Dr Victoria Duckett

Dr. Victoria Duckett is Senior Lecturer in Screen. She is an award winning  international scholar and teacher who advocates for female leadership in the creative industries. Joining theatre to film, she helps foster unique interdisciplinary connections in her teaching, research and public outreach.

Senses of Cinema Annual Essay Prize (“The Lecturer’s Legacy; In Memory of Peter Wollen.” 2021.

Visiting Professor, ALMED (Postgraduate School in Media, Communication and Performing Arts). Catholic University of Milan, 2019.

International Scholar in Residence, Cini Foundation, San Giorgio, Venice, 2018.

International Visiting Researcher Stipend, The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, University of Exeter, 2018.

Visiting Professor, ALMED (Postgraduate School in Media, Communication and Performing Arts) Catholic University of Milan. Topic: Film Festivals. 2018.

Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin, 2017.

Visiting Professor, Department of Musicology and Culture, University of Pavia. Workshop: Film Theory, 2017,

Choice selection of Seeing Sarah Bernhardt: Performance and Silent Film as “one of the best academic books of 2015.” 2016.

Annual Keynote Lecture, Society for Theatre Research, Swedenborg Hall, London. 2016.

Australian Academy of the Humanities Publication Subsidy. 2015.

Visiting Fellowship, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, Canberra. 2014.

Women and creative industries, film and technological change, screen performance, archives

Professional Memberships

American Society of Theatre Research

EADH (European Association for the Digital Humanities)

Society for Cinema and Media Studies 

Women and Film History International

I am a teaching leader with over thirty years of experience in curriculum design and delivery at renowned universities across the world. My excellence in the classroom has been recognized by teaching awards (2019, 2014, 1998) and consistently high student satisfaction rates. I excel at introducing inclusive pedagogy and adapting learning materials to ensure gender and cultural equity. I am a committed mentor of junior staff and HDR students, and excel in building collaborative teaching teams. 

Areas of teaching specialisation: Screen industries, transnational film, film and technological change, feminist film.

ACF104: Moving Pictures: Screening Film History (Unit Chair)

ACF206: Contemporary Topics in Screen Culture: Film Festivals today (Unit Chair; designed and introduced Unit)

ACF320: The Australian Moving Image (Unit Chair)

ACA492: Creative Arts Exegesis (Unit Chair; Honours, including Film, Perofrming Arts, Creative Arts, and Dance)

Victoria's knowledge areas include:

Screen cultures, screen performance, film history, media archives

Victoria is an award winning teacher and scholar who advocates for female leadership in the creative industries. Joining theatre to film, she celebrates the actress as a businesswoman driving creative entrepreneurship and technological change across the arts.

• Teaching

Maynooth University, Ireland, “French actresses and the formation of transnational fil.,” New Historiographies: The Role of Women panel, HoMER (History of Moviegoing, Exhibition and Reception) Conference, May 29, 2021.

Università degli Studi di Milano and Deakin University, “A Neapolitan in Melbourne: Building the Giannini Archive.” Guglielmo Giannini: Entertainment and Political Activism, November 18, 2020.

EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, “Les Deux Orphelines: the emergence and endurance of sisterhood in France.” Women and Silent Screen Conference, May 26, 2019.

Manchester University, “Theatre, early film and the birth of intervisual culture: Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” Department of Drama and Screen Studies, Keynote, January 29, 2018.

University of Warwick, “Multiple Sightings: Sarah Bernhardt in the City.” City, Space, and Spectacle in Nineteenth-Century Performance. Palazzo Pesaro-Papafava, Venice, 11 June 2018.

University of Otago, New Zealand, “Screening the stage: Actresses and acting in France from Theatre to Silent Cinema.” Keynote. Media, Film & Communication Department, October 27, 2017.

Columbia University, “Performing in pairs: Sarah Bernhardt and Gabrielle Réjane.” Columbia University Film and Media Studies Colloquium, Keynote, April 3, 2017.

Shanghai Film Museum, “The Demimondaine as Transmedia Celebrity: Remembering La Belle Otèro”. Histories, Her-stories, and Methods International Conference, June 18, 2017.

Swedenborg Hall, London, “Screening Sarah Bernhardt: Reinterpreting Acting on Silent Film." Society for Theatre Research Annual Lecture, January 19, 2016.

