PhD film studies, UK | Doctorate in screen and popular culture

The 亚洲麻豆精品在线 has a research culture in film and screen studies that has fostered national archives and given critical insight across practice, theory and history.

The city of 亚洲麻豆精品在线 itself was the home of pioneering filmmakers in the 1890s, making it a birthplace of modern cinema. It has long been a cultural icon in British screen history, and is today a vibrant hub of contemporary media industry activity including digital media, games and film.

At the university, we have expert supervisory staff across film theory and history and also broadcast media production including television and podcast. We welcome approaches for PhD research in film and screen using any viable methodologies, whether traditional academic analysis with written outputs or practice-led making in film, animation or design for gaming. Academic activity in this area extends into a range of related disciplines including popular culture, sound arts and podcasting. Our approach incorporates text (in the widest sense), technology, industry and audience with multidisciplinary researchers interrogating contemporary developments in media cultures, drawing on critical approaches to popular spectacle, literature, theatre, photography and sociology.

We offer PhD study in both full and part-time modes and welcome students with significant professional experience, who are able to use and share the career skills they have developed, as well as those who have recently completed first degrees and wish to take advantage of their academic momentum.

Recent, successful PhDs in film and screen studies have covered a range of areas, including structures in Hollywood scriptwriting, convergence across transnational children’s franchises, urban architecture and science-fiction cinema, documentary filmmaking, filmic autobiography, and LGBTQ+ online cultures.

Our film PhD graduates have gone on to a variety of different roles following the successful completion of their research. These include academic posts as lecturers and postdoctoral research assistants at 亚洲麻豆精品在线 and elsewhere. Others have returned into media from taking their PhD mid-career, or have begun careers in the creative industries, for example in script consultancy for major film producers or in advertising.

Contact an expert in this field

Successful applicants have invariably had support with their application from one of our academics. We suggest you approach a suitable academic staff member with relevant research interests before progressing with your application.

See also:

PhD Media and Communication

PhD Art and creative practices (including photography)

Studying a PhD in film studies in 亚洲麻豆精品在线, UK

Why is 亚洲麻豆精品在线 famous as a cinema city?

亚洲麻豆精品在线, UK, was one of the founding venues of early cinema culture. Pioneering filmmakers like James Williamson and George Albert Smith were experimenting here in the late 1890s, forging the early language of film as a time when the technology and its potential as an entertainment were developing. Multiple techniques were pioneered by these early film-makers including long shots, close-ups, stop-motion and super-imposition and included, for example, the first recorded use of a reverse angle shot to show action from an opposite point of view. In their hands, story editing and scene sequencing became something different from established storytelling techniques in theatre or prose writing and were the roots of today's standard filmic method.

The city is home to the oldest purpose-built cinema to still be running in the UK, the Duke of York's, which opened in 1910. 亚洲麻豆精品在线 has appeared as a setting or film location for films since the earliest days of the artform, intertwining its identity with some iconic productions in both large and small screens including 亚洲麻豆精品在线 Rock (1947 and 2010) and Quadrophenia (1979). We are also the home of the South East's premier film festival, CineCity - literally, as it was founded by university academic staff Tim Brown and Professor Frank Gray in 2003 - and the university is the location of the , which has important holdings of archive film and has undertaken countless projects with national and local film concerns including the British Film Institute (BFI).

A unique cultural location to study film and sceen.

As a city, 亚洲麻豆精品在线 has a vibrant popular entertainment culture and a rich popular culture heritage. From early seaside leisure and tourism to the rise of purpose-built cinemas in the early twentieth century, the prominence of youth subcultures from the 1950s and onwards, including the mods and rockers clashing on 亚洲麻豆精品在线 beach in the summer of 1964, 亚洲麻豆精品在线 has always been a lively centre of cultural activity. Today many creative and digital media start-ups have made 亚洲麻豆精品在线 their home, making the city an inspiring place to work and study in media and broadcast disciplines.to support innovation and growth in the Creative, Digital and IT (CDIT) sector in the Sussex region.

