Masculinities on stage and screen

What do the characters on our screens and stages reveal about masculinity today? How do cultural narratives shape and challenge ideas of boyhood and manhood? And what stories should be told next?

Join leading researchers and creatives for a richly illustrated discussion on the theme of masculinity in film, television and theatre.

Drawing on vivid examples and clips, film historian Professor Stella Bruzzi FBA, award-winning playwright Inua Ellams, and British Academy-funded researcher Dr Rob Lawson will examine different portrayals of masculinity, how cultural representations have evolved over time and what stories we need to tell to help boys and men flourish in a changing world.

Speakers

Professor Stella Bruzzi FBA

Stella Bruzzi has been Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and Professor of Film at University College London since 2017 where she is also Professor of Film. She previously held positions at the University of Manchester, Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Warwick. She has published widely in the areas of costume and cinema (including Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity in the Movies), documentary (including the influential New Documentary in 2006), gender and masculinity in Hollywood (including Men’s Cinema: Masculinity and Mise-en-scene in Hollywood) and representations of history. In 2013 she was elected Fellow of the British Academy.

Inua Ellams

Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is an award-winning poet, playwright and curator. Displacement & destiny are recurring themes in his work in which he mixes the old with the new, traditional with the contemporary. His books are published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches, Penned In The Margins & Bloomsbury. His plays include Barber Shop Chronicles, Three Sister and The Half-God of Rainfall. He is currently touring Search Party, An Evening With An Immigrant and working on several commissions across stage and screen.

Dr Robert Lawson

Robert Lawson is an Associate Professor of Sociolinguistics at Birmingham City University. He has published widely on language and masculinities, including his award-winning monograph Language and Mediated Masculinities. His research interests include language and masculinities in media spaces and language in the public eye. In 2024, he was awarded a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grant for the project Exploring the language of modern fatherhood.

Chair

Dr Daniel Guinness

Daniel Guinness is co-founder and managing director of Beyond Equality, a change making charity that specialises in engaging men and boys as active participants in creating more inclusive, supportive and equitable organisations. Beyond Equality has now run transformative workshops with over 100,000 people from schools to workplaces in the UK and beyond. Daniel has a PhD in cultural anthropology from Oxford University, and has been part of research teams in multiple countries. He is a former professional rugby player.

Further information

Free event, donations welcome, booking required.

Please note, this event is reserved for adults, aged 18 and over.

As tickets are free, people sometimes book and don't attend, so we have to issue more tickets than there are seats available to allow for this. Entry into this event is on a first-come, first-served basis and we recommend arriving in good time to avoid any disappointment.

Registering for a ticket does not guarantee you entrance to the SHAPE Room. If the SHAPE Room reaches capacity, you will be directed to the Wohl Gallery next door to watch a live stream of the event.

This event will also be recorded and livestreamed on YouTube.

This event has live subtitles delivered by 121 Captions.

See information about the accessibility of the venue.

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