Dr Jane Mills
Associate Professor
BA (Hons), PhD
Dr Jane Mills
Bio
Dr Jane Mills is Associate Professor in Communication (Teaching and Research) at CSU. She’s also an honorary Research Fellow at the Australian Film, Television & Radio School (where she was Head of Screen Studies 1995 – 2001), the Series Editor of Australian Screen Classics, co-published by Currency Press and the National Film & Sound Archive, and an Associate Editor and referee for the two Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) journals, Metro and Australian Screen Education.
In addition to consulting, teaching and publishing in screen studies and screen literacy, Jane has a production background in television and documentary film and has written on subjects including cinema, censorship, sex education, socio-linguistics, feminism and human rights. She is a Board Director of the Sydney Film Festival and a Board member of Cinewest, a screen culture organisation that lobbies and advocates for the needs of diverse communities for artistic and cultural expressions in Western Sydney. A committed anti-censorship campaigner, she is a founder-member of ‘Watch on Censorship’. A frequent broadcaster on television and radio, she’s the regular film critic on the ‘Philm Phanatics’ slot on Simon Marnie’s Sunday morning programme on 702 ABC Radio.
Jane writes frequent articles for RealTime and Screen Hub and is the author of seven books. The last book was The Money Shot: Cinema, Sin and Censorship (Pluto Press, 2001); the next is Loving and Hating Hollywood: Re-framing Global and Local Cinemas (Allen & Unwin, May 2009). Her 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 the cinema.
Until recently Jane was on the NSW Management Committee of Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR). Her all-time favourite film changes almost daily but currently is either The Man With A Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929) or The Beast With Five Fingers (Robert Florey, 1946)
Teaching
Post-graduate courses and supervision, and a range of subjects including documentary, social media, and other moving image, media and communication topics.
Research
Screen Literacy: Since 2000 Jane has been a consultant to the Equity unit of 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. She is expanding this research area into participatory culture and will be working with others in this field at CSU and at the Centre for Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation, QUT.
Film/globalisation Studies: Jane’s Ph.D. (at the Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney) was entitled ‘Hollywood and its Others: Porous Borders and Creative Tensions in the Transnational Screenscape’. This will be her next book entitled: Loving and Hating Hollywood: Re-framing Global and Local Cinemas (Allen & Unwin, May 2009). Jane retains her research interest in this area and is currently preparing a number of papers and articles on related topics.
Other research interests: These include a range of topics related to the documentary form, film language, popular culture, censorship, and Australian national cinema and First Nation cinema.
Recent Publications
As author/speaker:
Loving and Hating Hollywood: Re-framing Global and Local Cinemas, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, (Forthcoming: May 2009)
‘First Nation Cinema: Hollywood’s Indigenous “Other”.’: Film History Association of Australia and New Zealand conference (Otago University NZ, Nov 2008)
‘Beyond Cineliteracy’, Keynote lecture, Japan Film Centre, Tokyo, Oct 2008
‘Re-imagining my world’, keynote lecture, Kawasaki City Film Festival Conference, Shin Yuri, Japan, Oct 2008
‘Expanding Our Horizons: Teaching and Using Documentaries in the Classroom’, Keynote lecture, NSW DET Visual Literacies Conference, 2008
‘Cineliteracy the road to World Citizenship’, sole keynote speaker at a seminar organised by the Cultural Attaché of the Australian Embassy in Tokyo to an invited audience of Japanese educators, literacy specialists and filmmakers, Tokyo 2006.
‘Rethinking Hollywood’s Hegemony’, Discourse and Cultural Transformation Conference paper, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China, 2004
‘Phase 2 Cineliteracy Report’, NSW Department of Education and Training Student Services and Equity Programs. 2004
‘Cineliteracy, traditional literacy and levels of engagement’, Keynote lecture, ATOM National Conference, 2004
‘The tools to re-imagine my world’: Cineliteracy for High School and Primary School Teachers, Metro, No 138. 2003
‘What constitutes the end point of cultural expression?’ Arc Biennial Conference, Brisbane, 2003
‘The Concept of the Journey’, English Teachers’ Association (ETA) annual student conference. Nov 2003 and published on the ETA website.
‘The Tarantino Legacy’, Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 36, 2002
'Lights! Camera! Paintbrush!’ Senses of Cinema 18, Dec-Jan 2002.
‘On the Road with Screen Culture’, Metro, No 134. 2002
‘Evaluation Report & Case Study “… interest has been sparked.” ‘NSW Department of Education and Training Student Services and Equity Programs. 2002
The Money Shot: Cinema, Sin and Censorship, Annandale: Pluto Press, 2001
‘Shooting the medium is not the answer’ in Issues in Society: Mass Media and Society, ed. Justin Healey, The Spinney Press, Vol. 130. 2000
‘Responding to Film’ in Curriculum Support for Teaching in English 7-12, Curriculum Support Directorate, vol. 4, no. 3. NSW Department of Education and Training. 2000.
As Series Editor:
Andrew Frost, The Boys, Sydney: Currency Press & NFSA, Forthcoming: 2009
Catharine Lumby, Alvin Purple, Sydney: Currency Press & NFSA, 2008
Henry Reynolds, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Sydney: Currency Press & NFSA, 2008
Philip Brophy, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert¸ Sydney: Currency Press & NFSA, 2008
Tony Moore, The Barry McKenzie Movies, Sydney: Currency Press & NFSA, 2005
Gail Jones, The Piano, Sydney: Currency Press & NFSA, 2007
Nell Schofield, Puberty Blues, Sydney: Currency Press & NFSA, 2004
Adrian Martin, The Mad Max Movies, Sydney: Currency Press & NFSA, 2003
Louis Nowra, Walkabout, Sydney: Currency Press & NFSA, 2003
Christos Tsiolkas, The Devil’s Playground, Sydney: Currency Press & NFSA, 2003