Glen Donnar

Dr Glen Donnar

Senior Lecturer

industrial-design-b45-showcase-cogs-wood.jpg

Dr Glen Donnar is a researcher on screen representations of men and masculinities, stardom and celebrity, and lectures in Popular Culture and Asian Media & Culture.

Overview

Dr Donnar is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Media and Communication. His research on popular cultural and screen representations of men and masculinities, stardom and celebrity sits at the intersection of cultural and cinema studies.

Dr Donnar’s first book, Troubling Masculinities: Terror, Gender, and Monstrous Others in American Film Post-9/11 (UP Mississippi 2020) is the first multi-genre study of representations of masculinity following the emergence of violent terror in post-9/11 American cinema. The book demonstrates that the reassertion of masculinity and American national identity in post-9/11 cinema repeatedly unravels across subgenres including disaster melodrama, monster movies, postapocalyptic science fiction, discovered footage and home invasion horror, action-thrillers, and frontier westerns. The book is endorsed by Professor Sean Redmond as “a must-have addition to the literature on 9/11 cinema”. The book has been widely recognised as a theoretically “innovative” (Men & Masculinities) and “meticulous examination” (New Review of Film and Television Studies) that“challeng[es] the reader to hereafter interpret this often-encountered cinematic genre in an entirely new light” (CHOICE).

Dr Donnar is completing a book on Ageing Masculinity in Hollywood Action Film (BFI) and a co-edited volume on Asian Celebrity and Digital Media (Hong Kong UP). He is a member of the editorial board for the Asian Celebrity and Fandom Studies series for Bloomsbury (Asian Studies) and an inaugural member of the Performance and Stardom Scholarly Interest Group in the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS). Dr Donnar also routinely comments on gender, celebrity and popular culture in the media, including for ABC online, Radio National, New Scientist, Cosmopolitan and The Conversation.

Dr Donnar’s applied research on men and masculinities for the interdisciplinary Healthier Masculinities project is informing government, university and industry initiatives to define and promote healthy masculinities. The project includes numerous student-led co-designed proposals for partners such as The Man Cave, Respect RMIT and Safer Community (RMIT). The project team’s multidisciplinary research (Routledge, 2018) also informed the Victorian Government’s 2016-17 water safety campaign targeting older males (with the Royal Life Saving Society).

Dr Donnar is a highly accomplished educator with extensive international experience developed over two decades. He has extensive teaching experience and a demonstrated commitment to enhancing the student experience at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Dr Donnar’s innovations in assessment design that incorporate student-centred and team-based learning are highly valued by students. He was a featured subject in the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) funded project, Finding common ground: Enhancing interaction between domestic & international students (2008-2010). He currently teaches into the Contextual Studies minors in Approaches to Popular Culture and Asian Media & Culture. He has also taught into Cinema Studies and Literary Studies. Glen is a registered research supervisor who is able to supervise students at MA and PhD levels.

Web

Industry experience

Dr Donnar is a member of the Australian Film Critics Association (affiliated member of FIPRESCI), the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the Australia and New Zealand American Studies Association, and the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association.

Web

Research

Dr Donnar has published diversely on stardom and celebrity, and popular cultural and screen representations of men and masculinity in film and television. He has also published on the mediation of terror in news media, and the ethics of news viewership. He is the author of Troubling Masculinities: Terror, Gender, and Monstrous Others in American Film Post-9/11 (2020) and the co-editor of the Celebrity Studies special issue ‘Starring Asia: Asian Stardom and Celebrity’(2021). Dr Donnar’s research has also featured in Media International Australia, Celebrity Studies, Journal of Popular Culture, Communication, Politics and Culture, and Senses of Cinema.

