Farah Benbouabdellah

Areas of interest
- Animals
- Wild Felids
- Entertainment
- Asia
- Art
- Colonialism
Research centres and groups
Landscape, Climate and Lived Environment Research ClusterResearch projects
Tigers in Films: Past, Present and Future Perspectives
Understanding how tigers are viewed and portrayed in films is fundamental, but it is a largely neglected window that can give us significant documentation about the past and present attitudes of this iconic endangered species. The study of animals in films is slowly becoming more important as animals were and still are part of the industry, as they have an important role in multi-scale identities, locally, regionally, and ultimately internationally. The study of tigers in films will help give a better critical understanding of the animal in the field of film studies compared to other disciplines. While the study of animals in films has been given more importance over the last few years, a lot of animal-in-film studies have been focusing on ethical theoretical questions with relatively less exploration of the cultural and cross-cultural work I will be undertaking. It will also help understand the portrayal of tigers in the film industry compared to other felids and enhance pedagogic practices of tigers' iconography in the seventh art which will help investigate human-tiger relations over time.
Supervisors:
Professor Aleks Pluskowski (University of Reading)
Dr Adam O'Brien (University of Reading)
Background
I started my Archaeology journey in 2013 back home in Algeria, I graduated with a BA in 2016 in Classical Archaeology (with Distinction) from l’Université Alger 2 and a Master in 2018 in Classical Archaeology (with Distinction) from l’Université Alger 2. Both my dissertations for my BA and MA were focused on Romans in North Africa with the topic of my BA being about the Roman Triumphal Arches of Lambesa (Algeria) and my MA about Roman coins in North Africa. I did my second Master at the University of Reading in 2020 remotely due to the pandemic. My dissertation was about “The ideology and status of horses in Roman society: an analytical study of iconographical media and ancient literacy in the period of transition from the Republic to the Empire” and graduated in 2021 with an MA in Archaeology (with Merits). I also can speak French and Arabic and Amazigh which is the native language of North Africa.