Research

Sarah Thomas’s current and ongoing research interests include stardom, supporting actors and screen performance, film history and the historical film, classical Hollywood cinema, contemporary Hollywood cinema, transnational cinema and émigré performers, cinema during the 1940s and the Second World War, American radio (1930-1950).

Teaching

FM10120 Studying Film
FM30120 Analysing Film, Television and Media
FM30220 Key Film and Media Practices
FM20420 Classical Hollywood Cinema
FM21020 Contemporary Hollywood Cinema
FM31320 Cinema and Stardom
FM33020 Screen Performance
TFM3530 Case Studies in Film History (MA)

Current PhD supervison

Steampunk and contemporary cinema (Robbie McAllister)

Publications

Books and edited collections

(co-edited with Kate Egan), Cult Film Stardom: Offbeat Attractions and Processes of Cultification, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. (forthcoming)

Peter Lorre: Face Maker. Stardom and Performance between Hollywood and Europe, Oxford and New York, Berghahn Books. (forthcoming)

Journals and book chapters

‘Marginal moments of spectacle’: Character actors, cult stardom and Hollywood cinema, in Thomas & Egan (eds.), Cult Film Stardom: Offbeat Attractions and Processes of Cultification, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming).

“A “star” of the airwaves: Peter Lorre’s appearances in American radio”, The Radio Journal, Vol. 6 Issue 1 (Summer 2008), pps.143-155.

Conference Papers

“Extraordinarily Expressive and Excessive: the disruptive performances of characters actors in Hollywood supporting roles.”, research seminar: Department of Film, Theatre and Television, University
of Reading, January 2011.

“Screen actors and the archives of the Centre for Performance Research”, research seminar, The Centre for Performance Research, Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Aberystwyth University, October 2010.

“Peter Lorre’s “Masks”: “Brechtian” performance and Hollywood horror.” (Panel: Screen performance, cult stardom and horror”), Screen Studies Conference, Glasgow University, July 2010.

“Filming Different Performance Styles: The Best Years of Our Lives”, Acting Out Symposium, Department of Film, Theatre and Television, University of Reading, March 2009.

“The “sound” of Peter Lorre: vocal performance and typecasting in Hollywood cinema and American radio broadcasting”, Screen Studies Conference, Glasgow University, July 2008

“Adaptation through performance: the stories of Edgar Allen Poe as performed by Peter Lorre within cinema, stage and radio.”, Cultures of Translation: Adaptation in Film and Performance, University
ofGlamorgan, June 2008

“Constructing star images away from the cinema screen: Peter Lorre’s appearances on American radio.”, New Developments in Stardom, Kings College London, March 2008

“Playing “Peter Lorre”: the self-reflexive performance strategies of a cult actor”, Cine-Excess Cult Film Conference, the Cult Film Archive at Brunel University, May 2007