Dr Sabina Rahman

Sabina Rahman is a lecturer in American Studies at the United States Studies Centre, and holds a PhD in English from Macquarie University. She also holds an MPhil in English, and a BA majoring in Media and Communications, English, Film Studies from Sydney University. Her work uses the grounding theoretical constructs of medievalism to explore the intricate dynamics of racial relations and gender politics as depicted in American cinema, using historical fiction as a mode of exploring contemporary anxieties, identities, conflicts, and tensions.

Her current research project is a book looking at the intersections of spectatorial mediums such as television and cinema, and anxieties of surveillance through a survey of Robin Hood films produced between 1908 through to the latest release in 2018. The project will explore how the articulation and rearticulation of this narrative maintains the anxieties of surveillance that create an intersection between Robin Hood, medievalism, and surveillance, and identify how discourses on the intersections of Robin Hood with surveillance and society have evolved and remain relevant to contemporary anxieties, and how these films have shaped the understanding and reception of surveillance in a developing, and then mature, surveillance society.

Sabina also has a strong commitment to pedagogy and collaboration within academia, and has been on the organising committees for a number of conferences, including ANZAMEMS and Camera-Stylo, and the convenor of the Sydney Literature and Cinema Network. She has also been on the Advisory Board of the journal New Chaucer Studies: Pedagogy and Profession since its inception in 2021.