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Professor Ruth Barton

Fellow Emeritus (Film Studies)
      
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Professor Ruth Barton

Fellow Emeritus (Film Studies)

 Ruth.Barton@tcd.ie

 


Dr Ruth Barton is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin (BA Mod) and of University College Dublin (MA, Film Studies). She holds a PhD from the NUI (Thesis title: 'From History to Heritage: Representations of History and the Past in Contemporary Irish Cinema'). She is the author of several books on Irish cinema and has co-edited a volume of essays on Irish Cinema and Television as well as being the author of many articles on Irish and British cinema. Her interests include Irish cinema, the political economy of Irish film and television, stardom and diaspora studies. She is editor of a collection of essays on Irish-American film and television and on the Irish in Britain. She has also written a critical biography of the film star, Hedy Lamarr, and of the Irish silent director, Rex Ingram. She appears regularly on radio as a film historian and film critic. She joined the staff of TCD in September 2007.
  Cinema/Video   Film Studies   Theatre/Film Criticism
Project Title
 Ecologies of cultural production
From
1/10/2018
To
31/12/2019
Summary
The Ecologies of Cultural Production Project has thrown a new light on the career paths of some of Ireland's most successful theatre, television and film actors and directors. It focused on how people entered the fields of filmmaking, television drama and theatre-making and how do they then went on to build and develop their careers, informing public policy on arts funding and how to establish a methodology that might be applied to all sectors of cultural production. Ecologies of Cultural Production was the first survey of its kind in Ireland, taking a ground-breaking approach to analysing the long-term effects of arts policy.
Funding Agency
The Creative Ireland Programme
Project Type
Research
Person Months
16
Project Title
 Screening Irish-America
From
Sept 2005
To
Summary
This is a historical and analytical study of the representation of the Irish in America on film, television the internet and other media.
Project Title
 Screening the Irish in Britian
From
2009
To
Summary
This projects complements the 'Screening Irish-America' network. Outcomes to date include an international one-day seminar entitled 'Screening the Irish in Britain' held at TCD in September 2009.
Funding Agency
TCD Long Room Hub
Project Title
 Women's Film and Television History Network - UK/Ireland
From
2009
To
2011
Summary
WFTHN focuses on British and Irish women working in the UK/Ireland or abroad and on overseas women working here. It is affiliated to Women & Film History International and encourages British and Irish contributions to international initiatives such as the Women Film Pioneers Database, the biennial international Women and Silent Screen conferences and the women's television conference, Consoling Passions.
Funding Agency
AHRC
Programme
network funding
Project Type
Women's film history

Details Date
External examiner, DKIT, 2015-2018 2015-18
Language Skill Reading Skill Writing Skill Speaking
English Fluent Fluent Fluent
French Medium Medium Medium
German Medium Medium Medium
Russian Medium Basic Basic
Spanish Basic Basic Basic
Details Date From Date To
Member of Board of Long Room Hub, Trinity's Arts and Humanities Institute 2019
Member of board of Irish Humanities Alliance 2019
Spicer, Andrew; Barton, Ruth; Genders, Amy, The Politics of Place Space and Locality in the European Screen Industries, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2026, 1 - 364pp, Book, PUBLISHED  URL
Ecologies of Cultural Production and State Supports for Irish Cultural Workers in, editor(s)Victoria Durrer; Ali Fitzgibbon; Kerry McCall Magan , Cultural Policy: Perspectives on the Island of Ireland, Abingdon and New York, Routledge, 2026, pp48 - 63, [Ruth Barton], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
TG4, Irish Language Broadcasting and the Impact of Location in, editor(s)Spicer, Andrew Barton, Ruth Genders, Amy , The Politics of Place, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2026, pp135-157 - [Ruth Barton], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
"A group of persons who regard themselves as `intellectuals" ": Cinema- Going and Film Culture in Dublin of the 1930s in, editor(s)Germán Asensio Peral, Madalina Armie, Verónica Membrive , A Nation, not A Parish, Oxford - Berlin - Bruxelles - Chennai - Lausanne - New York, Peter Lang, 2025, pp29 - 54, [Ruth Barton], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, Brian Desmond Hurst (author), Caitlin Smith and Stephen Wyatt (eds), Allan Esler Smith (Foreword), Hurst on Film 1928"1970; Lance Pettitt, The Last Bohemian: Brian Desmond Hurst, Irish Film, British Cinema, Journal of British Cinema and Television, 21, (1), 2024, p95 - 100, Notes: [doi/full/10.3366/jbctv.2024.0702], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Ruth Barton, Bad Sisters " space, class and the reimagining of Dublin, Transnational Screens, 15, (1), 2024, p31 - 44, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Ruth Barton, Denis Murphy, Steven Hadley, Covid-19, cultural policy and the Irish arts sector: continuum or conjuncture?, Irish Studies Review, Irish Studies Review, 31, (2), 2023, p193 - 210, Notes: [https://doi.org/10.1080/09670882.2023.2195534], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Ruth Barton, Memories of Home: The Belfast Films of Mark Cousins and Kenneth Branagh, Journal of British Cinema and Television, 20, (3), 2023, p329 - 344, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Ruth Barton and Denis Murphy, Prominent careers and Irish screen policy, Irish Journal of Arts Management and Cultural Policy, 9, 2022, p4 - 42, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  URL
Hedy Lamarr, Jennifer Sartori, The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women, online, Jewish Women's Archive, 2021, [Ruth Barton], Item in dictionary or encyclopaedia, etc, PUBLISHED  URL
  

