Laura McMahon

Dr. Laura McMahon is an Associate Professor in Film and Screen Studies at the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, University of Cambridge. She is currently on sabbatical leave and will return in Easter Term 2024. Her research explores intersections between film and philosophy, with a focus on French and Francophone cinema, decolonial approaches, feminist theory, and ecocritical perspectives.

Dr. McMahon’s work examines how contemporary feminist filmmakers like Onyeka Igwe and Khady Sylla engage with archives to reframe history through speculative reimagining. She also investigates ecological themes in Claire Denis’s films and the ethics of animality in global art cinema. Her monograph Animal Worlds: Film, Philosophy and Time (2019) and edited collections like Animal Life and the Moving Image (2015) highlight her contributions to debates on nonhuman representation and deconstructive aesthetics.

Her recent publications analyze documentary practices, postcolonial archives, and critical repurposing in moving image work. She welcomes inquiries from MPhil and PhD students working on related topics. Her teaching and research are affiliated with the Cambridge Film and Screen initiative and the Cambridge Italian Research Network (CIRN).