David Sweeney

David Sweeney is a Lecturer in Design History & Theory at The Glasgow School of Art, UK. His academic work focuses on film studies, popular culture, and genre analysis, particularly in horror, science fiction, and superhero narratives. Sweeney has contributed extensively to critical discourse on directors like Nicolas Winding Refn and David Lynch, exploring themes of gender, narrative structure, and cultural representation.

His research spans topics such as

• folk horror in contemporary media
• gender performance in film
• transmedia storytelling in superhero franchises
• nostalgia and temporality in cinema
• augmented reality's narrative potential

. Sweeney's publications include monographs on Nicolas Winding Refn and The OA, as well as articles in journals like The Comparatist and Revenant.

Recent work examines genre hybridity in Refn's Copenhagen Cowboy (2025) and existential themes in Twin Peaks: The Return (2019). His publications frequently analyze intersections between visual culture, music, and digital media, with a focus on affective labor, urban wyrd, and tribal ontology in screen narratives.