Ms Isobel Whittle

My current research interest centers on what I have termed the ‘atrocity-adjacent film’ - works that address instances of human atrocity, yet eschew traditional modes of cinematic recreation and reproduction in favour of negation and omission, thus suppressing the absolution of spectacle, and the spectatorial states of fascination and sympathy when viewing scenes of violent suffering. This research is an augmentation of my MA thesis which specifically questioned the suitability and effect of this methodology at providing a reflective, oppositional space to war and combat in an era of increasingly ubiquitous and visible real images of war-centric atrocity.

The broadened scope of my doctoral thesis contests the ethical consumption of reproductions of real-world atrocity on a global scale, encompassing works that convey themes of terrorism, mass shootings, genocide, as well as warfare and war crimes, within the framework of filmic adjacency and its interactions with the ethics of modern spectatorship.

Beyond my research project, my written work and academic interests have coalesced around the subjects of Danish and Soviet film, violence as spectacle, and the intersection of cinema and memory.