Clementine Vann-Alexander

Clementine Vann-Alexander is an early-career researcher and teaching assistant at The University of Leeds, where she completed her PhD in Film Studies, Before/After/Between: Uncovering the abject in the Hollywood makeover film. In her thesis, she examines The Princess Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada, Miss Congeniality, Jawbreaker, and Mean Girls using textual analysis and a variety of theoretical frameworks to consider the flows between the mind and the body, as well as the before and after. Her original research reveals the many ways in which abjection shapes identity in film, the makeover’s (post)feminist politics, and how the makeover both affirms and disturbs the characters’ desires to have control over themselves and others. Her work has been published in Frames Cinematic Journal and she has presented research papers at national and international conferences. She is particularly interested in screen representations of beauty, cultures of social and aesthetic surveillance, feminism and its incarnations and contortions, horror, and the representations of women on screen.

As a LAHRI Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow, Clementine is pursing multiple projects. Primarily, she is preparing a book proposal based on her thesis and having positive conversations with publishers on the potential for a second future book that expands upon her work on beauty and horror. Also, she is beginning new work on the recent influx horror films that centre on bodies, self-control, and femininity. She is eager to make her work bridge the gap between academics and the public, through things such as collaborating with podcasters and writing about popular culture from a critical perspective.

In addition, Clementine will continue to use textual analysis as her principal research method, in tandem with her professional experience of working in the beauty industry. Her approach emphasises the importance of the researcher involving themselves in their writing, and acknowledges how interpretation is formed by subjectivity as a positive quality.

Publications

Journal article

Vann-Alexander, C. 2023. Abjection, postfeminism and the makeover in Miss Congeniality (2000). [Online]. (22), pp.294-312.

Podcast

McIntosh, I. and Vann-Alexander, C. 2026. A Feminist Makeover with Clementine Vann-Alexander. Hypothesis. [Podcast]

Conferences and Presentations

Popular Culture Association National Conference, New Orleans Marriott, April 2025
Presentation: Straightening, slimming, screaming: uncovering horror in the Hollywood makeover narrative

Global Aesthetics, BAFTSS, The University of Warwick, March 2025
Presentation: “We’re going to make you one of us”: identity, horror, and hybridity in the makeover movie

Transcending the Permacrisis, MeCCSA, Manchester Metropolitan University, September 2024:

Presentation: “Everybody Wants to be Us”: embodied and bodily identity crises in The Devil Wears Prada

Disney in a Time of Global Transformation, DisNet, online, June 2024:

Presentation: “… And give you a princess”: makeovers, transformation, and the fairytale in The Princess Diaries

Inter(connections), PGR Symposium, School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds, May 2024:
Presentation: Straightening curls, breaking glasses, wearing tiaras: the fairytale makeover in The Princess Diaries

Inter(connections), PGR Symposium, School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds, May 2024:
Contemporary Debates, Social Justice and the Media: Keynote Roundtable Chair (speakers: Yvonne Tasker, Maitrayee Basu, And Briony Hannell)

Postgraduate Researcher Symposium, School of Media and Communication, June 2023:
Transfer and the Viva Process: Panel Chair

Postgraduate Researcher Symposium, School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds, June 2023:
Presentation: Survival of the Fittest

Independent Project Mini-Conference, School of Languages and Cultures, University of Leeds, June 2021:
Presentation: Our Monsters, Ourselves: how do female filmmakers use the figure of the female monster in post-2000 horror cinema?

Teaching

Clementine has a breadth of teaching experience, having led seminars and given lectures at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her teaching has covered subject areas including Film Studies, Meida Studies, Journalism, Visual Communication, and Social Justice. All these modules have encompassed a range critical perspectives, and methods within the broader field of media and communication studies. This includes introductory research modules, critical analysis of media and communications about politics and climate change and feminist approaches to media texts.

Qualifications

PhD (Media and Communications) – University of Leeds

MA (Film Studies) – University of Leeds

BA (Hons.) (Spanish) – University of Bristol

Professional Memberships

MeCCSA

British Academy Early Career Researcher Network