Ian ConrichAssociate Professor

About me

I am a writer, theorist and historian with work in film, media, visual and popular culture. Honorary Professor in Visual Anthropology at the University of Vienna, and an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Royal Anthropological Institute, Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Historical Society, I am the author or editor of 18 books with work translated into French, Polish, Hungarian, Persian, Hebrew, Danish, Norwegian, German and Slovakian. 

Significant managerial experience in British, European and Australian universities; awarded the title of Air New Zealand New Zealander of the Year in the UK, 2008, in recognition of education leadership. Extensive experience of working with corporate sponsors, local and national governments, film commissions, schools and cultural organisations. Editor for two book series Anthem Film and Culture and Anthem Studies in Writers and Film; Principal Editor for the Scopus-Indexed Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies, an Associate Editor of Film and Philosophy and an advisory board member of Asian Cinema, Interactive Media, Notes of the Anthropological Society Vienna and Studies in Australasian Cinema. Guest editor of special issues of the Harvard Review, Asian Cinema, Post Script, Studies in Travel Writing and the Journal of British Film and Television. Production consultant for film and television including an award-winning short film. Organiser and curator of 39 film festivals, museum exhibitions and international conferences.

A guest speaker at Harvard University, University of California Berkeley and the Sorbonne Nouvelle, I was also the 2005 MacGeorge Visiting Scholar at the University of Melbourne and a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University in the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, 2005-6. Further Visiting Scholar awards were received from the University of Waikato in 2001 and from University of Ss Cyril and Methodius, Trnava, in 2019. I have been a guest speaker at 50+ universities including Auckland, Hawai'i, Tasmania, Queensland, Murdoch, Curtin, Aarhus, Konstanz, Warsaw, Trier, La Rochelle, Aix-Marseille, Avignon, La Reunion, Haifa, Trinity College, Dublin, York University, Toronto, Victoria University, Wellington, Goethe University, Frankfurt, and Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta and Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The PhDs I have examined have been in English and French and across countries that include the UK, Australia, New Zealand, France and Reunion Island.

I have been a panel member for the Kyoto Prize Selection Commitee for the Arts and Philosophy (Japan's equivalent to the Nobel Prize), jury member of the Hawai'i International Film Festival, a guest speaker at the Jogja Asian Film Festival, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and guest curator of major film festivals in Poland and Israel. I have also been a consultant for the London and Cairo Film Festivals. I have been a guest speaker at the National Film Theatre, the British Museum, Twickenham stadium, Barts Pathology Museum, the Imperial War Museum, the Old Operating Theatre, the Canadian and Australian High Commissions, an advisor to FilmFour and the BBC (in particular on film classification), a guest on radio and television in Poland, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and the UK, and an after-dinner speaker at the New Zealand High Commission, London. My work has been commissioned for publications such as Sight and Sound and covered by, amongst others, Time magazine, the Sunday Times, the Times Higher Education and Voyeur, Virgin Australia's in-flight magazine. For 2011-2014, I was the curator of a series of funded exhibitions on Easter Island and popular culture which were launched at the British Museum and travelled to the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum, Marton, the Kon-Tiki Museum, Oslo, and the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney. Whilst at the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum, the exhibition was mentioned by the Independent as "a cultural highlight" and one of the "best arts events" in the UK at the time, alongside events at the Natural History Musuem and Tate Liverpool. 

Major publications - as author and editor

1. The Cinema of Sri Lanka: South Asian Film in Texts and Contexts (2024, author)
2. John Carpenter Interviews (2024, editor)
3. Imagining Easter Island: Representing Rapa Nui in Comic Books (2024, co-author)
4. Post Script (2018; guest co-editor of a double issue on Islands and Film)
5. Gothic Dissections in Film and Literature: The Body in Parts (2017, co-author) *Short-listed for the IGA award for best monograph
6. Rapa Nui – Easter Island: Cultural and Historical Perspectives (2016, co-editor)
7. Moai Culture: Easter Island and Popular Imagination (2014, author) 
8. Small Nations, Big Neighbours: New Zealand & Canada (2011, co-editor)
9. New Zealand, France and the Pacific (2011, co-editor)
10. Easter Island, Myths, and Popular Culture (2011, author)
11. Studies in Travel Writing (2010, co-editor of a special issue on New Zealand)
12. Horror Zone: The Cultural Experience of Contemporary Horror Cinema (2009, editor)
13. The Cinema of New Zealand (2009, in Polish, editor)
14. Studies in New Zealand Cinema (2009, author)
15. Harvard Review (2008, guest editor of a special issue on New Zealand literature)
16. Asian Cinema (2008, co-editor of a special issue on Sri Lankan Cinema)
17. New Zealand Film - A Guide (2008, in Polish, author)
18. Contemporary New Zealand Cinema (2008, co-editor)
19. New Zealand Filmmakers (2007, co-editor)
20. Film's Musical Moments (2006, co-editor)
21. Journal of British Cinema and Television (2006, co-editor of a special issue on The Cinema-going Experience)
22. Post Script (2005, guest editor of a double issue on Australian and New Zealand Cinema)
23. The Cinema of John Carpenter: The Technique of Terror (2005, co-editor)
24. Journal of Popular British Cinema (2000, co-editor of a special issue on Forbidden British Cinema)
25. New Zealand - A Pastoral Paradise? (2000, co-editor)