Research keywords

Culture, Gender and Sexuality, Men and Masculinity, Film & Television, Celebrity and Stardom, Asian digital media, Genre, Hollywood, Terrorism and 9/11

Research output summary

29

Publications

4

Projects

5

Awards

Web

Supervisor interest areas

  • Men and Masculinity
  • Film & Television
  • Celebrity and Stardom
  • Genre studies (including Action, Disaster, Horror, Science Fiction, Westerns and Post-Apocalypse)
  • Popular culture, Gender and Society (including in Asia)
  • Hollywood
  • Terrorism in popular culture (especially cultural responses to 9/11)

Supervisor projects

  • Clem Bastow, PhD, 2019-23, “I can’t describe what I’m feeling”: articulating an Autistic screenwriting practice through the Hollywood action genre
  • Divya Garg, PhD, 2018-22, Fandom and Disability: Imagining a Politics of Inclusivity through Marvel Global Media Fandom
  • Merinda Staubli, PhD, 2018-22, Spectral Thresholds and Monstrous Pedagogies:Characterising and Remembering Millennial Children’s Horror Television in Australia
  • Russell Edwards, PhD, 2017-22, Looking into the Rising Sun: Representations of Japan and the Japanese in South Korean cinema during the Park Geun-hye era
  • Hsham Aburghif, PhD, 2018-23, “Iraqi Street Life”: Using i-doc practice to challenge stereotypes of Iraq and Iraqis in Hollywood cinema
  • Eloise Florence, PhD, 2016-20, Entangling pasts: remembering Allied attacks on Berlin from the air through sites on the ground

Feature publications

Troubling Masculinities: Terror, Gender, and Monstrous Others in American Film Post-9/11

University Press of Mississippi, Jackson

Donnar G (2020)

 

Internationalising Celebrity Studies: Turning towards Asia

Celebrity Studies, 12(2), pp.175-185

Xu, J, Donnar G & Kishore, V. (eds.) (2021)

Food porn’ goes large: Committed celebrity and cultural performances of overeating in meokbang

Celebrity Studies Journal, 7(4), pp.122-127

Donnar, G 2017

Key publications by year

  • Xu, J, Donnar G & Garg, D. (eds.) 2023, Asian Celebrity and Digital Media: The Transformation of Asian Celebrity Culture in the Digital Age, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong

  • Donnar, G 2022, “‘Samuel L Jackson in Geri-Action: Bad Ass’ Black Screen Masculinity, Aging, and Redundancy”, in L Purse, Y Tasker & C Holmlund (eds), Action Since 2000, BFI, London

  • Xu, J, Donnar G & Kishore, V. (eds.) 2021, “Starring Asia – Asian Stardom and Celebrity in Asia”, Celebrity Studies, 12(2), https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcel20/12/2?nav=tocList
  • Xu, J, Donnar G & Kishore, V. 2021, ‘Internationalising Celebrity Studies: Turning towards Asia’, Celebrity Studies, 12(2), pp.175-185, DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2021.1912069
  • Donnar, G 2021, “Starring Tom Cruise as (Desperately Defying) Aging Action Star”, in S Redmond (ed.), Starring Tom Cruise, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, pp.243-261

  • Parker, L, Donnar, G, Garg, D & Brennan L 2019, “Male behaviour change Masculinities, participation and social systems”, Australia & New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) conference proceedings: “Winds of Change”, pp.1182-85

  • Donnar, G 2012, “Masculinity Unredeemed: Masochism, Masquerade & the Absent Other of World Trade Center”, in M Kefalaki and Y Pasadeos (eds.), Challenges in International Communication, ATINER, Athens, pp.227-238
  • Donnar, G 2012, "Rethinking Participation in the Post Industrial Classroom, or Teething Problems 2.0.", Post Industrial Media: Education?, Post Industrial Media Pamphlets, Melbourne, pp.17-21

  • Donnar, G 2010. “Levinas & the Face: Helping Media Users Witness, Recognise& Recover Trauma Victims” in M Broderick and A Traverso (eds.), Trauma, Media, Art: New Perspectives, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, UK, pp.237-245
  • Donnar, G and Pretto, G 2010, “Changing practice, changing attitudes: Using an integrated assessment approach to make intercultural teams work”, ATN Assessment Conference on Sustainability, Diversity & Innovation, University of Technology, Sydney

  • Donnar, G 2009, “Passive engagement and 'the face': the possibility of witnessing, recognising & re-covering mediated bodies in suffering”, ACCESS: Critical Perspectives on Communication, Cultural & Policy Studies, vol. 28(2), pp.43-50
  • Donnar, G 2009, “A Support Withdrawn: ‘Spain’s 9/11’ and Australian Newspaper Framing”, Media International Australia, vol.130, February 2009, pp.39-49
Web

Feature projects

Healthier Masculinities

Lukas Parker, Linda Brennan, Glen Donnar and Fiona Finn, Respect RMIT,

2021

Web

Awards

European Commission Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship Seal of Excellence

