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Dr. Philippa Gates

Professor, Film Studies

Photo of Dr. Philippa Gates

Research / Areas of Expertise

  • American film history
  • Gender in film
  • Race and ethnicity in film
  • Aging in film
  • Genre film

Biography / Academic Background

  • PhD in Film and Visual Culture (U of Exeter)
  • MA in History of Cinema and Popular Culture (U of Exeter)
  • BA Hons. in Cinema Studies (U of Toronto)

Research Interests / Ongoing Projects

Research interests:

  • American film history
  • Gender, race, ethnicity, and age in film
  • Genre films

Current research project:

  • Criminalization/Assimilation: Chinese/Americans and Chinatowns in American Film, 1915-1950

Other:

  • President of the Film Studies Association of Canada (2010-12)
  • Series Editor for Wilfrid Laurier University Press’s Film and Media Studies Series (2006-present)
  • Contributor for www.crimeculture.com (2003-11)
  • Board Member of Cinematheque Waterloo (2008-11)
  • Juror for the Brantford Film Festival Competition (2010-13)
  • Juror for Grand River Film Festival’s “Short Shorts” Competition (2009-10)
  • Juror for the Multicultural Cinema Club’s Local Focus Film Festival Competition (2010-11)

Awards and Achievements

Honours:

  • Edgar Award Nomination for 'Best Critical/Biographical Book' (2012) for Detecting Women.
  • Anthony Award Nomination for 'Best Critical Nonfiction Work' (2012) for Detecting Women.

External Funding:

  • Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant (2012-18) for Criminalization/Assimilation: Chinese/Americans in Classical Hollywood Film
  • Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Standard Research Grant (2005-09) for Softboiled Men and Hardboiled Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film

Student Opportunities / Supervising

I have supervised doctoral students working on topics including transnational Chinese action heroines, women in silent war films and Hollywood auteurs and digital cinema. I welcome graduate students working in the areas of American film history, genre, and gender or race in film.

Selected Publications

Books:
  • Gates, P. and Lisa Funnell, eds. Transnational Asian Identities in Pan-Pacific Cinemas: The Reel Asian Exchange. New York: Routledge, 2011. 244 pp.
  • Gates, P. Detecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2011. 416 pp.
  • Gates, P. Detecting Men: Masculinity and the Hollywood Detective Film. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2006. 346 pp.
  • Gillis, Stacy and P. Gates, eds. The Devil Himself: Villainy in Detective Fiction and Film. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002. 217 pp.
Journal articles:
  • Gates, P. “Crossing America’s Borders: Chinese Immigrants in the Southwesterns of the 1920s and 1930s.” Journal of Film and Video (forthcoming 2018).
  • Gates, P. “Home Sweet Home Front Women: Adapting Women for Hollywood’s World War II Home-Front Films.” Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture 15.2 (Fall 2016) 
  • Gates, P. “The Assimilated Asian American as American Action Hero: Anna May Wong, Keye Luke, and James Shigeta in the Classical Hollywood Detective Film.” Canadian Journal of Film Studies 22.2 (Fall 2013): 19-40.
  • Gates, P. “The Asian Renovation of Biracial Buddy Action: Negotiating Globalization in the Millennial Hollywood Cop Action Film.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 40.2 (2012): 83-93.
  • Gates, P. “Acting His Age?: The Resurrection of the 80s Action Heroes and their Aging Stars.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 27.4 (2010): 276-89.
  • Gates, P. “The Maritorious Melodrama: Film Noir with a Female Detective.” Journal of Film and Video 61.3 (Fall 2009): 24-39.
  • Gates, P. “The Three Sam Spades: The Shifting Model of American Masculinity in the Three Films of The Maltese Falcon.” Framework 49.1 (Spring 2008): 7-26.
  • Gates, P. “‘Fighting the Good Fight’: The Real and the Moral in the Contemporary Hollywood Combat Film.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 22.4 (Oct-Dec 2005): 297-310.
  • Gates, P. “Manhunting: The Female Detective in the Contemporary Serial Killer Film.” Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities 24.1 (Fall 2004): 42-61.
  • Gates, P. “Always a Partner in Crime: Black Masculinity and the Hollywood Detective Film.” The Journal of Popular Film and Television 32.1 (Spring 2004): 20-9.
  • Gates, P. “The Man’s Film: Woo and the Pleasure of Male Melodrama.” The Journal of Popular Culture 35.1 (Summer 2001): 59-79.
Book chapters:
  • Gates. P. « Vieillir, agir: les héros d’âge mûr dans deux séries de films d’action hollywoodiens. » L’Âge des stars: des images à l’épreuve du vieillissement. Eds.  Charles-Antoine Courcoux, Gwénaëlle Le Gras, Raphaëlle Moine. Lausanne, L’Âge d’homme (forthcoming 2017).
  • Gates, P. “Independence Unpunished: The Female Detective in Classic Film Noir.” Kiss the Blood off my Hands: Re-Screening Classic Noir. Ed. Robert Miklitsch. Champaign, IL: Illinois University Press (forthcoming 2014).
  • Gates, P. “’‘Hidden in the Snow’: Female Violence against the Men Who Hate Women in the ‘Millennium’ Adaptations.” Rape in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy and Beyond: Contemporary Scandinavian and Anglophone Crime Fiction. Eds. Berit Ǻström, Katarina Gregersdotter, and Tanya Horeck. London: Palgrave Macmillan (2012). 193-214.
  • Gates, P. “A Good Vintage or Damaged Goods? Clint Eastwood and Aging in Hollywood Film.” Clint Eastwood, Actor and Director: Volume II. Ed. Leonard Engel. Salt Lake City: Utah UP (2012): 168-89.
  • Gates. P. “Hong Kong Noir: American Film Noir and Asian Innovation, 1956-66.” Transnational Asian Identities in Pan-Pacific Cinemas: The Reel Asian Exchange. Ed. P. Gates and L. Funnell. New York: Routledge (2011). 3-16.
  • Gates, P. “Criminal Investigation on Film.” Blackwell Companion to Crime Fiction. Eds. Charles J. Rzepka and Lee Horsley. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing (2010). 344-355.
  • Gates, P. “Getting Away with It: Villainy in the Contemporary Hollywood Detective Film.” The Devil Himself: Villainy in Detective Fiction and Film. Eds. S. Gillis and P. Gates. Westport: Greenwood Press (2002). 183-96.
Interview article:

Courses Taught

Graduate Seminars:

  • EN 616: Women and Crime in Fiction and Film
  • EN 650: Hardboiled Fiction and Film
  • EN 615: Film Spectatorship

Undergraduate Courses:

  • FS 101: Film and Narrative
  • FS 103: Film and Genre
  • FS 243: Hollywood Auteurs
  • FS 249: The Detective Film
  • FS 252: Film Noir
  • FS 257: The Western
  • FS 264: American Film 1929-1969
  • FS 344: American Film Since 1969
  • FS 443a: War in Literature and Film

Contact Info:

E: pgates@wlu.ca

T: 519.884.0710 x2476

Office location: DAWB 3-153

Office hours:

Fall 2018: Mondays and Wednesdays, 10 – 11 a.m.

Winter 2019: Tuesdays, 2:30 – 3:30 p.m. and Wednesdays, 1–2 p.m.

Languages spoken: English

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