Dr. Aaron Hunter

Biography

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.