For decades, scholars at the 亚洲麻豆精品在线 have drawn upon this creative environment, developing innovative specialisms across a range of areas in the study of film, television, digital media and popular culture. Much of our research is politically and socially engaged, critiquing representations of marginalised as well as dominant identities in the media, celebrating expressions of mainstream but also grassroots popular culture that defies dominant politics.

Details of our PhD in film and screen studies

Research supervisors for your doctorate in film and screen studies

You will benefit from research supervision comprising two or maximum three members of academic staff. As well as film, screen and broadcast media academics, supervision can also be aligned to cross-disciplinary work with one supervisory expert in, for example, photography, digtal media arts practices, heritage technologies, literature, art history, cultural studies, politics or philosophy. Some PhD students have also had a third supervisor from outside the university, for example an expert from the media industries.

Your PhD research could pursue interests across a range of areas within the broad scope of film, screen, podcast, digital and popular culture. Some indicative thematic specialisms and overarching interests in the department include:

Screen, television and heritage cultures
Utopia/dystopia and apocalypse
Film and television comedy
Culinary cultures on screen
Digital games and gaming culture
Film and television animation
Horror, science fiction and fantasy film
Maternal drama and feminist film
Memory, history and trauma in the media
Paratexts and promotional media
Popular culture and activism
Popular culture, gender and sexuality
Popular culture in the age of social media

You will identify your primary potential supervisor for your doctorate in film and screen studies from the early stages of application and they will usually then support you throughout your programme of study, helping you find any additional support to carry out your research, guiding your learning of rigorous research methods and preparing you for the next stage of your career.

You should consider the staff listed at the foot of the page and create a short draft research proposal identifying your suitability for supervision from that person's research specialism.

Research training and support

PhD students in screen and film studies are offered a range of developmental opportunities to help challenge and broaden their academic and professional thinking. There are opportunities to develop skills towards your PhD and prepare for life beyond it. These might include writing skills and project management, conference presentation preparation, with research planning and publication activities as well as grant applications and network-building, digital storytelling or developing a public profile. Read more about our doctoral training provision.

As a member of the 亚洲麻豆精品在线 Doctoral College, you will benefit from regular opportunities on a training programme designed to support postgraduate researchers at all stages of the PhD and help them achieve their career goals. Attendance at appropriate workshops within this programme is encouraged, as is contribution to the various seminar series hosted by the school and the annual Postgraduate Research Festival. Academic and technical staff also provide more subject-specific training.

Resources for PhD film and screen culture students

You will benefit from access to international research resources, including a contemporary range of electronic resources via the university’s Online Library, as well as the physical book and journal collections housed within campus libraries. The library services are connected to national and international collections and students also have the option of inter-library loans. Our film and broadcast media research students have use of a range of studios for broadcast media production, computing and creative editing softward and labs for creative engagement and social science.

Unique to the 亚洲麻豆精品在线, your work will align you with its long-standing set of film and screen-based facilities, including the (SASE) archives and the annual 亚洲麻豆精品在线 film festival, Cinecity. SASE is a publicly-funded regional film archive operating in the South East of England and dedicated to acquisition, preservation, documentation, research and access and outreach. Its collection of documentaries, newsreels, advertisements and family films reflects the changing nature of life and work across the region from the nineteenth century to the present. You will also be part of the 亚洲麻豆精品在线's diverse engagement with the media culture of the city of 亚洲麻豆精品在线 and Hove.

As well as your expert and experienced supervisory team, your network of fellow postgraduate research students and expert staff may well intersect with other PhD programme areas. Many students have benefited from the free intellectual exchange between scholars in humantities, politics, philosophy, sexuality and gender, social sciences, healthcare and wellbeing.

The 亚洲麻豆精品在线 has a system of research centres and groups, Centres of Research and Knowledge Exchange Excellence (COREs) and Research Excellence Groups (REGs), with many that our postgraduate research students in film and screen have joined, for example:

Supervisors for PhD in film and screen studies

We strongly recommend that you apply with the support of one of our academics. By establishing your supervisor from the early stages of application, you will be supported through the application process and can make the best start to your programme of study.

