Dr Fiona Noble

I am an interdisciplinary researcher of contemporary Spanish cinema and audiovisual cultures interested in questions of identity and representation. I completed my PhD at the University of Aberdeen, where I also completed an MLitt in Visual Culture and an MA in French and Hispanic Studies.

My research focuses on contemporary Spanish cinema and audiovisual cultures. My monograph, Subversive Spanish Cinema: The Politics of Performance (Bloomsbury, 2020), unpacks the ways in which contemporary Spanish filmmakers utilise performance as a means through which to critique dominant and hegemonic political narratives. I am the co-editor, along with Dr Tara Plunkett and Dr Rebecca Ferreboeuf, of the book Preservation, Radicalism, and the Avant-Garde Canon (Palgrave MacMillan, 2016). I have additionally published on depictions of migrants, intercultural lesbian relationships, and children in Spanish cinema.

My current research encompasses two key strands: a monograph on Spanish sociorealist filmmaker Fernando León de Aranoa, under contract with Manchester University Press; and a research project on the intersections of gender and sound in contemporary Spanish audiovisual cultures. I have published an article on new feminist voices in contemporary Spanish series such as Money Heist and Locked Up.

Before joining SPLAS at Stirling, I worked at the University of Aberdeen and at the University of Durham, and as a secondary school teacher of Modern Foreign Languages.

My research is interdisciplinary and spans the fields of Hispanic Studies and Film and Audiovisual Cultures. Broadly, I am interested in questions of identity and representation, particularly in the context of marginalised subject positions. While my research to date has focused on cinema and feature-length fiction film in particular, I am expanding this to consider audiovisual cultures more broadly, through documentary and television/streaming series.

My monograph, Subversive Spanish Cinema: The Politics of Performance (Bloomsbury, 2020), considers the diverse articulations of performance in the works of some of Spain's key contemporary filmmakers. It traces the subversive use of performance in narrative, thematic, and conceptual terms in contemporary Spanish cinema and locates the origins of this approach in the oeuvres of left-wing alternative filmmaking currents under Franco. The book explores the following ideas: performing pastness; performing identities; metaperformances; and performance as catharsis and therapy.

My current research focuses on two key areas. Firstly, I am working on a monograph on the films of Spanish sociorealist filmmaker Fernando León de Aranoa, under contract with Manchester University Press to form part of their Spanish and Latin American Filmmakers series. The monograph considers each of his films in turn within the context of wider questions concerning the development of the Spanish cinematic industry during the democratic era. I am interested in questions of genre, language, and transnationalism, as well as in his emphasis on storytelling as a key facet of filmmaking.

My second ongoing project concerns intersections between gender and sound, with a particular focus on voice, in contemporary Spanish audiovisual cultures. The case studies for this project span distinct spheres: feature-length fiction film, documentary, and television/streaming series. My focus is on works in which there are prominent female creatives behind the scenes, with a view to interrogating the dynamics between a strong female presence offscreen and depictions of gender onscreen. The wider context for this project is contemporary feminist impulses, characterised by movements such as #MeToo and #MasMujeres, which impel women to use their voice and speak up/out about systemic inequalities, biases, and abuses they have experienced both within and beyond contemporary audiovisual production industries.

I teach across all levels of the undergraduate Spanish and Latin American Studies programme. I co-ordinate two Honours Option modules: one on Streaming Genders in Spanish and Latin American Film and Television and one on Spanish and Latin American Fantasy. I am also part of the teaching team for the Masters in Gender Studies.