Successful PhD Defense for Kerry McElroy

On January 27th, 2021 Interdisciplinary PhD in the Humanities Student Kerry McElroy successfully defended her thesis. McElroy’s thesis, Class Acts: A Sociocultural History of Women, Labour, and Migration in Hollywood was primarily supervised by Film Studies Professor Dr. Rosanna Maule.

Her thesis is a cultural and labour history examining classical Hollywood as a classed sociocultural system, rooted in exploitation of women. Through first-person accounts, McElroy demonstrates the ways in which glamour and publicity served as twin cudgels of industrial and social control of women in the system, that enabled corruption, criminality, and abuse.

Kerry McElroy completed her interdisciplinary thesis with fields in Cinema, History, and Theatre. Prior to her doctoral project at Concordia, she attained masters' degrees at Columbia and Carnegie Mellon Universities. She is currently in the process of relocating to Europe, where she will continue to grow her international tutoring and editing practices, pursue her freelance writing career, and look for postdoctoral positions.

The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema would like to congratulate Kerry on her successful defense!