Dr Kate Egan

Assistant Professor

School: Design Arts and Creative Industries

Kate joined Northumbria University in 2020, after working for thirteen years as a lecturer and senior lecturer in film studies at Aberystwyth University. She is the author of Trash or Treasure? Censorship and the Changing Meanings of the Video Nasties (MUP, 2007), Cultographies: The Evil Dead (CUP, 2011), and (with Martin Barker, Tom Philips and Sarah Ralph) Alien Audiences (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). She is also the co-editor of Cult Film Stardom (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), And Now for Something Completely Different: Critical Approaches to Monty Python (EUP, 2020), and Researching Historical Screen Audiences (EUP, 2022), and co-editor (with Shellie McMurdo and Laura Mee) of the Hidden Horror Histories book series (LUP).

She is currently planning and developing further research on horror film acting, and audience memories of horror film and television. This includes a monograph, Remembering Ghostwatch: Horror, Childhood and the Home, and (with James Rendell) an edited collection, Researching Horror Fans and Audiences in the Twenty-First Century. She is also Co-Investigator (alongside Cat Lester) of the AHRC-funded Youth and Horror Research Network.

She is a recognised expert on horror cinema, media audiences, and film censorship, and has been interviewed on these topics by BBC Radio Three, BBC Radio Four, BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Scotland and ABC News Australia, as well as appearing in the documentaries Video Nasties: Draconian Days (Jake West, 2014) and Damaged: The Very British Obscenity of David Hamilton-Grant (Sarah Appleton, 2023).

Kate has previously supervised 6 PhD students to completion as principal supervisor, and 6 PhD students as second supervisor, with projects ranging from a textual and reception study of masculinity in the James Bond films to a study of the history of rural cinemagoing in Wales. She would welcome enquiries from potential PhD students who share her research interests.

She is also external examiner of the BA Film Studies programme at the University of the West of England.

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Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

horror film and television, British cinema and television, film censorship, audience and reception studies, cult film and television, film and television comedy, memory studies, local cinemagoing histories

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Special dossier introduction: horror fans and audiences, Rendell, J., Egan, K. 2024, In: New Review of Film and Television Studies
Childhood Memories of Horror Films in the Home: Questions, Patterns and Contexts, Egan, K. 31 Jan 2022, Researching Historical Screen Audiences, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press
Researching Historical Screen Audiences, Egan, K., Smith, M., Terrill, J. 31 Jan 2022
Allowing “us just to LIVE there”: Atmosphere and Audience Evaluations of the Alien Film Series, Egan, K. 30 Sep 2021, Horror Film Franchises, London, Routledge
‘The Film That’s Banned in Harrogate’: Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979), Local Censorship, Comedy and Local Resistance, Egan, K. 2 Jan 2021, In: Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
And Now for Something Completely Different: Critical Approaches to Monty Python, Egan, K., Weinstock, J. 31 Oct 2020
Memories of Connecting: Fathers, Daughters and Intergenerational Monty Python Fandom, Egan, K. 1 Oct 2020, And Now for Something Completely Different, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press
Introduction to Themed Section: Researching past cinema audiences, Egan, K., Smith, M., Terrill, J. 16 May 2019, In: Participations

PGR Supervision

Brogan Ord-Staunton Menstruation on Screen: A History of Stigma, Shame and Stains from 2004 to 2024 Start Date: 01/10/2023 End Date: 08/07/2025
Brogan Ord-Staunton Menstruation on Screen: A History of Stigma, Shame and Stains from 2004 to 2024 Start Date: 01/10/2023 End Date: 17/10/2025
Sarah Bell Changing bodies, changing attitudes: Exploring historic and contemporary representations of women and the menopause experience in American and European horror films from The Leech Woman (Edward Dein, 1960) to The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024). Start Date: 01/10/2024 End Date: 17/10/2025
Brogan Ord-Staunton Menstruation on Screen: A History of Stigma, Shame and Stains from 2004 to 2024 Start Date: 01/10/2023