Film & Television Studies

Programme structure

The programme is made up of three equally-weighted components

• The Core Course (60 credits): taught from September to March
• Optional Courses (3 x 20 credits): full-time students usually study one topic course in semester one, and two in semester two
• Dissertation: written during the final phase of the course, from May to September

Core Course

Our core course offers the opportunity to provide an engagement with the breadth of Film & Television Studies as a discipline whilst developing core research skills. As such, it is taught by all staff working within Film & Television Studies, giving you access to our wide range of expertise and approaches to our discipline. The course is structured around four main blocks: textual analysis of film and television; theoretical debates; current research; and ‘best practice’ in our field. Each block has a different mode of assessment – textual analysis; literature review; group presentation of a research proposal; critical essay – allowing you to develop your research and presentational skills in a variety of contexts.  Teaching takes the form of a weekly screening and seminar.

Optional courses

The optional courses on offer vary from year-to-year as they offer an opportunity to engage with staff research specialisms. For 2012-13 these will likely be:

• The History of Critical Writing on Film & Television
• Multistrand Narratives in Fiction Film and Television
• Digital Media
• Documentary

Students with a particular interest in media industries may choose one or more of the following options offered as part of the MSc in Media Management:

• Media Economics
• Media and Cultural Policy
• Issues in Audience Management

Finally, you may choose one course either from another related Masters programme, or from our undergraduate programme. Our undergraduate options also vary from year to year but offer the opportunity to engage with:

• genres (e.g. Amateur Cinema, Children’s Television, Contemporary Television Drama, Documentary Film & Television, Animation)
• periods (e.g. Interwar Cinemas, Hollywood in the 1970s)
• topics (e.g. Screen Audiences, Feminist Film Theory, Cinematic Journeys)
• or national/transnational cinemas (e.g. Asian Cinemas, Australia in Film & Television, Scotland in Film & Television, Italian Cinema, New German Cinema)

Assessment of optional courses will vary depending on the learning objectives of the course but may include: academic essays;  reports; research proposals; detailed sequence analysis; group projects and presentations.

Dissertation

The dissertation is your opportunity to explore your own specialist interest in Film & Television Studies and to demonstrate the research and writing skills you have developed during the course. With the advice of your supervisor you will develop a topic, undertake research, and write a 15,000 word dissertation which you will submit in September.  Recent dissertation projects have included:

• The ‘Queer’ Irish Man: Masculinity, Nationalism and Irish Queer Cinema
• From Stage to Screen: The Comedy Performer’s Journey (focusing on Chris Rock)
• Gender, Genre and Adaptation: A Case Study of True Blood
• Cinema Culture in Post-War Glasgow, 1945-55
• What do you mean by ‘Korean Cinema’?: The Problem of Distributing a ‘National’ Cinema
• Giallo and Gender: Beyond Argento
• BBC’s Tribe: An Investigation into the Depiction of Indigenous Peoples on Television