DrSusan Potter

RESEARCH PROJECTS

The Just Archives Collaboratory: Building on a set of workshop collaborations at Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (SSSHARC) in February and March 2025, this project brings together archivists, researchers, artists, educators, and cultural organisers in the Asia-Pacific region to investigate three dimensions of queer and trans archival work: building archives (community histories, institutional relationships), caring for archives (cataloguing, archival ethics) and activating archives (queer and trans histories, community engagement, creative and scholarly practice). Co-directed with Associate Professor Kush Patel, Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology.

Together Apart: A four-part creative video series that investigates and reorients accepted film historical narratives that continue to structurally erase or naturalise questions of sexuality and gender. The project also investigates different modalities of collaborative creative practice-led research oriented to generating new connections across time between contemporary queer and trans audiences (as co-researchers), and the queer and trans figures, stories, situations and forms that comprise the film and video archive. Part 1:Traffic in Kisses (2022). Part 2: Transition, forthcoming. Co-directed with Dr Kiki Loveday, Smith College;John Mitchell Kirtley Creative Practice Fellow for 2026,Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney. See https://powerinstitute.org.au/events/together-studio.

Queer media and self-representation since the 1960s: This project investigates audiovisual media's role in queer identity and culture formation since the 1960s, across film, television and digital platforms. Current areas of focus:the role of audiovisual archives in sustaining queer communities across time;the lesbian sex scene in experimental and contemporary art cinemas.

SUPERVISION

***Available for supervision from 2028***

Susan is interested in supervising queer, lesbian and trans* film, television and media studies projects, especially those engaged with questions of theory, historiography, the archive and methodology (including media production and other artistic and creative practice modalities).

Prospective Higher Degree by Research (MA or PhD) applicants should send the following:

• cover email (do not use AI - this is your first approach to me, with the potential to establish a supervisory relationship, and beyond that a collegial relationship after you graduate; write in your own voice, and tell me why you want to work with me)
• research proposal (following the University of Sydney guide/template - do not send a generic proposal)
• CV (including contact details for 2–3 referees)
• transcripts from previous degrees
• standardised English test results (if required)
• a writing sample of approximately 20 pages (typically drawn from an Honours or MA thesis)
• a creative practice work (if relevant).

Current research students:

Elly Carantinos, "Archives of Utopia: Excavating the Historiographic Potentialities of Revolutionary Hybrid-Documentary Practice." PhD.

Tony Radevski, " RESET: Temporal Reflexivity, Vulnerability and Queer Autoethnographic Documentary." MA Research (creative practice).

Susie Dodds, "TikTok as a Learning Space: Exploring Young People’s Attraction to TikTok Sex Ed." MA Research.

Julie (Yue) Zheng, "Coupling as Mediated Intimacy." PhD.

Chloe (Qingsheng) Xiao. "The Female Intimate Imaginary in Contemporary China: Temporality, Visibility, and Affect." PhD.

Lee Steenbergen, "Changing the Nature of Consumption in Documentary: The Foragers." PhD (creative practice).

Research degree completions:

Kelly Panchyshyn, "The Reparative Return: Contemporary Teen Television and its Queer Dimensions." PhD. Co-supervisor, awarded April 2026.

EO Gill, "Scenes of Disorder: Toward a Trans Moving-Image Aesthetic." PhD (creative practice). Co-supervisor, awarded April 2026.

Imogen Gardam, "What Audiences Want: A Comparative Study of Film Distribution and Subscription Video on Demand in Australia." MA Research. Lead supervisor, awarded February 2026.

Evelyn Cindy Magara, "Contemporary East African Cinema: Emergent Themes and Aesthetics." PhD. Lead supervisor, awarded 2020.

Ivan Cerecina, "Historical Assemblages: Montage in the Films of Nicole Vedrès, Alain Resnais and Chris Marker, 1947-1957." PhD. Lead supervisor, awarded 2019.

Keva York, "The Silver Screen Behind His Eyes: Crispin Glover and His It Trilogy." PhD. Lead supervisor 12 months. Awarded 2019.

Lewis Fitz-Gerald, Creative Practice PhD "39,000 Doors: Australian Kids in Care." PhD (creative practice). Co-supervisor, UNE, 2015-13. Completed 2016. Awarded UNE Chancellor's Doctoral Research Medal.