Originally from the States, I've been at UQ as a researcher and teacher since 2017 and I've been teaching in classrooms since 2006. I teach Multimedia in year one and Digital Project in year three, both of which centre on embedding critical perspectives on contemporary and old media into creative and collaborative design processes. My research has always focused on the relationship among gender, technological change and space. How do new technologies inform the design and representation of space? How are media portrayals of women often used as a vehicle for addressing technological change and transformations in lived space? My methodological approaches combine textual analysis (looking at media content) with more industry-facing, hands-on approaches to answering these questions. For example, I draw on industry interviews, industry conversations about designing space, and analyses of lived spaces.
My first book The Aesthetics of TV Nostalgia (Bloomsbury, 2019) is an industry ethnography of the people designing sets and costumes for nostalgic US television programmes. I address how questions around gender play out on television alongside larger concerns around historical progress and regress that are attached to technological change. You can find my other publications in the areas of television representations of gender, the female body in narratives around nationhood, online archives and how they relate to gender, fashion history, and creative work in television history in Adaptation, Television & New Media, Feminist Media Studies, Cinema Journal, Continuum, Surveillance & Society and Convergence.
The current project turns to representations of gender violence in popular media and how these screen representations and digital cultures offer repeated patterns in the ways women, technology and space are presented.
My background in architecture provides a different take on media and cultural studies. My research is methodologically untraditional by combining a screen studies approach (looking at media representations and analyising their content) with more outward-facing approaches that consider the creators, designers, planners, architects and advocats who also contribute to the discussions around gender, media and space. My current research around gender violence both within and outside the home addresses one of the most pervasive and systemic of social crises. The binary of domestic violence and stranger violence as it is constructed in media and design, hinders and derails public attention and policy. The way violence against women is represented in media tells us repeated stories around what spaces are safe, how women's movements should be trackable with technology, and whom is at fault or responsible.
Journal Article: Heard/Depp: A Movement Built on Absence & What I'm Not Saying
Bevan, Alex (2022). Heard/Depp: A Movement Built on Absence & What I'm Not Saying . MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture.
Book Chapter: The stone-cold power dame: TV women in power, state security, and national discourse
Bevan, Alex (2022). The stone-cold power dame: TV women in power, state security, and national discourse. TV Transformations and Transgressive Women: From Prisoner: Cell Block H to Wentworth. (pp. 289-309) edited by Radha O'Meara, Craig Batty, Tessa Dwyer and Stayci Taylor. London, United Kingdom: Peter Lang.
Journal Article: Women’s bodies and the evolution of anti-rape technologies: from the hoop skirt to the smart frock
Wilson-Barnao, Caroline, Bevan, Alex and Lincoln, Robyn (2021). Women’s bodies and the evolution of anti-rape technologies: from the hoop skirt to the smart frock. Body and Society, 27 (4), 30-54. doi: 10.1177/1357034x211058782
Media Infancies: Labor Cultures When New Media Technologies Disrupt
(2019–2021) UQ Early Career Researcher
In what ways has creativity, play and social exchange manifested itself in the amateur radio community in Australia
Doctor Philosophy
Reality Check: augmented reality on social media
Doctor Philosophy
Algorithmic Realities: Platform Data Processing Perceptions of Productivity Content Creators, and Their Influence
Doctor Philosophy
The aesthetics of nostalgia TV
Bevan, Alex (2019). The aesthetics of nostalgia TV. New York, NY, United States: Bloomsbury.
The stone-cold power dame: TV women in power, state security, and national discourse
Bevan, Alex (2022). The stone-cold power dame: TV women in power, state security, and national discourse. TV Transformations and Transgressive Women: From Prisoner: Cell Block H to Wentworth. (pp. 289-309) edited by Radha O'Meara, Craig Batty, Tessa Dwyer and Stayci Taylor. London, United Kingdom: Peter Lang.
Heard/Depp: A Movement Built on Absence & What I'm Not Saying
Bevan, Alex (2022). Heard/Depp: A Movement Built on Absence & What I'm Not Saying . MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture.
Women’s bodies and the evolution of anti-rape technologies: from the hoop skirt to the smart frock
Wilson-Barnao, Caroline, Bevan, Alex and Lincoln, Robyn (2021). Women’s bodies and the evolution of anti-rape technologies: from the hoop skirt to the smart frock. Body and Society, 27 (4), 30-54. doi: 10.1177/1357034x211058782
Designed for threat: Surveillance, mass shootings, and pre-emptive design in school architecture
Bevan, Alex (2019). Designed for threat: Surveillance, mass shootings, and pre-emptive design in school architecture. Surveillance and Society, 17 (3/4), 550-564. doi: 10.24908/ss.v17i3/4.7077
Transferring below-the-line skillsets across creative industries in early television
Bevan, Alex (2019). Transferring below-the-line skillsets across creative industries in early television. Continuum, 33 (4), 1-15. doi: 10.1080/10304312.2019.1621265
3-D printed sets and props : how designers integrate digital technologies
Bevan, Alexandra (2018). 3-D printed sets and props : how designers integrate digital technologies. Convergence, 24 (6), 135485651878934-567. doi: 10.1177/1354856518789345
Transmedia theory's author discourse and its limitations
O'Meara, Radha and Bevan, Alex (2018). Transmedia theory's author discourse and its limitations. M / C Journal: A Journal of Media and Culture, 12 (1).
