Research degrees in Film
About the PhD programme
Research in Film at QMUL is organised into four main areas, Film Cultures, Film Philosophy, Film Practice, and Decolonizing Film, with the Centre for Film and Ethics as the main research centre. We are always interested in receiving applications from highly qualified prospective PhD students wishing to work with us in these general research areas
Research Areas
Film Philosophy cluster boasts research not only within two main schools of Western philosophy (continental and analytic) but in Eastern thought as well. Members of the cluster have strengths in ethics, ideology, Marxist and post-Marxist critical thought, phenomenology, film archaeology, non-human and environmental humanities, vegan cinema and permacinema, end of life, finance, icon/icity, religion and film, philosophical exegesis, neurodiversity, gesture, cognitivism, fiction, Daoism, and works of specific philosophers including Agamben, Carroll, Benjamin, and Murdoch. The members include Lucy Bolton, Ashvin Devasundaram, Steven Eastwood, Grazia Ingravalle, Alasdair King, Sasha Litvintseva, Janet Harbord, Anat Pick, Libby Saxton, Mario Slugan, Guy Westwell, and Kiki Tianqi Yu.
Film Cultures cluster investigates film histories, national cinemas, and various aspects of cinema as an institution. The cluster’s expertise lie in specific historical periods (early cinema, Classical Hollywood era, the interwar period, post-9/11 cinema), the cultures and industries of national cinemas (US, British, French, Russian, German, Italian, Yugoslav, Indian and Chinese cinemas), and a range of topics including stars, directors, producers, production companies, independent cinema, archives, production design, representation of war, cinema memory, film festivals, and studios. Lucy Bolton, Ashvin Devasundaram, Sue Harris, Grazia Ingravalle, Annette Kuhn, Mario Slugan, Guy Westwell, and Kiki Tianqi Yu count among the cluster’s members.
Film Practice investigates the formal, ethical, and philosophical processes of moving image production and exhibition, including documentary filmmaking, artists’ moving image, fiction cinema, screenwriting, live art, and performance. Members of the cluster have made award-winning works on the end of life, Syrian refugees and forcibly disappeared, extractive zones, the environment, displaced economies, a transgender Chinese migrant, neurodiversity, measurements, monsters, originality and copying, and the relationship between eater and eaten among others.Steven Eastwood, Yasmin Fedda, Sasha Litvintseva, Athena Mandis, and Kiki Tianqi Yu are the cluster’s core members.
Decolonizing Film research cluster seeks to challenge not only the Global North canons of films, filmmakers, and film scholars but also the very epistemological underpinnings of film studies as a discipline. The cluster does so through work on film restitution, imperial legacies in archives, extraction zones, displacement, urban violence, effects of contemporary imperial warfare on antibiotic resistance, and dewesternizing film history, film analysis, and film theory. Its members are Ashvin Devasundaram, Eugene Doyen, Yasmin Fedda, Grazia Ingravalle, Nikolaus Perneczky, Mario Slugan, and Kiki Tianqi Yu.
Film and Ethics research cluster facilitates interdisciplinary practice-based and theoretical work involving the intersection between film and ethics in the context of moving image research. The Centre operates as an international hub for considering both the complexities of the contemporary ethical landscape and the traditional questions of moral philosophy.
Find out more about our research areas on our PhD Home page and the Department of Film Studies research page
The Application Process
Applicants to the PhD in Film Studies are expected to contact a member of staff with interest in research areas relevant to your proposed topic area to discuss your proposed research and gain their agreement to act as your doctoral supervisor prior to making a formal application. The Research Group web-pages provides information both on the areas of research the Department offers, and which academic staff cover each specific area. Your application must be accompanied by a research proposal outlining the aims and academic context of the research.
PhD students normally begin their studies in September/October. There are no set deadlines for applying for a research degree, but we would recommend you apply no later than June. However, if you are applying for a funded place you will need to submit by the funding deadline - please see the further information section below for information about our funding awards and their deadlines. Full- and part-time study is available. Please select the entry point below for either full-time or part-time study to access the on-line PhD application system.
Contact
For information about the PhD in Film Studies, please contact:
Director of Graduate Studies Dr Grazia Ingravalle at g.ingravalle@qmul.ac.uk
Or
The Postgraduate Research Administrator, at sta-pgr@qmul.ac.uk
Further Information
If you are interested the PhD programme in Film Studies please visit our Departmental web-page for more information on how to apply, entry requirements, the application documentation required and how to identify a supervisor.
To be considered for funding, applicants must have organised supervision and submitted their formal application (with supporting documents) by the time of the funding deadline date.