Projects per year
Personal profile
Overview
My work and my research exist at the intersection of filmmaking and education in theory and in practice. Running projects in prisons with serving prisoners, with people on parole, in the barrios of Venezuela and with foodbank users I have utilised film as a radical educational tool both in theory and in practice. My work with subaltern groups has fostered a reconceptualization of how we understand both the role of education and the role of film raising questions about what we consider to be ‘common knowledge, ’ and importantly the visual imagery associated with that knowledge.
I am the principle editor of The Journal of Class and Culture https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-class-culture
I am on the editorial board of The Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies http://www.jceps.com/
I am the co ordinator of Inside Film http://www.insidefilm.org
Research interests
I welcome enquires from potential doctoral candidates looking to explore the following areas
Marxist theory and film
Classical Hollywood cinema
Popular film/media and representations of class
Alternative political film practice (e.g. Third Cinema)
Film practice as research e.g. documentary
Film as a pedagogic tool
Fingerprint
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
Projects
- 4 Finished
-
-
Before these Walls: How Women End Up in Prison
O'Neill, D. (PI)
UKRI - Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
29/05/25 → 28/05/26
Project: Research
-
Democratising Cultural Production: Knowledge Exchange and Prison
O'Neill, D. (PI)
UKRI - Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
20/06/24 → 31/10/25
Project: Research
-
Democratising Cultural Production: Knowledge Exchange and Prison
O'Neill, D. (PI)
UKRI - Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
7/06/23 → 6/06/24
Project: Research
-
Cinematic Justice: The Stories We Could Tell
O'Neill, D., 23 Nov 2026, (Accepted/In press) Film, Storytelling, and Social Transformation Cinematic Justice. Martin, H. (ed.). Routledge, 256 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
-
Beyond the Council Estate: Cinematic Spaces of the Working Class
Flint-Nicol, K. (Editor) & O'Neill, D. (Editor), 1 Nov 2026, (Accepted/In press) Edinburgh University Press. 224 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
-
Working-class knowledge as political struggle: Exclusion,legitimacy and resistance under neo-liberalism
O'Neill, D., 1 Aug 2026, In: Journal Of Class & Culture . Volume 5 , Number 1, p. 3-8 6 p., 1.Research output: Contribution to journal › Editorial › peer-review
-
Double the Diaspora: On Being Second-Generation Irish and Working Class
O'Neill, D., 2026, Notions: The Lives of Irish Working Class Academics. Burnell Reilly, I., Baker, S. & Pierse, M. (eds.). Emerald Publishing, p. 157–172 19 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
-
Prison,Film and Radical Politics
O'Neill, D., 1 Sept 2025, Left Cultures, 4, 4, p. 26-27 2 p.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article