Referee for Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions (European Commission, 2020)

Referee for American Fulbright Award (2019, 2020)

International referee for the National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes, Italy (ANVUR, ongoing).

Women and Film History International Steering Committee (2010–2015)

Feminisms, Medias, Histories Journal, University of California Press, Founding Editorial Board member.

Journal of Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, Editorial board, SAGE. 

Global Digital Humanities Program Committee Referee, 2014-2019

External Assessor, Research Foundation–Flanders (National Fund for Scientific Research: Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek– Vlaanderen, FWO), 2016.

Article/Book referee for:
Cinegrafie, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Feminist Media Histories, French Studies, Global Digital Humanities Conference Referee, Immagine (Journal of the Italian Association for Research in Film History)
Media Industries Journal, Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, Palgrave MacMillan (Victorian Studies), Popular Entertainment Studies, Routledge, Gender Studies series, Senses of Cinema, Screening the Past

BBC World Forum: “Sarah Bernhardt on Stage and Screen.” With Bridget Kendall, October 21, 2021. 

The Conversation: “International film archives are streaming up a storm during lockdown.” 18 May, 2020. 

ABC Radio Melbourne: “Accessing Australian Film online.” Discussion with Marc Fennell. Download This Show. 21 May, 2020. (With Gillian Armstrong).

2esr 107.3: “Film Archiving in Australia.” With Mikayla Floriano. Archives. May 18, 2020.

ABC Adelaide Drive: “Film in Australia.” With Jules Schiller. May 22, 2020.

ABC Melbourne Radio interview: “Australian films are not online.” With Jacinta Parsons. Afternoons,  26 June 2020.

3RRR: “Performance and Silent Film.” With Paul Harris. Film Buff’s Hour, May 7, 2016.

Contemporary Histories Research Group

Deakin Motion Lab

Gender and Sexuality Research Network

Keylight (Gender and screen)

Senses of Cinema Annual Essay Prize (“The Lecturer’s Legacy; In Memory of Peter Wollen.”) 2021.

Faculty of Arts and Education Faculty Fellowship Grant, 2021. $6 022.

Deakin University Mid-career Research coaching, Research Coaching Australia (with Roy Jones)

Deakin University Community Bank for Geelong Arts Centre,  REFLEX: The Future of our Creative Community, 2019. $6000.

Greater Geelong City Council, Creative Communities (Arts) Grant, Geelong Arts Centre, REFLEX: The Future of our Creative Community, 2019. $6 000.

International Visiting Researcher Stipend, The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, University of Exeter, UK, 2018. $3000.

Invited international Scholar in Residence, Cini Foundation, San Giorgio, Venice 

Visiting Professor, Department of Musicology and Cultural Heritage, Univeristy of Pavia, Italy.

Seeing Sarah Bernhardt: Performance and Silent Film named a 2016 Choice Outstanding Academic Title.

 Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship in the Humanities (supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Research Fellowship Endowment), University of Texas at Austin, 2017. $5 000.

Central Research Grant Scheme Award, Deakin Research, Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, 2016. To build theatre and theatre archiving capacity in the SCCA; for Guglielmo Giannini: A Digital Archive of Film, Theatre, and Political Activity, the SCCA’s first digital archive, $10 000.

Australian Academy of the Humanities Award, 2015. $2400.

Visiting Fellowship, “History, Cinema, Digital Archives.” Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, 2014. Travel, accommodation.

Media matriarchs: the French stage celebrity and the development of transnational film (monograph, University of California Press). This project explores a generation of celebrity actresses who drove the global emergence and development of the culture industries in the early twentieth century, but who have beenoverlooked, elided and ignored in public history. 

Building a Popular Memory Bank in Australia: the People of Hong Kong at the End of the British Empire. The project is exploratory in terms of archive engagement and collections. It draws on my established expertise in building internationally significant collections with Deakin’s Digital Libraries and Repositories (Guglielmo Giannini: A Digital Archive of Theatre, Film, Entertainment and Political Activism, 2019). 

Towards a national history of stage and screen: Developing ACMI’s Screen History exhibition
This project develops the application of VR to national film history, drawing on my expertise in the related histories of theatre and film.