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Professor Ruth Barton

Professor (Film Studies)
192 PEARSE STREET

 Ruth.Barton@tcd.ie

 3531896 2617


Biography

Dr Ruth Barton is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin (BA Mod) and of University College Dublin (MA, Film Studies). She holds a PhD from the NUI (Thesis title: 'From History to Heritage: Representations of History and the Past in Contemporary Irish Cinema'). She is the author of several books on Irish cinema and has co-edited a volume of essays on Irish Cinema and Television as well as being the author of many articles on Irish and British cinema. Her interests include Irish cinema, the political economy of Irish film and television, stardom and diaspora studies. She is editor of a collection of essays on Irish-American film and television and on the Irish in Britain. She has also written a critical biography of the film star, Hedy Lamarr, and of the Irish silent director, Rex Ingram. She appears regularly on radio as a film historian and film critic. She joined the staff of TCD in September 2007.

Research Tags

  Cinema/Video   Film Studies   Theatre/Film Criticism

Research Projects

 Ecologies of cultural production
 Screening Irish-America
 Screening the Irish in Britian
 Women's Film and Television History Network - UK/Ireland

Representations

Details Date
External examiner, DKIT, 2015-2018 2015-18

Languages

Language Skill Reading Skill Writing Skill Speaking
English Fluent Fluent Fluent
French Medium Medium Medium
German Medium Medium Medium
Russian Medium Basic Basic
Spanish Basic Basic Basic

Memberships

Membership of Professional Institutions, Associations, Societies

Details Date From Date To
Member of Board of Long Room Hub, Trinity's Arts and Humanities Institute 2019
Member of board of Irish Humanities Alliance 2019
Ruth Barton, Brian Desmond Hurst (author), Caitlin Smith and Stephen Wyatt (eds), Allan Esler Smith (Foreword), Hurst on Film 1928"1970; Lance Pettitt, The Last Bohemian: Brian Desmond Hurst, Irish Film, British Cinema, Journal of British Cinema and Television, 21, (1), 2024, p95 - 100, Notes: [doi/full/10.3366/jbctv.2024.0702], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Ruth Barton, Bad Sisters " space, class and the reimagining of Dublin, Transnational Screens, 15, (1), 2024, p31 - 44, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Ruth Barton, Denis Murphy, Steven Hadley, Covid-19, cultural policy and the Irish arts sector: continuum or conjuncture?, Irish Studies Review, Irish Studies Review, 31, (2), 2023, p193 - 210, Notes: [https://doi.org/10.1080/09670882.2023.2195534], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Ruth Barton, Memories of Home: The Belfast Films of Mark Cousins and Kenneth Branagh, Journal of British Cinema and Television, 20, (3), 2023, p329 - 344, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Ruth Barton and Denis Murphy, Prominent careers and Irish screen policy, Irish Journal of Arts Management and Cultural Policy, 9, 2022, p4 - 42, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  URL
Hedy Lamarr, Jennifer Sartori, The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women, online, Jewish Women's Archive, 2021, [Ruth Barton], Item in dictionary or encyclopaedia, etc, PUBLISHED  URL
Barton, Ruth, Trauma, Motive and the Post-Troubles Psychopath in The Fall, Television & New Media, 22, (1), 2021, p32 - 46, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI
Irish Cinema and the Gendering of Space: Motherhood, domesticity and the homeplace in, editor(s)Liddy, Susan , Women in the Irish film industry, Cork, Cork University Press, 2020, pp233 - 248, [Ruth Barton], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Avenging the Famine: Lance Daly's Black '47, Genre and History in, editor(s)Terrazas Gallego, Melania , Trauma and Identity in Contemporary Irish Culture, Oxford, Bern, Berlin etc, Peter Lang, 2020, pp59 - 79, [Barton, Ruth], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
Ruth Barton, The end of time: Bullet in the Brain, Short Film Studies, 10, (2), 2020, p207 - 210, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
  

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Ruth Barton, Why are so many Irish films and filmmakers nominated for Oscars?, 2023, 461 - 469, Notes: [https://theconversation.com/why-are-so-many-irish-films-and-filmmakers-nominated-for-oscars-an-expert-in-irish-cinema-explains-199134], Miscellaneous, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, Contemporary Irish Cinema, NEI Digital Roundtable, online, 29 June 2021, edited by Beatriz Kopschitz Bastos , 2021, Notes: [Online conference organised by UFSC, Brazil], Conference Paper, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, The War on Film, Irish Times, (25 May), 2021, p12 - 13, Notes: [Article on the War of Independence on Film for Irish Times Special Supplement on 1921 (Truce and Treaty)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, Is Chariots of Fire still the best Olympics' film ever?, 2021, -, Notes: [Online article for RTE Brainstorm], Miscellaneous, PUBLISHED
Barton, Ruth; Murphy, Denis, Ecologies of Cultural Production, Dublin, February , 2020, p1 - 99, Notes: [To determine the usefulness of subsidies for arts practitioners ], Report, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, 'Come Live With Me', Hedy Lamar - Fremder Star, Berlin Zeughaus Kino, 17 August, 2019, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, Women in Irish Cinema, San Patricio 2019 | La mujer en la cultura irlandesa, Universidad de La Rioja , 13 March, 2019, Melania Terrazas Gallego, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Barton, Ruth, New Dublin on screen - a place of freedom and choice, The Conversation, 2019, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, "Ireland and Irishness as a Post-Traumatic Discursive Space: the Case of Cinema", Rethinking Cultural Rethinking Cultural Trauma from Transnational Perspectives, Sao Paulo, 22-25 August , 2017, SPECTRESS, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, A Liminal Genre: Defining the Contemporary Irish Horror Film, Protean Spaces in Irish Literature, Theatre and Film, USFC, Florianopolis, 7 November , 2017, Nucleo de estudios irlandeses da UFSC, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED

  

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Awards and Honours

Award Date
Fellow of Trinity College 2018
Elected Member of Royal Irish Academy 2021
IRCHSS Postdoctoral Fellow 2000
IRCHSS Doctoral Fellow 1999

Research Interests

Description Of Research Interests

My main research area is Irish cinema, in which I am a global expert and for which I was recently elected to the Royal Irish Academy. My reputation has been achieved via the publication of several influential monographs, notably Irish National Cinema (Routledge, 2004) and Irish cinema in the twenty-first century (Manchester University Press, 2019). Other significant work focuses on diasporic filmmaking and filmmakers: Screening Irish-America (Irish Academic Press, 2009); Acting Irish in Hollywood (IAP, 2006); Rex Ingram: Visionary Director of the Silent Screen (University of Kentucky Press, 2014). My critical biography, Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in Film (UKP 2010) was a personal project and departure from my initial research area that saw me explore the life of a key female pioneer (credited with the invention of Wi-Fi) and émigré star. This book was very favourably reviewed in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the London Review of Books, convincing me that there was a space for exploring academic ideas within the wider public arena, something that remains very important to me. It also spoke to my lifelong interest in writing on gender. I have recently branched out into cultural policy. This came about as a result of being awarded funding under the Creative Ireland Programme to complete the study, Ecologies of Cultural Production (report published 2019), on career construction in Film, Television and Theatre. As well as academic publication in this field, I currently sit on the editorial board of the Irish Journal of Arts Management and Cultural Policy as well as being an invited member of the Regional Screen Production Network. I continue my public outreach through regular radio appearances and writing for mainstream publications such as The Irish Times and the Conversation.