Daniel Skentelbery

Biography

AHRC NWCDTP Funded PhD Student in Film Studies researching: Transformations in Cosplay: Navigating the personal and social implications of how fans use costume play to navigate gendered and queer identities.

I did my undergraduate in Media, Communications and Culture and Film Studies at Keele University. During my undergraduate I produced two dissertations; ‘Cosplay: Harley Quinn and the Subversion of Gender Norms’ and ‘Representations of Internationalism in the straight to DVD Films of Scooby-Doo!’ I stayed at Keele University to do my MRes where I produced the dissertation; ‘Discussing Representations of Failure in CBBC Sitcom Millie Inbetween (Sperber, Parker, Leys, and Ing, 2014-18)’.

Awards: Laura Mulvey Prize (Keele University, 2017), Award for Best Dissertation in Film Studies (Keele University, 2017), The Shane Meadows Prize (Keele University, 2017).

Research and scholarship

Research project

My AHRC NWCDTP Funded PhD research is based on examining discourses of gender and queer identities in fan community’s participation within the art of cosplay.

The aims of this research are to explore how cosplayers use costume play to explore gender and queer identities, combining theoretical and textual analysis with auto-ethnographic study and interviews. In producing this project, this research will ask; what discourses are crated in the act of cosplay and can these discourses be used to challenge the dominant heteronormative binary?

Supervisors: Dr. Eva Giraud and Dr. Neil Archer

Further information

My research interests include; gender identities, queer identities, fan studies, cosplay, drag, parody, animation, failure, comedy, and children’s media.

I am also involved in Keele’s geopoetic group The Dawdlers.