Emma is a first year PhD student at the University of Hull where she also studied English and American Literature & Culture at undergraduate level. Her research considers the emergence, and evolution, of the gang girl and girl gang in American film from the 1990s ghetto action movie cycle through to the 2000s. EmmaÕs thesis takes a cultural studies approach through a critical examination of the historical, social and political contexts in which the filmic representations of the girl gang and gang girl were created.
How did you come to your current area of research?
“I’d say that I’ve always been interested in gang and prison culture but my current supervisor Dr. Josephine Metcalf really fostered my academic interest during my final year at Uni in the module ‘Doing Time; American Prison Culture in the 20th and 21st Centuries.’ From here, I began to look more specifically at filmic representations and girl gang culture.”