Failed Cover Letter - University of Cambridge Dec 2021

I'm job-hunting at the moment and have had a go recently at putting in for academic posts. It is now five years since the deep unpleasantness I experienced in my last lecturing post at University of Salford. I reckon I'll be bottom of the pile for life. I'm reflecting on my relationship with academia quite a bit right now amidst the UCU strike action currently underway. I think I'm pretty bonkers for even entertaining going back into that noise. It's just that I worked so hard for so long and I was really good at it. I mean properly really good at it. But a lot was stacked against me and my economic difficulties, the strain of shifting my life from one city to the next year after year, and spending all my time on a contract trying to secure the next one, then encountering bullying in a toxic, corrupt environment when I finally landed a 'permanent' post, well it nearly ended me. So I don't know, I just saw some jobs and thought I 100% won't get these if I don't apply, and so I put myself through the battery of faceless rejection once more. And, hey, isn't everything content these days? In that spirit (read that as cynical or sharing, whichever works for you), here is my text from a cover letter for what feels like the millionth post I was perfect for and didn't get. 

Application for Assistant Professorship in Film and Screen Studies

Dear Prof. ___ and Selection Panel,

I was delighted to learn of this new post at University of Cambridge’s Centre for Film and Screen. After recovering from a period of ill-health, this is exactly the post I am looking for to re-enter film academia. With a solid grounding in the histories and theories of film and screen media from my studies at Queen’s University Belfast and teaching experience across five UK universities, I have much to offer to your colleagues and students, particularly in comparative approaches to global examples which have been foundational to much of my teaching.

While my specialism is in film and visual culture from and about Northern Ireland and I continue to work on its immediate contexts, this is informed by knowledge of the global history of cinema and the broader visual arts in the modern and contemporary periods. In previous teaching, this knowledge was particularly demonstrated in the team-taught twenty-week year 2 module I co-convened at Lancaster University, ‘Hollywood and Beyond: Global Cinema’, in which we mapped transnational and transcontinental trends in production and distribution across the history of film. Lectures I contributed to this module included examples of Latin American cinema and their relationships with the USA, independent North American films produced in Europe, and Studio Ghibli’s relationship with Disney facilitating the distribution of English-dubbed Japanese anime.

Further to teaching, in publications I have been extending my research concerning post-conflict moving-image production in Northern Ireland out to comparative analyses with that of other post-conflict and post-dictatorship places. My article under review at Screen and my chapter in the Peripheral Visions volume attached with my application glean what can be learned from comparing essay films and archived-based dramatisations from Chile with video art and archive-based biopics from Northern Ireland, both of which are places experiencing intense violence in the late twentieth century. Additional topics to emerge from this close scrutiny include erasures of indigenous peoples or ancient settlers and nuances in adaptative modes of storytelling. These studies directly relate to major funding applications with which I was involved at Newcastle University.

In 2015, under the mentorship of Prof. ___ I applied for a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship for a project entitled ‘Appropriating Conflict: Re-Archivizing Mediated Memories of Violence’. It aimed to compare film-makers’ and artists’ engagements with violent pasts through the archive and to stress a societal need for inclusive approaches to history- and memory-telling. Although unsuccessful, my application inspired Prof. ___ to lead an investigative team – of which I was an original co-investigator – that was successfully awarded a substantial AHRC grant for the 4-year ‘Screening Violence’ project currently underway. I was involved in preparing the application, including organising and facilitating engagement events that served as scoping exercises and data collection. Unfortunately in 2017 I became too ill to work and had to withdraw before the bid was submitted. That it was successful and derived from my research indicates strong potential for my own future success should I be in a position to apply for research funding again. My transnational-in-scope ‘Appropriating Conflict’ study remains a viable project and I have additional plans for a book on representations and the psychogeography of Belfast onscreen, a study companion developed from my teaching on cinema and the American avant-garde, and a history of transregional screen production across Britain and Ireland.

As my CV shows, I have extensive experience in designing and delivering undergraduate teaching. During my time at Queen’s and Newcastle I had the great privilege of contributing to their MA programmes in Film and Literature, respectively. At Queen’s in 2013 I convened the ‘Film Aesthetics’ module which looked in forensic detail at the theory and formal analysis of all aspects of cinema. In 2015 at Newcastle I delivered a block on Northern Irish film and literature from a postcolonial perspective that considered space and placelessness in borderlands, interface areas and prisons.

Regarding management and administration, I exhibit high levels of competence and am quick to learn new systems and procedures. I am happy to undertake duties necessary for the smooth running of the centre and in support of students. In my previous teaching positions, and in my research and podcasting since, I have been working towards greater diversity, inclusion and equity in who is represented and how, being mindful of disabled characters and actors, gender parity, race, class and normalizing different sexualities and genders. I also map out modules to redress gaps in the study of under-represented practitioners and topics.

Finally, I left my last academic position in 2017 due to ill-health and I have worked hard under challenging circumstances throughout my recovery to get well and be able to re-enter the structured workforce. As my publication record shows, my determination and aptitude to excel in research and to contribute new knowledge to the study of cultural phenomena has never wavered. It will be my great pleasure to demonstrate my skills, knowledge and experience further at interview, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Paula Blair