Daniel Skentelbery

Email: d.skentelbery@keele.ac.uk

Twitter: @dskentel

Previous Education

BA in Media, Communications and Culture, and Film Studies (Keele University, 2017)

MRes in Film Studies (Keele University, 2018)

Thesis Title

Transformations in Cosplay: Navigating the personal and social implications of how fans use costume play to traverse gendered and queer identities.

Supervisors

Dr. Eva Giraud (Media, Communication and Culture)

Dr. Neil Archer (Film Studies)

Research Summary

I began my PhD research in September 2018 at Keele University. The research looks at contemporary practises of the cosplay community, looking particularly at the ways in which cosplayers use costume to explore and negotiate ideas around gendered and queer identities.

The aims of my research are to explore how cosplayers use costume play, combining theoretical and textual analysis with auto-ethnographic study and semi-structured interviews. In producing this project, this research will ask; what discourses are created through the act of cosplay, and can these discourses be used to challenge the dominant heteronormative binary?

Research Interests

Cosplay, drag, fan studies, gender identities, queer identities, performance, role-play, parody, animation, fashion, failure, comedy, and children’s media.

Publications

[Peer-Reviewed Article] Skentelbery, D. 2017. ‘Wonder (Wo)man: Examining Gendered Identities and Gender Bending Through [the art of] Cosplay’. Under Construction. 4:1. 23-31.

[Upcoming book chapter – expected autumn 2019] Skentelbery, D. 2019. ‘Between Worlds of Success and Failure in Coraline: Learning to use failure in the family sphere’. Editor. Mihailova, M. 2019. Coraline: A Closer Look at Studio Laika’s Stop-Motion Witchcraft. USA: Bloomsbury.

[Conference Paper] ‘Wonder (Wo)man: Examining Gendered Identities and Gender Bending Through [the art of] Cosplay’. Empowered Bodies, York University, 26th June, 2018.

[Conference Paper] Skentelbery, D. ‘So Long Sunny Shopper: Depictions of failure within working class families in S2Ep.7 of CBBC Sitcom Millie Inbetween (2014- )’. Retrenching/Entrenching Youth, Liverpool University, 4th-5th June, 2018.

[Conference Paper] Skentelbery, D. ‘Meatballs: Examining Representations of Failure in CBBC Sitcom Millie Inbetween (2014- )’. Breaking Walls in the Humanities: Narratives of Critical Resistance in the Post-Brexit Research Environment, Keele University, 4th May, 2018.

[Conference Paper] Skentelbery. D. ‘Meatballs: Examining Representations of Failure in CBBC Sitcom Millie Inbetween (2014- )’. Work In Progress, Keele University, 21st March, 2018.