Dr Mikel Koven

Senior Lecturer in Media & Film Studies

Institute of Arts and Humanities

English Media and Culture

Contact Details

email: m.koven@worc.ac.uk
tel: 01905 85 5297

Dr Mikel J Koven is a senior lecturer in Media & Film Studies. His teaching areas include World cinema; genre; Hollywood cinema; horror cinema; film & folklore; and cult & exploitation cinema. His research areas include Film & Folklore (fairy tales, myths, and legends); Exploitation cinema (with a focus on Italian horror film); Jewish cinema (representations, stereotypes, and the Holocaust); and “Cult” TV.

Academic qualifications

  • PhD, Folklore Studies, Memorial University of Newfoundland (1999)
  • MA in Film & Television Studies, University of Warwick (1994)
  • BA (Hon) in Humanities, York University [Toronto] (1992)

Books authored & edited

  • Blaxploitation Films. Harpenden: Kamera Books, 2010.
  • Film, Folklore, & Urban Legends. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008.
  • La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian GialloFilm. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2006. 
  • Folklore/Cinema: Popular Film and Vernacular Culture. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2007.  Co-edited with Prof. Sharon Sherman (U of Oregon)
  • Special issue, Shofar4 (2007), on “Cool Jewz: Contemporary Jewish Identity in Popular Culture”. 
  • Contemporary Legend(journal editor, 2006-2012) 
  • Special issue, Western Folklore3-4 (2005), on “Film & Folklore”, co-edited with Prof. Sharon Sherman (U of Oregon)

Recent publications

  • “Las variaciones Gastaldi: el juego del productor y el giallo isterico” in Natalio Pagés, Álvaro Bretal, and Carlos Pagés (eds). Giallo: crimen, sexualidad y estilo en el cine de género italiano, pp. 75-88. Buenos Aires: Editorial Rutemberg, 2019.   
  • “Television Drama (Fairy Tales and American TV Drama)” in P. Greenhill, N. Hamer, J. Rudy & L. Bosc eds. The Routledge Companion to Fairy-Tale Cultures and Media, pp. 625-633. London: Routledge, 2018. 
  • “The Emperor’s New Lore, or Who Believes in the Big Bad Slender Man?” In T. J. Blank & L. S. McNeill (eds.). Slender Man is Coming: Creepypastaand Contemporary Legends on the Internet, pp. 113-127. Boulder, CO: University of Colorado Press, 2018.  
  • “Sergio Martino, Master of the Filone” in D. Shipka& R. Beliveau eds. International Horror Film Directors: Global Fear. Bristol: Intellect Press, 2017; pp. 131-147. 
  • “Corbucci Unchained: Miike, Tarantino and the Postmodern Discursivity of Exploitation Cinema”, in Austin Fisher (ed), Spaghetti Westerns at the Crossroads: Studies in Relocation, Transition, and Appropriation. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016, pp. 125-144.
  • “Tradition and the International Zombie Film: The Movies” in J. Thomas ed. Putting the Supernatural in its Place: Folklore, the Hypermodern and the Ethereal. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2015; 90-125.
  • “The Giallo, and the Spaghetti Nightmare Film” in P. BondanellaThe Italian Cinema Book. London: BFI, 2014: 203-210. 
  • “Cinema e identitàculturale” [trans. Donatella Selva] in E. De Blasio & D. E. Viganò (eds) I film studies. Roma: Carocci editore, 2013: 199 – 206. 
  • “’I’m a Fairy? How Fucking Lame!”: True Bloodas Fairytale” in B. Cherry ed. True Blood: Investigating Vampires and Southern Gothic. London: I. B. Tauris, 2012: 59-73.