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Ruth Barton, Small Things Like These: Magdalene laundries drama is a powerful rumination on compassion " and its limits, The Conversation, 2024, Review Article, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, Why are so many Irish films and filmmakers nominated for Oscars?, 2023, 461 - 469, Notes: [https://theconversation.com/why-are-so-many-irish-films-and-filmmakers-nominated-for-oscars-an-expert-in-irish-cinema-explains-199134], Miscellaneous, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, Contemporary Irish Cinema, NEI Digital Roundtable, online, 29 June 2021, edited by Beatriz Kopschitz Bastos , 2021, Notes: [Online conference organised by UFSC, Brazil], Conference Paper, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, The War on Film, Irish Times, (25 May), 2021, p12 - 13, Notes: [Article on the War of Independence on Film for Irish Times Special Supplement on 1921 (Truce and Treaty)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, Is Chariots of Fire still the best Olympics' film ever?, 2021, -, Notes: [Online article for RTE Brainstorm], Miscellaneous, PUBLISHED
Barton, Ruth; Murphy, Denis, Ecologies of Cultural Production, Dublin, February , 2020, p1 - 99, Notes: [To determine the usefulness of subsidies for arts practitioners ], Report, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, 'Come Live With Me', Hedy Lamar - Fremder Star, Berlin Zeughaus Kino, 17 August, 2019, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, Women in Irish Cinema, San Patricio 2019 | La mujer en la cultura irlandesa, Universidad de La Rioja , 13 March, 2019, Melania Terrazas Gallego, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Barton, Ruth, New Dublin on screen - a place of freedom and choice, The Conversation, 2019, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Ruth Barton, "Ireland and Irishness as a Post-Traumatic Discursive Space: the Case of Cinema", Rethinking Cultural Rethinking Cultural Trauma from Transnational Perspectives, Sao Paulo, 22-25 August , 2017, SPECTRESS, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED

  


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Award Date
Fellow of Trinity College 2018
Elected Member of Royal Irish Academy 2021
IRCHSS Postdoctoral Fellow 2000
IRCHSS Doctoral Fellow 1999
My main research area is Irish cinema, in which I am a global expert and for which I was recently elected to the Royal Irish Academy. My reputation has been achieved via the publication of several influential monographs, notably Irish National Cinema (Routledge, 2004) and Irish cinema in the twenty-first century (Manchester University Press, 2019). Other significant work focuses on diasporic filmmaking and filmmakers: Screening Irish-America (Irish Academic Press, 2009); Acting Irish in Hollywood (IAP, 2006); Rex Ingram: Visionary Director of the Silent Screen (University of Kentucky Press, 2014). My critical biography, Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in Film (UKP 2010) was a personal project and departure from my initial research area that saw me explore the life of a key female pioneer (credited with the invention of Wi-Fi) and émigré star. This book was very favourably reviewed in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the London Review of Books, convincing me that there was a space for exploring academic ideas within the wider public arena, something that remains very important to me. It also spoke to my lifelong interest in writing on gender. I have recently branched out into cultural policy. This came about as a result of being awarded funding under the Creative Ireland Programme to complete the study, Ecologies of Cultural Production (report published 2019), on career construction in Film, Television and Theatre. As well as academic publication in this field, I currently sit on the editorial board of the Irish Journal of Arts Management and Cultural Policy as well as being an invited member of the Regional Screen Production Network. I continue my public outreach through regular radio appearances and writing for mainstream publications such as The Irish Times and the Conversation.