I’ve been working on my next book, “Man-Eater: Hunger, Power and Cannibal Women in Film” (forthcoming) for over a decade. A salacious topic? For sure. However, it’s about so much more than gratuitous shock and gore. What I’m really interested in what the act of eating means, what it says about desire, appetite, social expectations and stereotypes. Cannibalism directs us to the question: what is hunger? And, what does it mean to be human? This is considered through characters in films from the past fifty years who sexually, metaphorically, and – most importantly – literally devour.

The study brings together films that are critically acclaimed and panned, studio-made and independent, from a range of genres – including horror, drama, art-house, comedy and sci-fi – and also countries, including Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Poland, South Korea, the UK and the USA.

I’ve discussed my initial research at the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand (2013), which I adapted into a journal article for The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture (2015). I introduced but to a much larger audience through ‘Why Female Cannibals Frighten and Fascinate’ in The Atlantic (2017), where I focused on Raw (2016, Dir. Julia Ducournau), The Lure (2015, Dir. Agnieszka Smoczynska), and Santa Clarita Diet (2017–2019, TV Series Created by Victor Fresco), released closed together early that year. I presented an overview of the book at The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies (2020), and have also spoken about my research at events such as Final Girls Berlin Film Festival, Ax Wound Film Festival, (2021), Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.