Christa van Raalte is Associate Professor of Film and Television, and Head of the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) in the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University. She joined Bournemouth from Teesside University in 2013, as Head of Department for Media Production. She was Deputy Dean of Faculty from 2018-2023.

Before taking up full time employment in Higher Education, Christa worked in a variety of roles within theatre, community arts and education. She gained her BA in English Language and Literature from Oxford, her MA in Cultural and Textual Studies from Sunderland, where she also completed her PHD: Women and Guns in the Post-War Hollywood Western.

Dr van Raalte is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College.

Research

My principal research interests are narrative and representation in film and television with an emphasis on gender, media education, and working conditions in the film and television industries.

I am currently co-editing an anthology on twenty-first century action heroines, and am working on an article about the role of the mentor in recent female-led action narratives.

Meanwhile, arising out of our work on State of Play 2021 I have recently completed an article with Dr Richard Wallis addressing the issue of bullying in UK unscripted television, and have been undertaking a programme of public engagement work within the industry in relation to this theme.

I welcome proposals for collaborative projects or PhDs in any of these areas of interest.

Publications

Grants

Outreach & engagement

This page is a shortened version of a BU academic profile. To view the complete profile, visit our Staff Profiles site.