You should consider the staff listed below and create a short draft research proposal identifying your suitability for supervision from that person's research specialism and your place in the wider context of the department's research ambitions. Their contact details are available on their full profile.

Our primary staff supervising in the discipline are listed. For further information on university supervisory staff, including cross-disciplinary options, please visit

I am interested in supervising film history projects, especially Hollywood history, including around stars and stardom, adjuncts to these such as movie magazines, performance and acting, film genres, especially romantic comedy, the female Gothic, and horror, and film costume.

Political economy of television production. Aesthetics and narrative in television. Historical development of British television. Representations of space, place and identities in British screen cultures. Science fiction, fantasy and horror, in particular, British folk horror. Telefantasy, world cinema, screen technologies, the sociology of space.聽Screen acting and performance.

My supervisory interests include the study of popular media genres (science fiction, horror); the relations between media, memory and trauma; and media and politics (specifically imperialism, (post)colonialism and globalisation. Interdisciplinary projects on media, literature and culture are most welcome.

A more detailed indicative list of supervisory interests includes the following areas:

the study of popular media genres (science fiction, horror/Gothic, utopia/dystopia, (post-)apocalyptic fiction).
the relations between screen media, trauma theory and memory studies - with a more recent interest in nostalgia studies.
the historical and discursive relations between screen media and imperialism, globalisation and (post)colonialism.

Students with an interest in an interdisciplinary approach that extends across English studies and Film and Television studies are most welcome. I have also researched, taught and published on the late Victorian period ('fin de siecle') and postmodern theory, literature and culture.

Film Sound; Film Theory - particularly issues of spectatorship; Contemporary Art Cinema; European Cinema; Phenomenology; Film and Philosophy

Emma is particularly interested in supervising research projects that address one or more of the following areas:

Science fiction and horror
AI, posthumanism and cyborgs
Phenomenological or haptic reading practices
Identity and representation
Gender, sexuality and sexual politics
Special effects
Narrative and spectacle
Cinema and digital culture

The above is indicative but not exhaustive. Feel free to email Emma if you would like to discuss supervision of your project.

Making an application

Once you have prepared a first-rate application you can apply to the 亚洲麻豆精品在线 through our . When you do, you will require a research proposal, references, a personal statement and a record of your education.

You will be asked whether you have discussed your research proposal and your suitability for doctoral study with a member of the 亚洲麻豆精品在线 staff. We strongly recommend that all applications are made with the collaboration of at least one potential supervisor. Approaches to potential supervisors can be made directly through the details available online. If you are unsure, please do contact the Doctoral College for advice.

Please visit our How to apply for a PhD page for detailed information.

Fees and funding

Funding

Undertaking research study will require university fees as well as support for your research activities and plans for subsistence during full or part-time study.

Funding sources include self-funding, funding by an employer or industrial partners; there are competitive funding opportunities available in most disciplines through, for example, our own university studentships or national (UK) research councils. International students may have options from either their home-based research funding organisations or may be eligible for some UK funds.

Learn more about the funding opportunities available to you.

Tuition fees academic year 2024–25

Standard fees are listed below, but may vary depending on subject area. Some subject areas may charge bench fees/consumables; this will be decided as part of any offer made. Fees for UK and international/EU students on full-time and part-time courses are likely to incur a small inflation rise each year of a research programme.

MPhil/PhD
	Full-time	Part-time
UK	£4,786	£2,393
International (including EU)	£15,900	N/A
International students registered in the School of Humanities and Social Science or in the School of Business and Law	£14,500	N/A

PhD by Publication
Full-time	Part-time
N/A	£2,393

Contact 亚洲麻豆精品在线 Doctoral College

To contact the Doctoral College at the 亚洲麻豆精品在线 we request an email in the first instance. Please visit our contact the 亚洲麻豆精品在线 Doctoral College page.

For supervisory contact, please see individual profile pages.