Associate Professor Julia Erhart

A/Prof. Julia Erhart is an internationally recognised feminist film scholar and expert in the fields of feminist, LGBTQ, and documentary media. Articles by her on these subjects have appeared in top-ranked journals that include Screen, Camera Obscura, Screening the Past, and Studies in Australasian Cinema. She is author of three books, Gendering History on Screen: Women Filmmakers and Historical Films (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, 2018), Gillian Armstrong: Popular, Sensual & Ethical Cinema (Visionaries, Edinburgh, 2020), and The Children’s Hour (Queer Film Classics, McGill-Queens UP, 2023).

A/Prof. Erhart has a track record of data-driven research examining gender equity and the Australian screen industry. Her research has appeared in Studies in Australasian Cinema, Feminist Media Studies, and in edited collections such as Women, Ageing and the Screen Industries (Palgrave, 2023).

A/Prof. Erhart has an established reputation for research on women’s media authorship and output. Her sole-authored book, Gendering History on Screen: Women Filmmakers and Historical Films (2018) examines innovations by women filmmakers in contemporary biopics, war films, documentaries, and movies about the “war on terror”. Her monograph Gillian Armstrong: popular, sensual & ethical cinema (2020) combines analyses of prominent themes in Armstrong’s work, such as her reworking of popular Australian genres, with an analysis of her practical filmmaking approach. Further filmmakers Julia has produced research about include Australian director Jane Campion and French director Agnes Varda.

A/Prof. Erhart has produced substantial research on LGBTQ audiences and commercial media. Articles by her on these subjects have appeared in numerous anthologies including Queer TV in the Twenty-First Century (McFarland, 2016), Invented Lives, Imagined Communities: Biopics and American National Identity (SUNY, 2016), Queer Love in Film and Television (Palgrave, 2013), and in journals which include Continuum, Continuum, a/b: Auto/Biography, Screening the Past, Screen, and Camera Obscura. Her newest book on The Children’s Hour, the first commercial American film to feature a lesbian character in a mainstream role, is forthcoming in 2023.

A/Prof. Erhart is the recipient of a grant from the Australian Academy of the Humanities (2016), a Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning from the Australian Office for Learning and Teaching (2014), and a fellowship from Fulbright (2000).

Julia is a committed, passionate, and nationally recognised teacher. In addition the OLT Citation, she has received both the Vice-Chancellor's award and the Faculty award for Excellence in Teaching (both in 2012) and has been the recipient of two competitive teaching grants, 'Embedding Transition Pedagogy Principles in First Year' and, with a colleague, a 'Teaching and Learning Innovation' grant.

Institutions Julia has taught at include the University of California (Santa Cruz), San Francisco State University, New York University, Brown University, and Technische Universität Chemnitz. Born and raised in New York City, Julia worked for New Line Cinema, Paperjacks (a division of Pocket Books), and as a freelance film editor before becoming an academic. She currently lives in the Adelaide Hills.