Dr. Jennifer O'Meara

Biography

I am the Academic Advisor for the Columbia University-TCD Dual Degree in Film and former Director of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning for the School of Creative Arts (2020-2022). I'm currently the PI on the Irish Research Council Laureate Award project (2022-2026) 'From Cinematic Realism to Extended Reality: Reformulating Screen Studies at the Precipice of Hyper-reality.' Prior to joining Trinity as an Assistant Professor in Film Studies in 2018, I lectured for two years at the University of St. Andrews (2016-2018), as well as Maynooth University (2015-2016) and the Huston School of Film & Digital Media, NUIG (2015). My teaching and research are primarily concerned with the intersections between film and digital media, as well as between critical theory and creative practice: these include audiovisual essays and the use of digital tools for experiments with screen aesthetics. My other main research and teaching interests relate to film dialogue, voices, sound and music; performance and stardom; gender; and American independent cinema. My research on sound and dialogue includes the monographs Women's Voices in Digital Media: The Sonic Screen from Film to Memes (University of Texas Press, 2022) and Engaging Dialogue: Cinematic Verbalism in American Independent Cinema (Edinburgh University Press 2018), as well as articles on the relationship between characterization and diegetic music and point-of-audition sound. In 2020 I co-edited a dossier on 'Revoicing the Screen' for Cinema Journal/JCMS, while in 2017 I guest edited a special issue of The Soundtrack on emerging audio-visual media. With regard to digital media, I have also published on political memes, digital fan art, podcasts, and ASMR videos. My work on performance and stardom has focused on issues of gender, reflexivity and subculture, leading to individual studies of Christina Ricci, Tilda Swinton, Parker Posey, and Cate Blanchett. I am currently a postdoctoral supervisor on HUMAN+, an international and interdisciplinary fellowship programme supporting interdisciplinary research between Computer Science and Arts & Humanities, supported by the European Commission, Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Co-Fund Action. I am also a regular contributor to media and arts shows on RTÉ Lyric FM and RTÉ 2fm, as well as contributing arts criticism to newspapers like The Irish Times and Irish Independent and online platforms like VOX. I teach a wide range of Film modules across the department's undergraduate and MPhil programmes. More broadly at Trinity, I supervise research on the M.Sc. in Interactive Digital Media (School of Computer Science) and contribute to the School of Creative Arts elective 'The Art of the Megacity', and the Faculty-wide Columbia Dual Degree course 'Ideas and Perceptions of Europe'.