Award date: 2019

Recipients: Glen Donnar

Early Career Development Fellowship, RMIT University

Award date: 2013-15

Recipients: Glen Donnar

RMIT Teaching Award (Outstanding Sessional Teacher), RMIT University

Award date: 2008

Recipients: Glen Donnar

Key awards by year

  • Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship Seal of Excellence, European Commission, 2019

  • Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship Seal of Excellence, European Commission, 2018

  • Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship Seal of Excellence, European Commission, 2017

  • Nominee for Australian Learning & Teaching Council (ALTC) Award for Teaching Excellence, Early Career Academic, 2009

  • RMIT Teaching Award (Outstanding Sessional Teacher), RMIT University, 2008

  • Early Career Development Fellowship, RMIT University, Glen Donnar, 2013-15
  • RMIT PhD Scholarship, RMIT University, 2009-2012
Web

Grants

  • Healthier Masculinities, Respect RMIT and Safer Community, RMIT University, Lukas Parker, Linda Brennan, Glen Donnar and Fiona Finn, 2021-
  • Ian Potter Foundation Conference Grant, Ian Potter Foundation, Glen Donnar, 2017
  • Ian Potter Foundation Travel Grant, Ian Potter Foundation, Glen Donnar, 2016
  • Deputy Vice-Chancellor’s (Research & Innovation) Higher Degree by Research Travel Grant, RMIT University, Glen Donnar, 2012
  • Michael Schoenecke Travel Grant, Popular Culture/American Culture Association, Glen Donnar, 2011
  • Deputy Vice-Chancellor’s (Research & Innovation) Higher Degree by Research Travel Grant, RMIT University, Glen Donnar, 2011
  • Interrogating Trauma International Conference Travel Bursary, Curtin University and Murdoch University, Glen Donnar, 2008
Web

Public and media engagements

2021

  • Wayne State University Press, Starring Tom Cruise roundtable, with Sean Redmond, Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, Justin Rawlins, Alex Wade, and Brenda R. Weber, 15 April 2021

2020

  • ABC Radio Darwin, “The pop culture influence of Keeping Up With The Kardashians” interviewed by Mikaela Simpson on Afternoons, 11 September 2020
  • The Sydney Morning Herald, “HBO's Lovecraft Country part of a golden age of horror”, Karl Quinn, 14 August 2020

2019

  • The Daily Telegraph, “Celebrities stepping away from spotlight to improve mental health”, Angira Bharadwaj, 1 June 2019
  • 2SER FM, “Why do we love Prequels so much?”, interviewed by Sean Britten on The Daily, 28 May 2019
  • New Scientist, “Super-sized income”, Amelia Tait, vol. 241(3222), 23 March 2019, pp.38-40
  • The New Daily, “’Jesus Strikes Back': video game promoting violence slammed”, Samantha Dick, 22 March 2019
  • 2SER FM, “Tropes & Trends: Docu-Series & Reality TV”, interviewed by Ruby Innes on Drive, 19 March 2019

2018

  • ABC Radio Melbourne, “Mukbang”, interviewed by Richelle Hunt on Afternoons, 8 November 2018
  • 2SER FM, “Nostalgia and Film”, interviewed by Tess Connery on The Daily, 3 April 2018

2017

  • Cosmopolitan, “Is Wonder Woman the hero we didn’t know we needed in 2017?”, Mel Evans, 1 September 2017, pp.96-97
  • Cosmopolitan, “Why are we so obsessed with nostalgia?”, Mel Evans, 1 May 2017, pp.96-99
  • 2SER FM, “Meme Campaign Backlash Over Ghost in the Shell”, interviewed by Phil Leason on The Daily, 15 March 2017

2016

2015

2014

  • Sogang University, “Narratives of Cultural and Professional Redundancy: Ageing Action Stardom and the ‘Geri-Action’ Film”, G Donnar, American Culture Series, Seoul, South Korea, 13 November 2014
  • Sogang University, “The World, The Flesh & The Devil: Masculinity, Race and the End of the World?”, G Donnar, Seoul, South Korea, 14 November 2014
Web
aboriginal flag
torres strait flag

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Luwaytini' by Mark Cleaver, Palawa.

aboriginal flag
torres strait flag

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.