Maria Joana Reis Paiva Nunes de Melo, holds a Ph.D in LIterary Science from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa since 2011. Her doctoral thesis «Desígnio Inteligente – Actualização da Poética de Aristóteles como Teoria do Método e Funcionalidade Específicos de uma Arte Audiovisual de Larga Difusão», (sponsored by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia), establishes an in-depth connection between Greek Tragedy and American Film, pointing out the tragic structure, as described by Aristotle, as archetype for commercial and audiovisual fiction. In the last three years she has been teaching Writing for Film at the Nova University, FCSH, which enabled her to continue further research, now focusing on film Noir, on the heroic temper, and on the relation between Mimesis and Evil. Most of these issues are addressed in her past publications but also in her most recent one «The heroic temper in Hamlet and Taxi Driver», 2021. She is also a regular guest at the annual Closed Conference of Popular Culture, held by the Philology department of the Wroclaw University in Poland. In 2009 she gave birth to a boy and in 2012 she gave birth to twin girls, which accounts for a decrease in her academic activities and research between and arround those years.