Dr Agata Frymus

Dr Agata Frymus is a Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at Monash University Malaysia.

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, UK, 2018

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

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

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

Dr Frymus is conducting a project on the memories of cinemagoing in Kuala Lumpur during the 1970s (2020-2021).

She is also working on a series of articles stemming from her work on Black moviegoing in New York City during the silent film era, and co-authoring a chapter on a similar topic with Dr 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  

Dr Frymus teaches and convenes the following courses:

• Television Studies: Forms and Approaches (Year 1), 2020-2021
• Film Genres (Year 2), 2021
• Film and TV Studies: Approaches (Year 1), 2021
• Audience Studies: Sources and Methods (Year 3), 2022

Previously, she was a seminar leader and a lecturer on Cinema History and 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. Her passion for teaching has been developed further in 2017, when she became an Associate Fellow of Higher Education Academy, UK.

Professional memberships  

Society for Cinema and Media Studies

British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS)

Editorial board of Early Popular Visual Culture

History of Moviegoing, Exhibition and Reception (HoMER) Network

Women's Film and Television History Network

Books

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

Agata Frymus and Lies Lanckman, editors. Women and Historical Moviegoing. Under contract with Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.

Journal articles

Agata Frymus, Luca Antoniazzi and Laurence Carr, "Introductory Essay: Silent Film Historiography, Digital Technology and the Archive." Studies in European Cinema, vol. 18, no. 2 (2021).

Agata Frymus, "Pocahontas and Settler Colonialism in Early Film." Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, vol. 60, no. 3 (Spring 2021): 83-103.

Agata Frymus, "Evelyn Preer and Black Female Stardom in the Silent Film Era." Feminist Media Studies, vol. 21, no. 2 (2021): 1-17.

Agata Frymus, "Researching Black Women and Film History." Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, vol. 5, no. 20 (Winter 2020): 228–236.

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.

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.

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, vol. 4, no. 15 (2017): 425-441.

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.

Book chapters

Agata Frymus, '‘Mapping Black Moviegoing in Harlem, 1909–1914.’ In New Perspectives on Early Cinema History: Concepts, Approaches, Audiences, ed. Mario Slugan and Daniel Biltereyst, 195-214. London: Bloomsbury, 2022.

Agata Frymus, ‘Europe Comes to America: The Silent Film Era.’ In Companion to European Cinema, eds. Gabor Gérgely and Susan Hayward, 232-242. London: Routledge, 2022.

Agata Frymus, 'Nina Niovilla,' in Women Film Pioneers Project, eds. Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal and Monica Dall'Asta. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, 2020.

Agata Frymus, 'Stefania Zahorska,' in Women Film Pioneers Project, eds. Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal and Monica Dall'Asta. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, 2020.

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

A comprehensive list of publications available at researchgate.

Research Grants

National Grants

Agata Frymus, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, SEED Grant, 2021 – 2022, RM15,000

Agata Frymus (PI), Chrishandra Sebastiampillai, Shyamala Dhoraisingam, Thaatch Kananatu, Monash University Malaysia Interdisciplinary ECR Grant, 2022 – 2024, RM70,000

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.

Awards

Agata Frymus, Best ERC Monograph 2021 Award, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, 2021.

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