Dr. Aaron Taylor

Dr. Aaron Taylor is a Professor of Cinema Studies.

His work centers on screen acting, cognitive film theory, and the transmedia relations between film and comics. He is the editor of two anthologies on performance and characterization, and the author of over two dozen articles and book chapters. His ongoing research on acting and embodied cognition is enabled by interdisciplinary collaboration with colleagues in the Psychology and Drama Departments, as well as substantial internal and SSHRC funding.

Presently, he is a Fellow of the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image and held an Associate Editor at Projections: The Journal of Movies and Mind from 2017-24. He served in various capacities on the Film Studies Association of Canada’s Executive Committee from 2008-2014, held a Teaching Fellowship at the University of Lethbridge from 2017-19, and was a Tier II Board of Governors Research Chair from 2019-23.

Recent Research & Publications

Edited Anthologies

Screening Characters. Co-edited with Johannes Riis. New York: Routledge, 2019.

Theorizing Film Acting. New York: Routledge, 2012.

Select Journal Articles

“Screen Acting and Moral Understanding.” Journal of Media Psychology 36.4 (2024): 244-55.

“James Stewart is Believable.” Tecmerin. Screen Stars Dictionary. 7 August, 2023.

“Why So Serious? Clowning, the Method, and Performative Adaptations of the Joker.” [in]Transition 9.2, 2022. Co-authored with C. Blake Evernden, Ryan Harper-Brown, and Bryn Hewko.

“Watchmen Remembered and Remixed: Memory and Performance in Complex Transmedia Television.” Literature/Film Quarterly 49.4 (2021).

“The Continuing Adventures of the ‘Inherently Unfilmable’ Book: Zack Snyder’s Watchmen.” Cinema Journal 56.2 (2017): 125-31.

“Blind Spots and Mind Games: Performance, Motivation and Emotion in the Films of Stanley Kubrick.” Velvet Light Trap 77 (2016): 5-27.

“Thinking Through Acting.” [in]Transition 3.4. 22 November, 2016. Co-authored with Bryn Hewko.

“Avengers Dissemble! Transmedia Superhero Franchises & Cultic Management.” Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance 7.2 (2014): 181-94.

“A Cannibal’s Sermon: Hannibal Lecter, Sympathetic Villainy and Moral Revaluation.” Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image 4 (2014).

“Uncelebrated Lives: Reflections on the Supporting Player.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 29.2 (2012): 114-28.

“Angels, Stones, Hunters: Murder, Celebrity and Direct Cinema.” Studies in Documentary Film 5.1 (2011): 45-60.

Select Book Chapters

"Twin Peaks and the Performative Poetics of Complex Television.” Cognition, Emotion, and Aesthetics in Contemporary Serial Television. Ed. Héctor J. Perez & Ted Nannicelli. Routledge, 2022. 193-213.

“Genre and Superhero Cinema.” Comics and Pop Culture. Ed. Barry Keith Grant and Scott Henderson. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019.

“Fool for Love: Jean-Pierre Léaud in Stolen Kisses.” Close-Up: Great Cinematic Performances. Vol. 2. Ed. Murray Pomerance and Kyle Stevens. Edinburgh University Press, 2018. 205-16.

“Playing Peter Parker: Spider-Man and Superhero Film Performance.” Make Ours Marvel: Media Convergence and a Comics Universe. Ed. Matt Yockey. University of Texas Press, 2017. 268-96.

“How to See Things Differently: Tim Burton’s Reimaginings.” The Works of Tim Burton: From Margins to Mainstream. Ed. Jeffrey Weinstock. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 99-116.

“Adam Sandler, An Apologia: Anger, Arrested Adolescence, Amour Fou.” Millennial Masculinity: Men in Contemporary American Cinema. Ed. Timothy Shary. Wayne State UP, 2013. 19-51.

“Playing to the Balcony: Screen Acting, Distance and Cavellian Theatricality.” Stages of Reality: Theatricality in Cinema. Ed. André Loiselle & Jeremy Maron. University of Toronto Press, 2012. 185-203.

Awards

2019 – 2023 University of Lethbridge Board of Governors Research Chair, Tier 2

2018 – 2023 SSHRC Insight Grant

2017 – 2019 University of Lethbridge Teaching Fellow

2015 – 2017 Community of Research Excellence Development Opportunities award

2014 Hokkai Gakuen Faculty Exchange Program, Sapporo, Japan

2010 – 2011 University of Lethbridge Research Grant