Dr Debra Ramsay

Debra Ramsay is a Lecturer in Film and Television Studies in the Department of English and Film at Exeter (Queen's Building, 251).  Her research investigates how technologies of media have shaped the history, memory and waging of war and conflict.  Her work is interdisciplinary by necessity, and draws on the fields of communications, history, memory, conflict and environmental studies. 

Her monograph American Media and the Memory of World War II (2015) tracks representations of World War II in popular American culture across three generations, with a particular focus on how the war is represented in American films, television series and digital games of the last two decades. The impact of digital media on how war is represented, remembered and understood is a consistent theme throughout her publications. Her second monograph, Archives of War I (2023),  investigates the overlooked history of record-keeping in the British Army in the two World Wars, and the role played by media technologies in shaping the history and, more importantly, the waging of warfare.  More recently, her interests have shifted to examining the intersection of climate change, media and conflict.  Her research in all these areas informs my teaching across screen studies.

Biography:

Her PhD, a fully-funded school scholarship, was awarded by the University of Nottingham in June 2012. She also hold an MA in the History of Film and Media (Birkbeck, University College London) and a BA in Dramatic Art (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa). She has taught at the Universities of Leicester and Nottingham, and held a post as Research Associate at the University of Glasgow.

Research supervision:

Debra Ramsay is open to discussing proposals related to any of the fields she work in, and would especially welcome candidates with interests in the following:

• Conflict/Climate Change/Media
• Conflict and Cinema/The War Film
• Conflict and Television
• Conflict and Digital Media, including videogames
• Media and History/Historiography

She is also open to considering potential projects in:

• Memory/Nostalgia and media
• New Media/Digital Cultures/Archives
• Paratexts/Transmedia