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Senior Lecturer in Screen Studies, University of New England

Fincina is Senior Lecturer in Screen Studies in the Media and Communications Program at the University of New England, where she teaches a range of screen media units including Australian Screens, Hollywood Cinema and Human Rights on Screen. She holds honorary positions as Fellow in the School of Psychological Sciences and Associate in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, where she completed her PhD in Cinema Studies.

Prior to joining UNE in 2016, Fincina was an Associate Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions and an Affiliate of the Human Rights and Animal Ethics (HRAE) Research Network at the University of Melbourne.

Fincina wrote her PhD thesis on the portrayal of mental illness in a selection of Australian and New Zealand films from the 1990s. She was co-convenor of the symposium Try Walking in My Shoes: Empathy and Portrayals of Mental Illness on Screen, held at The Dax Centre and the University of Melbourne in 2014. Her research expertise on portrayals of mental illness in film and television has led to invitations to speak at conferences, public events, and on radio.

Fincina was Book Reviews Editor and Australian Cinema Co-Editor of the online journal Senses of Cinema from 2005-2011. She has written many publications on Australian cinema for both academic journals and industry magazines. Fincina is currently writing a book for Palgrave Macmillan titled Moving Images of Mental Illness on Australian Screens: The Shift Towards Empathy.

Experience

  • 2016–present
    Lecturer, University of New England

Education

  • 2007 
    PhD in Cinema Studies, The University of Melbourne