How to make victory rolls: gender, memory and the archive in YouTube pinup girl hair tutorials
Bevan, Alex (2017). How to make victory rolls: gender, memory and the archive in YouTube pinup girl hair tutorials. Feminist Media Studies, 17 (5), 755-773. doi: 10.1080/14680777.2017.1298645
Bevan, Alex (2015). Reality TV by June Deery. Information, Communication and Society, 19 (12), 1799-1802. doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2015.1114658
The National Body, Women and Mental Health in Homeland
Bevan, Alex (2015). The National Body, Women and Mental Health in Homeland. Cinema Journal, 54 (4), 145-151. doi: 10.1353/cj.2015.0048
Archiving the Digital Transition in the Boomer TV Sitcom Remake
Bevan, Alex (2013). Archiving the Digital Transition in the Boomer TV Sitcom Remake. Adaptation, 6 (3), 305-319. doi: 10.1093/adaptation/apt007
Nostalgia for Pre-Digital Media in Mad Men
Bevan, Alex (2012). Nostalgia for Pre-Digital Media in Mad Men. Television & New Media, 14 (6), 546-559. doi: 10.1177/1527476412451499
From chastity belts to smart frocks: The promise of rape-prevention technology
Wilson-Barnao, Caroline, Bevan, Alex and Lincoln, Robyn (2019). From chastity belts to smart frocks: The promise of rape-prevention technology. Association of Internet Researchers Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 3-5 October, 2019.
Transferring Below-the-Line Skillsets Across Creative Industries in Early Television
Bevan, Alex (2019). Transferring Below-the-Line Skillsets Across Creative Industries in Early Television. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Seattle, WA, United States, March 14 2019.
Wentworth, Surveillance and Citizenship
Bevan, Alex (2018). Wentworth, Surveillance and Citizenship. Wentworth is the New Prisoner Conference, Melbourne, Australia, April 6 2018.
Designed for Threat: School Architecture, Mass Shootings and Surveillance Culture
Bevan, Alex (2017). Designed for Threat: School Architecture, Mass Shootings and Surveillance Culture. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Chicago, IL, United States, March 22-26 2017.
One Fifth the Thickness of a Human Hair: 3D Printing and New Approaches in Film and TV Art Direction
Bevan, Alex (2016). One Fifth the Thickness of a Human Hair: 3D Printing and New Approaches in Film and TV Art Direction. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Atlanta, GA, March 30-April 3 2016.
Designing for Liveness: Art Direction and “Quality” in Early Network Anthology Dramas
Bevan, Alex (2015). Designing for Liveness: Art Direction and “Quality” in Early Network Anthology Dramas. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Montreal, Canada, March 25-29 2015.
How to Make Victory Rolls: Material Memory and Feminisms in Pinup Girl YouTube Tutorials
Bevan, Alex (2013). How to Make Victory Rolls: Material Memory and Feminisms in Pinup Girl YouTube Tutorials. Console-ing Passions Conference, Leicester, United Kingdom, June 25-27 2013.
Latina Identity and the Politics of Vintage on Ugly Betty
Bevan, Alex (2012). Latina Identity and the Politics of Vintage on Ugly Betty. Console-ing Passions Conference, Boston, MA, United States, July 19-20 2012.
Remaking the Cleavers: Archiving Television in Film Adaptations of the Boomer Era Family Sitcom
Bevan, Alex (2012). Remaking the Cleavers: Archiving Television in Film Adaptations of the Boomer Era Family Sitcom. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Boston, MA, United States, March 21-25 2012.
Bevan, Alex (2010). Archiving the Future/Mobilising the Past: “Remembering Baby Boom Advertising Toward ‘Post-Feminist’ Ends?”. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Los Angeles, CA, United States, March 17-21 2010.
Masculinity, Family and Nostalgia for Postwar Imaging Technologies
Bevan, Alex (2010). Masculinity, Family and Nostalgia for Postwar Imaging Technologies. Console-ing Passions Conference, Eugene, OR, United States, April 24-26 2010.
Bevan, Alex (2008). Desperate Housewives: New Media, Historical Memory and the Constitution of Female Identity and Feminism. Console-ing Passions Conference, Santa Barbara, CA, United States, April 24-26 2008.
The Ethics of Redesign: Gender, Race and Class in Dr. 90210
Bevan, Alex (2008). The Ethics of Redesign: Gender, Race and Class in Dr. 90210. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Philadelphia, PA, United States, 8-11 March, 2008.
Bevan, Alex (2017). Never Been Cool (podcast). Itunes and YouTube: Itunes and YouTube.
The Incessant Violation in Aronosky's Mother! Makes Me Mad in a Good Way
Bevan, Alex (2017, 10 13). The Incessant Violation in Aronosky's Mother! Makes Me Mad in a Good Way PopMatters
Media Infancies: Labor Cultures When New Media Technologies Disrupt
(2019–2021) UQ Early Career Researcher
In what ways has creativity, play and social exchange manifested itself in the amateur radio community in Australia
Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor
Other advisors:
Reality Check: augmented reality on social media
Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor
Other advisors:
Algorithmic Realities: Platform Data Processing Perceptions of Productivity Content Creators, and Their Influence
Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor
Other advisors:
Diffusion of New Media and Public Service Broadcasting: Is New Media a Lifeline for Public Radio Broadcasting in Bangladesh?
Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor
Other advisors: