Film / Television / Media Studies (PhD / MPhil) - 2012/2013 entry

The Department of History of Art and Screen Media and the Department of Media and Cultural Studies, both within the School of Arts, offer an exceptionally stimulating environment where interdisciplinary research flourishes across film, television and media topics, both historical and contemporary, art history, design, the press, multimedia, practical journalism and screenwriting. The research includes critical engagement with old and new technologies, and aesthetic questions raised by new imagining technologies.

The Department of History of Art and Screen Media is marked by a strong research ethos, which has been enhanced by the foundation of the AHRC Centre for British Film and Television Studies, hosted by Birkbeck in 2000–2005, and which has led to the creation of a new, purpose-built and award-winning Centre for Film and Visual Media Research. The Centre hosts research forums and seminars, distinguished visiting speakers, and houses the London Screen Study Centre, directed by Professor Ian Christie.

The research environment of the department  benefits externally from its participation in the London University Screen Studies Group, which is an umbrella organisation covering all aspects of screen study across the Colleges of the University of London which organises conferences, PhD seminars and workshops, and the activities of the Vasari Research Centre.

The Centre for Media, Culture and Creative Practice in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies brings together the research interests of staff of the department and offers an exciting range of events for staff and students, and support for PhD students. The Centre also acts as a focus for cognate areas within Birkbeck, such as creative writing, theatre studies and cultural studies generally.

In addition to the Birkbeck Library, research students have access to the nearby University of London Library, as well as other specialist collections and institutions in central London, including the British Film Institute.

Find out more about our world-class research resources, as well as our specialist resources.

Entry requirements and application procedure

In addition to submitting a formal application through Registry, you need to attach to the application a research proposal. You need to prepare a proposal that includes a discussion of the academic field to which your topic belongs, a rationale for undertaking the doctoral research, the corpus of works you want to explore or the explanation of the type of corpus you want to work on, proposed methodologies, and a preliminary bibliography. On average this should be 2000 words (excluding the bibliography).

What happens after you apply

Once your application is reviewed by Registry Service, it is passed onto the postgraduate tutors for film/television/media studies, Dr Dorota Ostrowska and Dr Tim Markham, who will then liaise with the appropriate academic staff to review the merits of the proposal and if we have the expertise to support the research. Once those criteria are met, you would be invited in for an interview in person or by telephone depending on your circumstances.

You should also check our art history staff and culture staff on our departmental websites, to see if there is at least one academic staff member whose research could support your area of interest. You should indicate in your application who you might be interested in working with.

For information about applying as a research student, read our Guide for Applicants.

Department of History of Art and Screen Media

• Dr Mike Allen, PhD: History of television; early cinema; digital culture; history of media technologies and multimedia design.
• Professor Ian Christie, FBA: Early film and related media; British cinema history; cinema–TV relations; Russian and Soviet cinema; European film policy and issues in media historiography; film and visual arts.
• Professor Laura Mulvey, FBA: Film, feminism and psychoanalytical theory; avant-garde film; British television in the 1960s; technology and aesthetics.
• Dr Dorota Ostrowska, DPhil: Culture and history of film festivals; European film production and film industry; Eastern European and French cinema and criticism; history of television in Europe. 

Department of Media and Cultural Studies

• Dr Tim Markham, PhD: Journalism; media and sociology; phenomenology; conflict studies; citizen journalism; media and public engagement; audience studies; new media; political theory; post-structuralism; Arab media.
• Dr Stamatia Portanova PhD: Digital aesthetics;  theories of virtuality and affect; dance in digital film and video; movement, perception and the media;  the relationship between technology, science and philosophy; pop music and dance in the culture industries.
• Dr Scott Rodgers, PhD: Media, politics and cities; geographies of journalism; media technology; relations of media and spatial theory; approaches to practices and materiality (e.g. actor-network theory); ethnographic methodologies.
• Dr Emma Sandon, PhD: British colonial film and photography; ethnographic and documentary film-making; British television; law and film.
• Dr Michael Temple, PhD: History of French cinema; French film theory; audiovisual film theory; the work of Jean-Luc Godard.
• Professor Mary Wood, PhD: Italian cinema, film and video industries; recent British and European cinema.

• Throughout the year for commencement in October or January.