PAUL MITCHELL
Research Teams
Digital Humanities
Disciplines, scientific fields, research areas
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Humanities & Arts
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Arts (arts, history of arts, performing arts, music)
- Studies on Film, Radio and Television
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Languages and literature
- General literature studies
- Specific literatures
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Other humanities
- Other humanities
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Arts (arts, history of arts, performing arts, music)
Keywords
Bio
In my current role, I am the director of the English department at the UCV (Valencia, Spain). My doctorate, which I obtained from Leeds Beckett University in the UK, explores the relevance of Julia Kristeva's psycholinguistic theory to the work of the American author, Sylvia Plath. In recent years, my research and teaching have been accredited by ANECA (the Spanish National Agency for Assessing Teaching, Scholarship and Research). In addition, my academic publications for the period 2005-2021 have been evaluated by CNEAI (the Spanish National Commission for Assessment of Research Activity) as “High-Quality, Outstanding, and Internationally Excellent”. Throughout my tenure at the UCV, I have designed and taught a number of undergraduate and postgraduate English language, literature, and cinema courses, whilst also supervising undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations, and doctoral projects. Previously, I was the director of the UCV’s Language Centre, which offered a range of English-language courses with nationally validated exam certifications by ACLES (the Spanish Association of Language Centres in Higher Education).
My research focuses principally on two related areas of interest. The first is the contemporary Gothic in literature, cinema, and television texts. In particular, I am interested in exploring how transgression, alterity and marginalisation exist as powerfully subversive counter discourses, a line of research that has led me to publish several studies about recent Frankenstein films. In addition, my work analyses how key Gothic tropes such as toxicity, physical/psychological illnesses, and traumatised bodies illuminate a range of contemporary anxieties. These motifs have been the focus of my recent publications about the EcoGothic, masculinities, and autobiographical comics. As a member of the “Figuras de mal” research project, I am currently exploring how the conceptualisation of ‘bad characters’ can be understood in relation to counter-discursive depictions of ill health and suffering.
Degrees
PhD English Literature. Leeds Beckett University, 2008.
Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE). University of Leeds, 1994.
BA (Hons) English and Philosophy. University of Birmingham, 1992.
News about me & my work
Work in progress: a monograph about illness experiences in autographic comics by male cartoonists.
Upcoming conference presentations:
(1) "Drawing/Writing Cancers in Women's Comics". Unicómic 2024: 2nd International Conference Teaching with Comics. University of Alicante, Spain. 3-5 July 2024.
(2) "Men's Cancers in Autographic illness Comics". 19th Annual ComFer Conference: Graphic Medicine - Communicating Illness and Health through Comics. University of Groningen, Holland. 23-25 October 2024.
(3) "A Comparative Analysis of Women’s Autographic Illness Comics". 47th AEDEAN Conference: Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies. University of Sevilla, Spain. 6-8 November 2024.
Upcoming publications:
(1) Mitchell, Paul (forthcoming 2024). "Envisioning Masculinity and Caring in Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams". In Masculinities in 21st-century Science-Fiction Television: Exploring New Spaces eds. Sara Martín and Michael Pitts. Bloomsbury Academic.
(2) Mitchell, Paul (forthcoming 2024). "En la zona extraña: Una interpretación de Pícnic Extraterrestre de los hermanos Strugatski". In Folclore y Gótico: Entornos y presencias sobrenaturales en Europa y las Américas, ed. Miriam López Santos. Tirant Lo Blanch.
(3) Mitchell, Paul (forthcoming 2024). "Toxic Bodies and Environments: Roadside Picnic and Ecocriticism". In Aproximaciones culturales y didácticas al hecho literario, ed. Mónica Martínez Sariego. Dykinson. ISBN: 978-84-1070-056-7.
(4) Mitchell, Paul (forthcoming 2024). " Cambiando el guión de ‘Human Is’: revisionando el buen hombre en Electric Dreams". In En busca de hombres buenos: estrategias para desintoxicar la masculinidad en la cultura anglófona, eds. Sara Martín and María Isabel Santaulària. Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza.
Recent publications:
(1) Mitchell, Paul (2024). "Illness and (hyper)masculinity in HIMM comics from the USA". Medical Humanities, 50: 30-40. doi:10.1136/medhum-2023-012767.
(2) Mitchell, Paul (2023). "Seeing Horror through the Lens of Health: Embodying Dissociative Identity Disorder in The Babadook". Literature and Medicine, 41(1): 123-144. doi: 10.1353/lm.2023.a911447.
(3) Mitchell, Paul (2023). "Science Fiction Re-Visioned: Posthuman Gothic in Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams". Atlantis: Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies, 45(1): 112-129. doi: 10.28914/Atlantis-2023-45.1.07.
(4) Mitchell, Paul (2023). "Changing the Script of “Human Is”: Re-visioning the Good (Hu)Man in Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams". In Detoxing Masculinity in Anglophone Literature and Culture: In Search of Good Men, eds. Sara Martín and María Isabel Santaulària (215-230). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-3-031-22143-9.