A/Prof Jane Mills

Overview

An Associate Professor at the Journalism and Media Research Centre, I am a frequent Visiting Professor to the Japanese Institute for Moving Images and actively involved in the setting up of their Screen Literacy course for undergraduates.

My publishing activities include: Series Editor of Australian Screen Classics, (Currency Press and the National Film & Sound Archive), Associate Editor and referee for the two Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) journals, Metro and Australian Screen Education, and founding Editor and Board member of the online interdisciplinary journal, fusion working closely colleagues at Charles Sturt University and the University of Lincoln (Uk). Previously a Board Member of the Sydney Film Festival, I remain actively involved in this and several other film festivals.

In addition to consulting, teaching and publishing in screen studies, screen literacy, visual media and communication, I have a production background in television and documentary film and have written on subjects including cinema, censorship, sex education, socio-linguistics, feminism, human rights and cosmopolitanism. A committed anti-censorship campaigner, I am a founder-member of ‘Watch on Censorship’. I am also a frequent broadcaster on television and radio and a film critic for ABC Radio 702.

I'm the author of eight books of which the most recent are: Jedda (Currency Press/NFSA, 2012); Loving and Hating Hollywood: Re-framing Global and Local Cinemas (Allen & Unwin, May 2009); The Money Shot: Cinema, Sin & Censorship (Pluto, 2001).

My documentary films include: Yilmaz Guney: His life, His Films (Channel 4) about the late Kurdish-Turkish director whose film Yol won the Palme d’or at Cannes in 1984; and Rape: That’s Entertainment? (BBC1) about the representation of sexual violence towards women in cinema.

Research Summary

Screen Literacy/Media & Visual Culture
Since 2000 I have been a Consultant to the NSW Department of Education, designing and delivering cineliteracy training and programs to teachers and their students from low socio-economic and from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. I am expanding this research area into social media, participatory culture, mobile digital media and ideas of cosmopolitanism on which I am researching with colleagues at the University of Niigata and the Japanese Institute of Moving Images.

Screen & Media Studies
MyPhD thesis (at the Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney) is entitled ‘Hollywood and its Others: Porous Borders and Creative Tensions in the Transnational Screenscape’. I retain a research interest in this area and am currently developing a project on geocritical approaches to film and media.

Indigenous Studies
I have an active research interest in issues relating to tertiary education and Indigenous cultural competence and am a member of the working party at Charles Sturt University to develop social media applications for "Indigenous Concepts of Land and Sustainability."

Other research interests include a range of topics related to the documentary form, film language, popular culture, censorship, Australian national cinema, First Nation cinema and cinematic cultural geography.

Teaching

I have taught, supervised and examined undergraduate and postgraduate subjects and courses in media, screen and communication across a range of fields including documentary, social media, visual communication and other interrelated moving image, media and communication.

I compiled the Reader for the undergraduate 4th year specialisation in Cineliteracy for the Japanese Institute of Moving Images introduced in 2013.

In my previous position as Associate Professor of Communication in the School of Communication & Creative Industries at Charles Sturt University (2009-2012), I was the Honours and Postgraduate Coordinator, taking a special interest in developing the professional practice research doctorate whose students I taught and supervised.

Publications

Books

2012 Jedda (Currency Press/National Film & Sound Archive)

2009 Loving and Hating Hollywood: Reframing Global and Local
Cinemas (Allen & Unwin)

2001 The Money Shot: Cinema, Sin and Censorship (Pluto Press)
Reinventing the Reel: The Road Movie (AFI)

1993 Guide to Erotic Literature (ed.) (Bloomsbury Press & U of Chicago
Press)

1993 Sexwords (Penguin Books)

1992 Make It Happy, Make It Safe (Penguin Books)

1989 Womanwords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Patriarchal Society.
(UK: Longman, Virago Press; In US: The Free Press, Henry Holt; Also translated
and published in Taiwan.)

1979 Make It Happy (Virago Press, London. Trans and pub in
Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Norway,
Denmark, Spain, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany. Co-winner of The
Times Educational Supplement's ‘Information Book of the Year’.)

1973 Turkey: Torture and Political Persecution (Pluto Press, London)
Co-winner, Society of Young Publishers 'Book of the Year'.

Chapters & Articles

2014 'The Role of Popular Screen Culture and Digital
Communication Technology in Literacy Learning: Towards a New
Pedagogy of Cosmopolitanism'. (With Bill Green) Journal of
Popular Film & Television (In press)

2013 'Situating the ‘Beyond’: Adventure-learning and Indigenous Cultural
Competence'. (With Barbara. Hill) Discourse. 34: 1.

'Screening the Classics: From The Back of Beyond', Sydney Film
60th Anniversary

'Visual Culture, Literacy Learning: Towards a Pedagogy of
Cosmopolitanism'. Journal of Australian Studies Association in
Japan. (Forthcoming)

2012 'From Confusion to Fusion: The Birth of a New Academic, Peer-reviewed, Online
journal', Fusion, 1:1

'Hollywood: Bad Cinema’s Bad “Other”'. Bad Cinema. London:
Routledge.

