Neil McCartney

Dr Neil McCartney is currently based in Oxford as an independent researcher and has taught courses at the Department on The Films of Orson Welles and Self-identity in Cinema. He obtained his PhD in Film Studies from the University of Kent under the supervision of Prof. Murray Smith. His doctoral thesis analysed unconventional character portrayals in film narratives within the wider context of psychological and philosophical theories of self-identity. He is particularly interested the relationship between real-world selves and fiction film characters, and specifically the cognitive dissonance generated by films which display a disruption to conventional cinematic norms relating to character portrayal and development. His research is broadly aligned with the cognitivist approach and his other areas of interest include film-as-philosophy, the portrayal of memory and subjectivity in fiction film, and avant-garde deviations from conventional narrative trajectories and continuity of characters.