Dr James Williamson

Biography

Dr James Williamson is a lecturer and programme leader for Media and Communication. He received his PhD from Goldsmiths in 2020, and has previously taught on Film Studies there as well as on Digital Humanities at King’s College, London.

He is co-editor of the special issue 'Future Genders' (2021) for Visual Resources and author of the article ‘Cybernetic Soundscapes: Re-synthesizing the Electronic Tonalities of Forbidden Planet’ (2022) in Science Fiction Film and Television, as well as forthcoming book chapters on atomic horror, cybernetics and encounters with archetypal others in science fiction media.

Areas of expertise

Media and film studies, science fiction and genre studies, structural and post-structural approaches to narrative and myth, technology in culture, digital play and games.

Publications

Shanbaum, P. and Williamson, J. (Forthcoming) The Fantasy of the Healthy Body: Impairment and Uncertainty in Star Wars, in Fryers, M. and Harmes, M., eds. Cybernetics in Science Fiction (Peter Lang)

Williamson, J. (Forthcoming) Archetype as History in Hollywood Science Fiction of the 1950s, in Hackett, J., Harrington, S., and O'Byrne, D., eds. Beasts of the Sky: Strange Sightings in the Stratosphere (John Libbey)

Williamson, J. (Forthcoming), Uncanny Transfigurations: Distortions of Size and Scale in the Science Fiction Horror of the 1950s, in Hubner, L. and Whittal, A., eds. Global Atomic Horror: Fears of Nuclear Power in Gothic Literature, Film and Media (Palgrave Macmillan)

Williamson, J. (2022) Cybernetic soundscapes: Resynthesizing the “electronic tonalities” of Forbidden Planet (1956) in Science Fiction Film and Television, Vol. 15, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2022.4

Wagner, T. and Williamson, J., eds (2021) Future Genders: On New Potentialities in an Era of Increasing Politicization, Special Issue for Visual Resources, Vol. 37, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1080/01973762.2024.2311948