Dr Agata Frymus

Dr Agata Frymus has joined the School of Arts and Social Sciences in August 2020 as an Academic Consultant.

Before joining Monash, Frymus was a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at Ghent University, Belgium, where she was a principal investigator on Black Cinema-Going in New York during the Interwar Period (2018-2020).

She is the author of Damsels and Divas: European Stardom in Silent Hollywood (New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press, 2020). The book is based on her PhD thesis, and explores the personae of three stars of the silent era: Vilma Banky, Pola Negri and Jetta Goudal.

She also worked as a research assistant on Go West 2: Bristol Film and TV Industries (2020), led by Prof Andrew Spicer and Dr Steve Presence at the University of the West of England. In 2017, she was a visiting scholar at New York University, where she assisted Prof Anotnia Lant in her work on film and African American culture.

She serves as a submissions editor for Early Popular Visual Culture.

Qualifications

PhD (Theatre, Film and Television) University of York, 2018

Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), University of York, 2017

MA (Film and Television Studies) University of Bristol, 2014

BA (Film and Media and Cultural Studies) University of the West of England, 2012

Research Interests

Dr Frymus’ main interests lie in film history, star studies and silent cinema.

Her work focuses on the intersections between race, ethnicity, stardom, and audiences in the United States, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century. She is interested in bringing women - both as consumers of film, as well as producers and stars -  to the forefront of film history.

Research Projects 

She is currently working on a monograph stemming from her work on Black moviegoing in New York City during the silent film era.

She is also co-authoring a chapter on a similar topic with David Morton (University of Central Florida) for Comparing New Cinema Histories: Methodologies and Practices from a Global Perspective, edited by Pierluigi Ercole, Lies Van Der Vijver and Daniela Treveri Gennari.

Education  

She currently teaches an undergraduate course Television Studies: Forms and Approaches.

Previously, she was a seminar leader and a lecturer on Cinema History & Analysis at University of York (2015-2018). She has taught Race and Screen Studies, and Filmmaking through Hitchcock at Ghent University, Belgium (2019), and University of Bristol (2018), UK, respectively. Dr Frymus passion for teaching has been developed further in 2017, when she became an Associate Fellow of Higher Education Academy, UK.

One pedagogic concept that continues to have a significant impact on her teaching is student-centered learning. She believes the students need to be actively engaged in the construction and management of their own learning. According to the ethos of student-led learning, the tutor’s authority has to be deployed constructively, in using students’ responses as occasions for joint exploration, emphasizing the interdependence between the teacher and the learner.

Books

Agata Frymus, Damsels and Divas: European Stardom in Silent Hollywood (New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press, 2020)

Journal articles

Agata Frymus, ‘Pocahontas and American Imperialism in Early Film, 1907-1910,’ Cinema Journal, vol. 60, no. 2 (Winter 2021). Forthcoming

Agata Frymus, ‘Researching Black Women and Film History,’ Alphaville. Journal of Film and Screen Media, no. 20 (Winter 2020). Forthcoming

Agata Frymus, ‘Black Girls, Cinemas and Danger in Harlem, 1918-1927,’ Early Popular Visual Culture, vol. 18, no. 1, (2020: Special Issue: Minority Women and Spectatorship). Forthcoming

Agata Frymus, ‘Jetta Goudal vs. The Studio System: Star Labour and 1920s Hollywood,’ Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 39 (2018): 1-18. 10.1080/01439685.2018.1478370

Agata Frymus, ‘Imagining Chinatown: Broken Blossoms (1919) in Britain,’ Other Modernities, no. 20, vol. 11 (2018), Special Issue: London as Cosmopolitan City in Contemporary Culture: 12-37. 10.13130/2035-7680/10821

Agata Frymus, ‘The Almost Perfect Anglo-Saxon Type, More English than the English: Vilma Bánky’s Star Image in 1920s America,’ Early Popular Visual Culture, vo. 4, no. 15 (2017): 425-441. 10.1080/17460654.2017.1383928

Agata Frymus, ‘Ah, Love! It’s Not for Me! Off-Screen Romance and Pola Negri’s Star Persona,’ Celebrity Studies, vol. 8, no. 2 (2017): 294-311. 10.1080/19392397.2016.1273126

Book chapters

Agata Frymus, ‘Mapping Black Moviegoing in Harlem, 1909 – 1914,’ in New Approaches to Early Cinema, ed. Mario Slugan and Daniel Biltereyst (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2021). Forthcoming

Agata Frymus, ‘Europe Comes to America: The Silent Film Era,’ in Companion to European Cinema, ed. Gabor Gérgely (London: Routledge, 2021). Forthcoming

Agata Frymus, ‘Pola Negri’s Star Persona in America of the 1920s,’ in Re-visiting Female Evil: Power, Purity and Desire, ed. Mellissa Dearey, Susana Nicolás and Roger Davis, 21-36 (Leiden: Koniklijke Brill NV, 2017)

A comprehensive list of publications available at academia.edu.

International Grants

Agata Frymus, European Commission under Horizon 2020, Maria Skłodowska Curie Early Career Fellowship no.  792629, 2018 – 2020, RM772,146

Agata Frymus, National Endowment for Humanities, US. Understanding Digital Culture Workshop, University of Central Florida, 2020, RM5,358

Agata Frymus, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) UK, 2014 – 2017. Award ref. 1498440, RM300,929

Agata Frymus, White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities UK, Research Employability Project Fund, 2017, RM17,689

Agata Frymus, White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities UK, Student-Led Forum & Mobility Grants, 2014 – 2017, RM64,994

Agata Frymus, University of Bristol Alumni Foundation Award, 2014, RM2659

Areas of Research & Supervision

Dr Frymus is interested in supervising projects in any aspects of star studies, silent cinema, historical audiences, critical whiteness studies, Hollywood and onscreen representations of race. She is also interested in research that takes a distinctively feminist perspective on film history.

Agata Frymus, British Association for Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS). Best Doctoral Article Annual Award, 2018.