Critical Theory and Cultural Studies have grown rapidly in the University to their present location in an expanding Department with integrated and highly successful degree and postgraduate programmes with international connections. The Department attracts high-calibre research students from diverse academic backgrounds from the UK and overseas, including the EC, the Middle and Far East, Latin America and the United States. Much of our work is interdisciplinary and draws upon staff expertise in modern theory, political philosophy, cultural, literary, media and film studies, both in the Department and in the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies of which it is part.
The Department also spearheads the School Research Centre for the Critical Theory.
The Department is a rich intellectual community, and provides a stimulating environment for all our postgraduates. The interdisciplinary approach is enhanced by the network of staff interested in and contributing to critical theory and cultural studies programmes from across the Faculty. We have a substantial number of postgraduate students from numerous different cultures, ensuring a cosmopolitan and international study environment.
Students are currently researching on a range of topics including: Waste and Consumer Society; Baudrillard and Architecture; Lacan and Realism; Deleuze and Music; Foucault in the Humanities; Hybridity in Argentinian and English Literature and Culture; Memory, Place, Imagination and Fiction; Suicide Authors: A Deconstructive Study; and Globalisation and National Cinema.
The Department of Culture, Film and Media undertakes innovative research at the forefront of developments in the study of film, television and screen media, and is one of the largest the units in the United Kingdom offering postgraduate degrees in film and television studies.
Research students at Nottingham enjoy teaching and supervision from leaders in the field, with specialist expertise in US film and television, Hollywood studies, East Asian and global cinema, new media, industrial and audience analysis, and film and television history.
The Department spearheads The University of Nottingham’s lead higher education partnership with the British Film Institute and has strong links with local media institutions such as the Broadway Cinema (the regional film theatre) and EM Media (the regional screen development agency) as well as Hollywood studios including Fox Searchlight and Lionsgate where unique internship opportunities are available to students on the MA in Global Hollywood. Building on its close industry connections, the Department is home to the Institute for Screen Industries Research
The Department also runs Scope: an Online Journal of Film and Television Studies, a fully refereed journal with an international advisory board produced by research students under staff direction.
The Department welcomes applicants interested in a range of topics across the research programme and all members of academic staff are active researchers willing to supervise students in their areas of expertise. Many of our research students publish high-quality books and articles and have secured teaching positions in universities both in the UK and abroad. Current and recent students in the Department have worked on a variety of topics including video games and cult film, US and UK television audiences, romantic comedy, media memory of World War II, and the representation of matrimony in Indian film and television.
Some prospective masters students already have a clear idea of the area and topic they wish to research. In this case a student can effectively lay the ground work for a PhD by doing a masters by research rather than a taught masters.
While this degree is still classed as a research preparation masters, it is assessed solely by dissertation and is taught preponderantly via supervision. Students attend research training sessions and attend the weekly graduate work-in-progress seminars to which they contribute a paper in semester two. However, they work with a main supervisor and co-supervisor on a pre-agreed research topic. They submit a 30,000-word dissertation at the end of the year which is marked by both an internal and an external examiner with the possibility of a viva to confirm the award.
Since the candidate is expected to complete a piece of research in just one year, the MRes degree requires candidates to work in areas of faculty expertise and with a practical sense of the resources to which they have ready access.