Victoria Mc Collum

Victoria McCollum is from Coleraine (Northern Ireland) and holds a PhD in Film Studies and a BA (Hons) in Media Arts from Ulster University, and an MA in Film Practice from Queen’s University (Belfast). She has previously held positions at the BBC and ITV (Northern Ireland), the Irish Film Board (Ireland) and HBO (United States). She joined HBO, Time Warner Inc. at their headquarters in NYC, developing, marketing and promoting HBO's licensed products both within the U.S. and internationally. At HBO, she collaborated on projects with Apple, Cartoon Network, Cinemax, Facebook, New Line Cinema, Sesame Street, Telltale Games, Time Warner, Twitter and Universal Music Group. Victoria joined the School of Arts and Humanities at Ulster University in 2015 as a Lecturer in Cinematic Arts. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and sits on the board of the Digital, Creative and Financial Technologies Group in Derry.

In 2016, Victoria was awarded the Creativity and Culture prize by Ulster University's Department of Research and Impact for demonstrating exceptional skill in communicating the purpose, meaning and impact of her research. In 2017, she won a Civic Impact Award to curate and deliver Movies in Mind, Derry~Londonderry's 1st Mental Health Film Festival in association with Nerve Centre and Oscar-affiliated Foyle Film Festival. In 2018, Victoria was announced Faculty Winner of the Early Career Research Excellence Award at Ulster University, and in 2020, she picked up the Early Career Educator Excellence Award.

Victoria has published a number of cutting-edge books on Film, Media and TV, including her monograph Post-9/11 Heartland Horror: Rural Horror Films in an Era of Urban Terrorism (Routledge, 2016) and volumes HBO’s Original Voices: Race, Gender, Sexuality and Power (Routledge, 2018); Alternative Media in Contemporary Turkey: Sustainability, Activism and Resistance (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018); Make America Hate Again: Trump-Era Horror and the Politics of Fear (Routledge, 2019); and Resist! Protest Media and Popular Culture in the Brexit-Trump Era (2020). Victoria's upcoming books include Bloody Women! Women Directors of Horror (2021); and Blumhouse: The New House of Horror (2021). She is also working on a supernatural heritage project on The Witches of Islandmagee. 

Victoria's research interests include contemporary horror, popular television shows and the cultural history of Halloween. She is especially interested in the cultural politics of popular culture and representation of race, gender, sexuality and power on screen.

International Gothic Association / Irish Association of American Studies / Popular Culture Association of Canada / Popular Culture Association of America / Fellow of the Higher Education Academy / Media, Communication & Cultural Association / British Association of Film and Television Studies

In 2019, Victoria was a visiting lecturer at Kadir Has University (Istanbul) and College of Charleston (South Carolina). She currently supervises eight doctoral candidates within the School of Arts and Humanities

Victoria supervises the following PhD projects:

1. Tara Hegarty: Challenging Gendered Mythmaking in Representations of Female Figures in Contemporary Screen (Practice as Research)

2. Gerard Gibson: Bodies at Rest and In Motion: Space, Place and Materiality in Cinematic Horror (Practice as Research)

3. John Kavanagh: Murdering Men: Recontextualising the Slasher Subgenre’s Metanarrative, Killers, and Victims

4. Hamideh Javadi Bejandi: Diasporic Feminist Experimental Film Practice (Practice as Research)

5. Suphi Keskin: Understanding the Three Generations of Turkish Diaspora Directors in Germany

6. John Deery: Representing Suicide and Issues of Mental Health in Film (Practice as Research)

7. Kevin Gaffney: The New Homonormativity: Queer Filmmaking (Practice as Research)

8. Amanda Finch: Gender, Violence and Nationalism in Performance

Victoria currently teaches the following modules:

Advanced Editing Techniques; Art Direction & Production Design; Business of Film & Television' Cinematography; Dramatic Short Filmmaking; Final Project Theory & Practice; Horror Film: Theory & Practice.

Victoria previously taught the following modules:

Aesthetics and Politics; Film Practice Foundation; Media, Culture & Identity; Studying the Media; Psychoanalysis & Film; Media Studies & Production.

Victoria is the Study Abroad Coordinator for Cinematic Arts and an Employability & Professional Development Advisory panellist for the Faculty of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences.