood Cinema, Timothy Shary and Frances Smith (eds), Refocus: The Films of John Hughes.

  • Conference papers

    Colling, S. (2022) '‘Queer time, queer feeling and queer sex in The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)'.' In Consoling Passions conference. University of Central Florida, 23/6/2022 - 25/6/2022.

    Colling, S.C. (2018) 'Pleasure and obscenity in Hairspray (1988; 2007).' In When the Music Takes Over. Musical Numbers in Film and Television. University of Salzburg, 8/3/2018 - 10/3/2018.

    Colling, S.C. (2017) 'Girlhood, Hollywood and Pleasure.' In ASAP9: The Arts of The Present. University of California, Berkeley, 26/10/2017 - 28/10/2017.

    Colling, S.C. (2013) 'Spectacles of the Everyday: music video aesthetics and girl teen film'.' In Console-ing Passions: International conference on television, audio, video, new media and feminism. De Montfort University,

    Colling, S.C. (2013) ''Girlhood and Girl Teen Film'.' In Postgraduate Research in Progress: Reflecting on the Impact of Gender in Research. University of Liverpool,

    Colling, S.C. (2012) ''Music Video Aesthetics'.' In 1st Global Conference: teenagers and contemporary visual culture. University of Oxford, 26/9/2012 - 27/10/2017.

    Colling, S.C. (2012) ''Cinderella’s Pleasures: the double coding of girl teen film'.' In 8th European Feminist Research Conference. Central European University, Budapest,

Press and media

‘If Mean Girls was part of your teenage years, you might not like the new one’, (2024) The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/if-mean-girls-was-part-of-your-teenage-year… 

‘Where are all the fan boys?, (2022) Dazed,  https://protect-eu.mimecast.com/s/hR7jCDYkMIJrwxzhW0a60?domain=dazeddig…

‘Shout out to Suburbia’, Pretty Face, Issue 1/ Quaranteen Edition (2020), https://prettyfacemagazine.com/Desktop-mag