Professor Rosalind Galt

Rosalind Galt is Professor in Film Studies at King’s College London. She is the author of Alluring Monsters: the Pontianak and Cinemas of Decolonization (2021), Queer Cinema in the World (coauthored with Karl Schoonover, 2016), Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image (2011), and The New European Cinema: Redrawing the Map (2006), as well as coeditor of Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories (2010).

In 2019-20, she was the recipient of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship and a Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellowship in Contemporary Southeast Asia.

She holds a PhD in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University (2002), and an MA (Hons) in Film and Television Studies and English Literature from the University of Glasgow (1993).

Before joining King’s in 2013, she taught at the University of Sussex and the University of Iowa.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

• World cinema post-1945
• Queer cinemas
• Film theory
• Southeast Asian cinemas
• Contemporary European cinemas

Rosalind Galt’s research is situated at the intersection of film theories and histories, locating world cinemas within debates on visuality and aesthetics, postcoloniality and globality, sexuality and the politics of the image. Her most recent book, Alluring Monsters: the Pontianak and Cinemas of Decolonization Columbia University Press, 2021) explores how a female vampire figure from Malay animism re-emerged in popular cinema, and argues that this pre-colonial, often transgressive figure can reframe anticolonial aesthetics and world cinema. Her research addresses world cinema from a queer and feminist perspective and is particularly interested in the transnational intersections of sexual cultures, geopolitics, and aesthetics.

Selected Publications

Alluring Monsters: the Pontianak and Cinemas of Decolonization (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021)

Queer Cinema in the World, coauthored with Karl Schoonover (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016)

Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011)

Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories, co-edited with Karl Schoonover (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)

The New European Cinema: Redrawing the Map, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006)

Teaching

Rosalind Galt has taught in a wide range of areas, most recently including modules in film theory and history, European cinema, world cinema, and queer cinema.

Expertise and Public Engagement

Rosalind Galt has organised public events at the BFI, Flare London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival, and CineCity: Brighton Film Festival, has served on the jury of several film festivals, and has programmed film series for various international venues.

She is on the editorial board of Film Criticism and Transnational Cinemas, and the advisory board of World Picture. She has peer reviewed for international research councils and for many major scholarly presses and journals.