Alexander Fisher

Dr

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

I am particularly interested in PhD applications in the following areas:
Music in film;
African cinema;
Cinema and diaspora;
Film and migration;
Cross-cultural approaches to film;

20062025

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Research Statement

My primary research activities explore the political dimensions of sound and music in international film, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan African cinemas. I am also interested in the aesthetic, cultural and political aspects of ‘world cinema’, and I am currently researching recent transformations in international film distribution and culture. My broader interests include postcolonialism and film, Third Cinema, diasporic cinemas, the national/trans-national, and authorship. Additionally, I am always interested in projects that investigate how cross-cultural and/or cross-disciplinary readings of cinema may inform established debates in film studies.

Achievements

  • Director of Graduate Studies, School of Arts, English and Languages (2025-present)
  • External Examiner, BA Film, Trinity College Dublin (2024-present)
  • AHRC Research Network Grant - two-year project ‘World Cinema On Demand’ (2012-1014)
  • External Examiner, BA English and Media Writing, Southampton Solent University (2007-2011)
  • Formerly Subject Lead for Film (3 years, 2011-2014)

Research Interests

Sound and music in world film (esp. their political dimensions); sub-Saharan African cinema; cinema in postcolonial contexts; national cinemas (esp. outside Europe and North America); Third Cinema; online distribution of world cinemas.

Selected publications

'Streaming the transmedial and transcultural: contemporary African cinemas and the Netflix viewing environment' in Jaising, S. & Gharabaghi, H. (eds.). Streaming in the Global South, (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic), forthcoming 2025.

'Netflix and Africa: Streaming, Branding and Tastemaking in Non-domestic African Film Markets' in S. Baschiera and A. Fisher (eds), World Cinema On Demand: Global Film Cultures in the Era of Online Distribution,  (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic), 2022, pp. 187-282.

World Cinema On Demand: Global Film Cultures in the Era of Online Distribution (co-edited with Stefano Baschiera). (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic), 2022.

‘Reclaiming Josephine Baker in the Filmic Ethnomusicology of Djibril Diop Mambéty’, Music and the Moving Image, 12:2, July 2019, pp. 3-19.

‘African Cinema On Demand? The Politics of Online Distribution and the Case of the African Film Library’, The Journal of African Media Studies, 10(3), Sept. 2018, pp. 239-250.

‘Vocal Spaces and Oral Traces: Voice-Over, Orality and Ousmane Sembene’s Early Postcolonial Critique’ in Tom Whittaker and Sarah Wright (eds.), Locating the Voice in Film (London: Oxford University Press), 2016, pp. 209-225.

'Ousmane Sembene: An Aesthetic Appreciation in the Light of HD', Viewfinder 104, 2016.

‘Modes of Griot Inscription in African Cinema’, The Journal of African Media Studies, 8:1, Sept. 2016, pp. 5-16.

‘Scoring African Cinema’ in Blandine Stefanson and Sheila Petty (eds.), The Directory of World Cinema: Africa (Bristol: Intellect), 2015) pp. 41-46.

‘Aristotle’s Plot: A Refusal to “Find” African Cinema?’ in David Murphy and Lizelle Bisschoff (eds.) Africa’s Lost Classics: New Histories of African Cinema (Oxford: Legenda), 2014, pp. 139-145.

‘Between “the Housewife” and the “Philosophy Professor”: Music, Narration, and Address in Ousmane Sembene’s Xala’, Visual Anthropology, 24:4, July-Sept. 2011, pp. 306-317.

‘Funding, Ideology, and the Aesthetics of the “Development Film” in Postcolonial Zimbabwe’, The Journal of African Cinemas, 2:2, Winter 2010, pp. 111-120.

‘Med Hondo’s Sarraounia: The Musical Articulation of Cultural Transformation’, Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, 3:2, Autumn 2009, pp. 195-213.

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

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