Dr Lucy Fife Donaldson
Head of Department (Film Studies)
Senior Lecturer
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 7483
- lfd2@st-andrews.ac.uk
- Office
- First floor
- Location
- 99 North Street
- Office hours
- Tuesday 11am-noon
Biography
Lucy Donaldson's research focuses on film and television style, audiovisual design and 'below-the-line' labour, performance and the body, and videographic criticism. She is the author or co-editor of six books, including her monograph, Texture in Film for Palgrave Macmillan’s series: Palgrave Close Readings in Film & Television (Series Editors: Gibbs, John & Douglas Pye), Television Performance (Red Globe Press, 2019) (co-edited with James Walters), and most recently, Epic / everyday: Moments in television (Manchester University Press, 2023) (co-edited with Sarah Cardwell & Jonathan Bignell).
Lucy's writing and audiovisual work has appeared in journals including Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism, CineAction, Critical Studies in Television, Film-Philosophy, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, The New Soundtrack and [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies, as well as in edited volumes on television aesthetics, kinesthetic empathy, monstrosity, film Biopics, screen sound, european crime drama, and the animated film, Toy Story.
Lucy has received funding from the Carnegie Trust, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in Canada and the Leverhulme/British Academy, including her current project on the film colour consultant, George Hoyningen-Huene. Her audiovisual essays have been included in Sight & Sound's Best Video Essays of 2022, 2023 and 2024, received an honorable mention in the BAFTSS practice research awards 2023, runner up in 2024 and awarded first prize in the Adelio Ferrero Awards 2024. Her audiovisual work can be found on her vimeo channel.
Lucy is an editor of Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism, and co-edited issues 6 (2015) and 10 (2021-22), which featured special dossiers on ‘moments of texture’ in film and television and 'the politics of close analysis, and its object'. She is a general Editor of the Television Series (Manchester University Press) with Professor Jonathan Bignell and Dr Sarah Cardwell, and an Editorial Advisor for Routledge Resources Online: Screen Studies. From 2020-23 she was co-director of the Centre for Screen Cultures with Dr Philippa Lovatt.
She is part of a videographic collaborative project, 'Ways of Doing' which fosters an ethical praxis of audiovisual research, with Colleen Laird (University of British Columbia), Dayna McLeod (Performance and media artist scholar) and Alison Peirse (University of Leeds).
PhD supervision
- Philippa Orme
- Lyndsay Townsend-Gill
- Jiawei You
Selected publications
-
Open access
(dis)Orientating horror: feeling queerly
Donaldson, L. F., 5 Feb 2025, In: MONSTRUM. 7, 2, p. 41-44 5 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
-
Open access
‘Precision is key’: appreciating the labour of performance in RuPaul’s Drag Race
Donaldson, L. F., Apr 2024, In: Screen. 65, 1, p. 132-141Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
-
The movie business
Donaldson, L. F., 28 Mar 2024, George Hoyningen-Huene: photography, fashion, film. Brown, S. (ed.). London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, p. 268-305 38 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
-
Open access
'Isn’t that going to be awfully dull and drab?' George Hoyningen-Huene’s use of neutrals
Donaldson, L. F., 21 Aug 2023, In: [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies. 10, 2Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
-
Kiss me softly | crackly | sharply
Donaldson, L. F., 27 Jun 2023Research output: Non-textual form › Digital or Visual Products
-
Substance / style: moments in television
Cardwell, S. (Editor), Bignell, J. (Editor) & Donaldson, L. F. (Editor), 26 Apr 2022, Manchester: Manchester University Press. 237 p. (The television series)Research output: Book/Report › Book
-
Television Performance
Donaldson, L. F. (Editor) & Walters, J. (Editor), Aug 2019, Macmillan. 276 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
-
Texture in film
Donaldson, L. F., Aug 2014, Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 203 p. (Palgrave close readings in film and television)Research output: Book/Report › Book
-
Open access
Surface contact: film design as an exchange of meaning
Donaldson, L. F., 19 Jun 2018, In: Film-Philosophy. 22, 2, p. 203-221 19 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
-
Open access
The work of an invisible body: the contribution of foley artists to on-screen effort
Donaldson, L. F., 1 Jun 2014, In: Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. 7, p. 1-25Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review