Film, screen and popular culture PhD

As an Film, Screen and Popular Culture PhD student at Brighton, you will benefit from:

• a supervisory team comprising two or sometimes three members of academic staff. Depending on your research specialism you may also have a  supervisor from another School, another research institution, or an external partner from government or media industry.
• access to desk space and computers.
• access to a range of electronic resources via the university’s online library, as well as to the physical book and journal collections housed within the Aldrich Library and other campus libraries.
• access to digital and photographic practice experts and facilities including studio and film-editing software
• access and engagement with long-established film and screen facilities at the University of Brighton, including the Screen Archive South East (SASE) archives and the annual film festival Cinecity.
• access to the University of Brighton's diverse engagement with the media culture of the City of Brighton and Hove, itself a hub of media industry activity.

Brighton as a city 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 Brighton beach in the summer of 1964, Brighton has always been a lively centre of cultural activity. Today many creative and digital media start-ups that have made Brighton their home, making the city an inspiring place to work and study.

For over twenty-five years, scholars at the University of Brighton have drawn upon this creative environment, developing innovative specialisms across a range of areas in the study of media and popular culture. Much of the research work at the School of Media 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, and critically engaging with the meanings behind even the most banal cultural experiences.

Unique to the University of Brighton, your work will align you with its long-standing set of film and screen-based facilities, including the Screen Archive South East (SASE) archives and the annual Brighton 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 be a member of the School of Arts and Media and may well be aligned with one or more of the university's Centres of Research and Enterprise Excellence (COREs) or Research and Enterprise Groups (REGs). Of particular relevance may be the Centre for Digital Media Cultures and the Screen Studies REG, although aspects of the study of popular culture may draw on the research being conducted across the university in, for example art, history, human geography and the social sciences.

The Brighton Doctoral College offer a training programme for postgraduate researchers, covering research methods and transferable (including employability) skills. Attendance at appropriate modules within this programme is encouraged, as is contribution to the schools’ various seminar series. Academic and technical staff also provide more subject-specific training.

Your PhD research could pursue interests across a range of areas within the broad scope of film, screen and popular culture. Some recent highlights of our work through publications, conferences and research funding include:

• Children’s culture
• Comedy
• Culinary culture
• Digital games
• Film and television animation
• Horror, science fiction, fantasy
• Maternal drama
• 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
• Popular music and journalism
• Seaside culture and entertainment
• Screen cultures
• Television and heritage cultures
• Utopia/dystopia and apocalypse

Dr Holly Chard

Holly is particularly interested in supervising research projects in the following areas: Hollywood cinema, cinema history, contemporary American television, authorship and film, genre, comedy, stardom and celebrity, teen films and television, family entertainment

If you are planning a project that is connected to her research expertise, but not listed above, feel free to contact her to discuss it further. 

Dr Olu Jenzen

Dr Jenzen has supervised several doctoral students to completion across topics such as Queer visual activism; Queer filmmaking and learning disability; and Social media and LGBTQ+ mental health support. Currently she supervises projects on Feminist social media activism; LGBTQ+ kinship practices; Gender creative parenting; Gender diverse youth and citizen equality; Climate justice discourse in the media; Gypsy, Romany, Traveller trans and gender-diverse youth in the UK & participatory heritage as a vehicle for empowerment; and Heritage, participation and technology. She welcomes applications for projects interested in digital media and visual activism, activism and issues of gender and sexuality, and youth empowerment.

Dr Ewan Kirkland

Ewan is looking to supervise doctoral projects on digital games, particularly Gothic and horror genres, which represent a particular research speciality. In addition, Ewan is interested in working with students exploring children’s culture, including film, television, digital games, toys, and the intersections between different media aimed at young people. Another supervisory interest is the representation of identity, including gender, race and sexuality, with an emphasis on dominant formations such as masculinity, whiteness and heterosexuality. Ewan is also keen to supervise projects on Hollywood cinema, science fiction film and television, and fandom.

Dr Douglas McNaughton

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. Screen acting and performance.

Dr Aris Mousoutzanis

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.

For further supervisory staff including cross-disciplinary options, please visit research staff on our research website.