Dr Jessica Ford

Jessica Ford is a co-founder of the Sydney Screen Studies Network and a Contributing Editor of MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture. Jessica's research explores how, when and why feminism happens on screen. “What is feminism” is constantly open to interpretation and negotiation, and television is a key site for this negotiation. In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal this is of increased interest, because many television series, like The Handmaid’s Tale, that have responded to the #MeToo movement. She has published on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Roseanne, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Girls.

Community Engagement

Jessica promotes collaboration and reaching across disciplinary boundaries. She is the co-founder of the Sydney Screen Studies Network (SSSN) – a community of film, media, and television researchers from the greater Sydney area. SSSN hosts events, including seminars, screenings, symposia, and workshops. She is a Contributing Editor (Film and Television) of peer-reviewed academic journal MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture founded by Anna Backman Rogers (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) and Anna Misiak (Falmouth University, UK). She has appeared on 2SER, ABC Radio National, ABC NewsRadio and ABC Radio Newcastle. Jessica has published articles for The Conversation and has shared her research at academic conferences and public talks, such as the Critical Animals program at the This is Not Art (TiNA) Festival. 

Teaching Philosophy

Jessica's teaching philosophy emphasises the importance of student-led learning with a concentration on the knowledges students bring to the classroom. Her teaching practice uses technologies and media in order to engage and employ students’ existing media literacies and interest in media and popular culture to explore conceptual frameworks and unpack theory. The employment teaching strategies that encourage small group work and empowers students to work through conceptual knowledge in a productive context, including class debates and group discussions, which enables deep learning through application and consolidation.

PhD Research

Jessica's PhD Thesis American Feminist Sensibility Television in the Postnetwork Era moves across disciplinary boundaries and draws on and contributes to contemporary debates in media studies, television studies, film studies, and gender studies. The PhD Thesis argued that the feminist work of many contemporary US television series has not been sufficiently recognised because many feminist-inflected series, such as Big Love (HBO 2006–2013), The Good Wife (CBS 2009–2016), Girls (HBO 2012–2017), and Orange is the New Black (Netflix 2013–present), are seemingly at odds with the form of US television currently given most cultural value—quality television. This thesis was highly commended by examiner Dr Claire Perkins (Monash University) as persuasive, timely, and eminently publishable. In her report Perkins notes, “In American Feminist Sensibility Television in the Postnetwork Era Jessica Ford has produced a highly lucid, timely and convincingly argued examination of contemporary scripted US television with a feminist orientation.”