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Dr. Aaron Hunter

Assistant Professor (Film Studies)
      
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Dr. Aaron Hunter

Assistant Professor (Film Studies)

 hunteraa@tcd.ie

 


My primary area of research is 1970s and New Hollywood cinema, and I am particularly interested in alternative approaches to film authorship - focusing on the creative labour of non-directing crew such as screenwriters, production designers, cinematographers and performers. My first book, Authoring Hal Ashby: The Myth of the New Hollywood Auteur, re-imagines New Hollywood filmmaking as a much more collaborative and multiply-authored era than generally considered. From 2016-18, I held an Irish Research Council postdoctoral fellowship on the topic of Women in New Hollywood, which led to my second monograph, Polly Platt: Production Design and Creative Authorship, which argues for Platt's centrality in authoring the films she designed and often co-wrote. I have also published the screenplay case study Being There and the Evolution of a Screenplay: 3 Draft Scripts and Women and New Hollywood: Gender, Creative Labour, and 1970s American Cinema (co-edited with Martha Shearer). I have also published a number of articles and book chapters on topics related to New Hollywood, film authorship, and women in film and TV. At Trinity I teach a variety of modules from first-year lectures to upper-level electives and MPhil seminars. Modules I've designed include Film Authorship, TV History and Theory, the Non-Traditional Screenplay, and Punk Cinema. I also teach all levels of screenwriting and supervise BA screenwriting capstone project and MPhil screenwriting dissertations. As of September of 2026, I am the course director of the MPhil in Screen Studies, and I am a member of the School of Creative Arts Athena SWAN committee. Outside of Trinity, I regularly give talks at other universities and at cinemas in Dublin. I was a member of the Dublin Feminist Film Festival board from 2017-2022 and the Irish Screen Studies board from 2016-2023, where I co-organised with Jennifer O'Meara the organisation's 20th Annual Seminar. I am interested in hearing from prospective PhD candidates on the topics of: New Hollywood; rethinking authorship in film and television; women's authorship in film and television; new approaches to masculinity onscreen.
Aaron Hunter, Martha Shearer, Women and New Hollywood: Gender, Creative Labor, and 1970s American Cinema, United States, Rutgers University Press, 2023, Book, PUBLISHED
'Fast, Furious, and Free of Sex: Dom, Brian, and Hetero Male Affection' in, editor(s)Joshua Gulam, Fraser Elliot, Sarah Feinstein , Full-Throttle Franchise: The Culture, Business and Politics of the 'Fast & Furious', New York, London, Bloomsbury, 2023, pp121 - 139, [Aaron Hunter], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Aaron Hunter, Polly Platt: Hollywood Production Design and Creative Authorship, United Kingdom, 2022, 226pp, Book, PUBLISHED
Aaron Hunter, Being There and the Evolution of a Screenplay: 3 Draft Scripts with Commentary, First, 2021, 488pp, Book, PUBLISHED
'Design as Authorship: Polly Platt's New Hollywood Aesthetic' in, editor(s)Nathan Abrams, Gregory Frame , New Wave, New Hollywood: Reassessment, Recovery, and Legacy, New York, London, Bloomsbury, 2021, pp101 - 119, [Aaron Hunter], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Aaron Hunter, Authoring Hal Ashby: The Myth of the New Hollywood Auteur, First, United States, Bloomsbury, 2016, 240pp, Book, PUBLISHED
Aaron Hunter, 'Performance as Authorship: Sarah Michelle Gellar and Buffy Season 6', Journal of Film and Video (Special Issue on Television and Performance), 68, (3-4), 2016, p51 - 68, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Aaron Hunter, 'When is the now in the here and there? Trans-diegetic music in Hal Ashby"s Coming Home', Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 3, (3), 2012, p36 - 48, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
  

'You Can Take the Boy out of Oklahoma: Hal Ashby"s Bound for Glory' in, editor(s)Larry A. Van Meter , Sooner Cinema: Oklahoma Goes to the Movies, USA, pp125 - 136, [Aaron Hunter], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED