DoctorErin Harrington

My research looks at horror media and storytelling. I ask questions about how horror, across a wide range of media, can explore the relationships between bodies, materiality, space, subjectivity, monstrosity and affect in new and curious ways. I am very interested in new approaches to form and medium, and how new media forms open up new ways of telling and experiencing stories. I employ philosophical, aesthetic and theoretical approaches to analysis, and have expertise in feminist and queer philosophies of embodiment. I connect these interests across diverse areas in film, visual and creative media, always with an eye to industry, authorship, spectatorship, expression, and transnational flows. 

I am an award-winning teacher. I am very interested in alternative pedagogies and assessment models, including creative approaches such as zine-making and in-class gaming sessions. I am active in skills development and sharing.

I am very involved in the arts community. I am a prolific arts and cultural critic with particular expertise in media and the performing arts, and I currently edit the popular arts criticism blog Flat City Field Notes. I contribute cultural and media criticism to The Conversation and other media outlets. I was described as "the most influential theatre reviewer in the South Island" in The Press' 2026 power list. I appear regularly as a panellist, speaker, commentator and adjudicator. I am proud to sit on the board of trustees of books and ideas festival WORD Christchurch. I also coordinate the long-running Univeristy of Canterbury / Creative NZ Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence programme, which brings the best Aotearoa New Zealand writers to UC. 

I am Programme Coordinator for the Cultural Studies programme, an interdisciplinary programme that brings together courses from across the Faculty of Arts. I also act as the point of contact for the Gender and Sexuality Studies minor, and the BA specialisation in Creative Industries and Contemporary Practice. Please get in touch if you would like to know more about study options in these areas. 

I am very happy to be contacted about school / outreach visits or speaking engagements.

I am not currently taking on any additional thesis supervisions (MA and PhD) as my supervision load is at capacity.