Harriet Idle
- School: English, Drama and Film
- Supervisor: Dr Martha Shearer
- Funding: Ad Astra Studentship
Globalisation, Urban Space, and the Contemporary Romantic Comedy
My project explores representations of city space in the contemporary romantic comedy film from a global perspective. Using case studies across a number of national and transnational contexts, I examine the ways in which we can define the rom com's relationship with urban space in the late 2000s and 2010s in the wake of the widespread impacts of the digital revolution, economic and public health crises (such as the Covid-19 pandemic), and increased exchange and interconnectivity of global popular media. By examining the intersections between world cinema, the cinematic city, and the romantic comedy, the project's aim is to intervene in the US-centric field of rom com genre studies and help formulate a broader spatial theory of the genre. Subsequently, it allows us to fully understand how the spatiality of the modern rom com functions alongside the genre’s narrative and ideological imperatives concerning gender, race, national identity, and sexuality on a global scale.
Email address: (opens in a new window)harriet.idle@ucdconnect.ie