'Screen Literacy Learning: Educational Application and Cultural
Resistance’ in P. Kinnear with B. Croker. (Ed.), Interdisciplinary
Perspectives: Conversations in Visual Literacies, Oxford: Inter-
Disciplinary Press.

2011 'Screen Literacy and Global Citizenship: A New Landscape',
Journal of Australian Studies Association in Japan. Vol 34

2010 'Expanding Horizons: Screen Literacy and Global Citizenship',
English in Australia. Vol 45: 2

'Hollywood: Bad Cinema’s Bad ‘Other'’, Continuum. 24:5

'Mapping Australia: Cinematic Cartographies of (Dis)Location',
Senses of Cinema, Vol. 55

2009 'Journey Among Women - Special and Electric, essay
accompanying Collectors Edition DVD, Journey Among Women,
Mad Man: Melbourne.

First Nation Cinema: Hollywood’s Indigenous Other, Screening the
Past. Vol 24: 2.

2005 'Cineliteracy: The Tools to Re-Imagine My World'. NSWDET

2004 'The Concept of the Journey', mETAphor, Vol 2

2003 'Cineliteracy for High School and Primary School Teachers', Metro,
No 138.

2002 'On the Road with Screen Culture', Metro, No 134.

'Lights! Camera! Paintbrush!' Senses of Cinema, 18, Dec-Jan

'Shooting the Medium is not the Answer’, Issues in Society: Mass
Media and Society, The Spinney Press, Vol. 130.

'The Tarantino Legacy', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 36

2000 'Two Smacks and Out!', Index on Censorship, London

1999 'Responding to Film', Curriculum Support for Teaching in English
7-12, Curriculum Support Directorate, vol. 4, no. 3. NSW
DET.

'New Regime, Old Anxieties: The 1995 Classification Act’, (with
Rebecca Huntley), In C. Spurgeon (ed.) Cultural Crossroads:
Ownership, Access, Identity Sydney, Communications Law
Centre,

1997 'Is There Enough Violence On Our Screens?' Metro, No. 110.

1996 'Introduction', in Jane Mills & Maree Delofski, (eds.), Media
International Australia, Vol 82.

'Screening Rape', Index: The Subversive Eye. Vol. 6. London

1992 'Classroom Conundrums: Sex Education and Censorship'. In Lynne
Segal & Mary McIntosh (eds.), Sex Exposed: Censorship and
the Pornography Debate. London: Virago Press

1988 'Putting Ideas Into Their Heads: Advising the Young', Feminist
Review, London. No. 28:1

Affiliations and Memberships

FASS Research Committee

Contributions

At the 2012 Sydney Film Festival I introduced the films screening in the Bertolucci
retrospective. I was also a judge for the ATOM film Awards and for the Sydney
Underground Film Festival.

Other Information

Selected Keynote, plenary and seminar lectures and papers

2012 "Aboriginal women films and filmmaking", Visiting Professor: Japanese Institute of
Moving Images

'Screen Literacy in Australia: Current and Future Practices and Trends' Keynote: Niigata
Cineliteracy Literacy Conference; Fukushima CineLiteracy Conference

Screen Literacy and English Teaching: A Matter of Affect. (With
Professor Bill Green) Keynote: AATE national conference

Digital Communication Technology in Literacy Learning: Towards a
New Pedagogy of Cosmopolitanism: UWS research seminar series

2011 'Visual Culture, Literacy Learning: Towards a Pedagogy of
Cosmopolitanism'. Keynote: Australian Studies Association in Japan
Conference

2011 Media Literacy: From Multiculturalism to Transculturalism. Visiting Professor: Keio
University

2010 Introduction to Graduation Address speaker, Mr Mervyn Bishop,
School of Communication & Creative Industries (CSU)

2010 Passing Through: Cinema’s Voluntary Vectors. Plenary: Film History
Association of Australia and New Zealand

2010 Expanding Horizons: Screen Literacy and Global Citizenship.
Keynote: ASAJ/Fukushima University

2009 'Dare to Break the Rules.' Graduation Address: School of
Communication, CSU

2008 Expanding our Horizons: Teaching and Using Documentaries.
Visual Literacies Conference, Keynote: NSWDET

2006 The Denigration of the Visual. Macquarie University (Guest)

2007 Cinema, Censorship and the Abject. Brisbane ARC Biennial
Conference

2003 The Concept of the Journey. Keynote: English Teachers Association Annual
HSC Conference

2001 Cinema and its Debt to Fine Art. Art Gallery of NSW

Personal Links

For details of Australian Screen Classics of which I am the Series Editor, please see
Australian Screen Classics_Currency Press