Dan Vena

I am a queer-trans white settler of Italian descent, who identifies as disabled in relation to capitalist calls towards productivity (under Eurocentric medical models, I am diagnosed with fibromyalgia/chronic pain). I am also radically invested in spirituality and death positivity as part of my pedagogical practice and am committed to decolonial, anti-racist, queer-trans, disabled, anti-capitalist & neurodivergent collaborative world-making. 

Training:

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Carleton University

Ph.D, Queen’s University (Vanier CGS and OGS Funded)

Academic Interests and Hobbies:

Visual and popular cultures; genre cinemas; horror films & monster movies; feminist-queer-trans histories of Classical Hollywood; fan-based reading practices; superhero comic books (DC only); histories of Eugenic medicine and criminality in the West; curricular design and pedagogical strategies.

Selection of Past and Current Courses:

FILM 110: Film Media and Screen Cultures

FILM 206: Research, Writing and Presentation Methods

FILM 210: The Horror Film

FILM 218: Post-1960 Film & Media History and Theory

FILM 225: The Comedy Film

FILM 331: Women and Film

FILM 332: Queer Cinemas

FILM 435: Culture and Representation: The Figure of the Witch in Popular Culture

Current Projects:

No More Chain Saws: Feminist Criticism and the New Wave of Women’s Horror Cinema. Contracted by Rutgers University Press. Forthcoming.

The Witch Institute: A Virtual Gathering (Queen’s University). Co-organized with Emily Pelstring and Dr. Tamara de Szegheo Lang. August 16-22, 2021. www.witchinstitute.com (SSHRC - Funded)

Teaching Dossier on Trans Media Pedagogy. Journal of Cinema and Media Studies. Accepted.

Selection of Published Work:

With Islay Burgess. "The New Border War? An Intergenerational Exchange on Bad Trans Horror Objects." In-Focus Section edited by Laura Horak and Cael Keegan. Journal of Cinema and Media Studies. Forthcoming.

With Iris Robinson and Patrick Woodstock. “His Canon, Herself: Teaching Horror as Feminist Cinema.” Bloody Women! Women Horror Directors. Edited by Victoria McCollum and Aislinn Clarke. Rowman & Littlefield, Forthcoming.

With Angie Fazekas. "What were we.. idiots? Re-evaluating Female Spectatorship in Horror Cinema with Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight (2008). Final Girls, Feminism, and Popular Culture. Edited by Stacy Rusnak and Katarzyna Paskiewicz. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. 229-246.

With Robin McDonald. "You're saying that's a real person...underneath? The Horrors of the Inorganic in Jaume Collet-Serra's House of Wax (2005).” Graduate Journal for Social Studies. 14.2. 163-177. 2018.'re>

"The (Super)Man Complex: Re-Reading Superman as a Trans F/Man.” Transformative Works and Cultures. 25. 2017.

University and Community Involvement: Guest panelist for Queen’s School of Medicine on queer-trans health care practices; frequent collaborator with Dr. Caroline Pukall (Department of Psychology); invited guest speaker at St. Lawrence College by Rachel Dutcher; volunteer Film instructor at Seniors Kingston and Royale Retirement Residence; death positivity advocate and educator.