Simon Willmetts

Dr Simon Willmetts is a lecturer in American Studies at the University of Hull. Simon’s research broadly fits into the fields of film history, cultural theory and U.S foreign policy. He has previously worked on a project at Warwick University, titled The Landscapes of Secrecy: The CIA and the Contested Record of U.S Foreign Policy which explored the public perceptions of the CIA in different cultural mediums.

His first book, In Secrecy’s Shadow: The OSS and CIA in Hollywood Cinema, 1939-1979, examines how the American film industry negotiated the rapid development of America’s national security state and secret intelligence from the Second World War onwards.

In the past, he has worked on spy cinema and public perceptions of the CIA and his current project focuses on the current representation of cyber security in films and novels. He has also recently joined an ESRC project as a Co-Investigator examining the the ethics of cyber security and how contemporary debates around digital governance have been shaped by cultural texts, including films and documentaries.

Expertise

• American culture, film and society

• Cold War culture

• Spy cinema

• Cyber security

Publications

• In Secrecy’s Shadow: The OSS and CIA in Hollywood Cinema, 1939-1979, Edinburgh University Press, 2016 http://bit.ly/1nshm8m

• ‘The Burgeoning Fissures of Dissent: Allen Dulles and the Selling of the CIA in the Aftermath of the Bay of Pigs‘, History, 100:340 (April 2015), pp. 167-188.

• ‘The CIA and the Invention of Tradition‘, Journal of Intelligence History, 14:2 (2015), pp. 112-128.

• ‘Filming Treachery: British Cinema and Television’s Fascination with the Cambridge Five‘, Journal of British Cinema and Television, 10:1 (2013): 49-70. With Chris Moran.