Subjects A-Z: Theatre, Film and Television Studies

‌Theatre, Film and Television Studies (TFTS) has a lively and engaged research culture which brings together staff and students with a wide range of interests in many aspects of drama, theatre, performance, cinema, television, cultural and media policy. 

TFTS is committed to a research agenda that promotes intellectual edge and social purpose. The study of texts and contexts is at the heart of our work and we create a stimulating, supportive research community for scholars pursuing a wide range of topics, using a variety of methodologies. Our research has had international impact on debates about policy, quality, performance and identity in our disciplines. It has informed understandings of Scotland’s cultural identity during devolution.

TFTS has been ranked as one of the top five subject groups in its field in the UK in the RAE 2008. The RAE is a bench-marking operation to measure the quality of research being conducted by universities across the UK. It is an internationally-recognised barometer of quality. RAE 2008 found 85% of our research classified as world-leading or internationally excellent.

TFTS is distinctively organised through three subject groups: Theatre Studies; Film and Television Studies; and the Centre for Cultural Policy Research (CCPR). These groups provide strong support for research within the disciplines they represent. Each subject group pursues a wide range of research activities including externally funded research, seminars and workshops, and organises postgraduate activity. Across the groups, our work is linked by a common commitment to research which questions the performance text in the broadest sense, pursues critical analyses and interpretations and sites theatre, film and television production aesthetically, historically and socially. The different disciplinary approaches of theatre, film and television studies, cultural and media policy, give both a critical edge to our research and distinctiveness to our intellectual infrastructure.

Staff and students in TFTS use a range of methodologies to investigate within and across our disciplines. Currently we are seeing new work emerge in respect of cultural economics, oral history and elite interviewing, and practice as research.

The research interests of individual staff members give more detail on the wide range of questions and topics being explored TFTS. As an introduction, though, the following themes resonate across the work of TFTS:


a. nation and post-nation - Scotland provides an essential object of study and place of dissemination. But Scotland is also a point of departure for a range of work on European and international practices and identities and on conceptual issues such as the ‘postcolonial’ and ‘globalisation’. Ideas rooted in the context of claims for national identity are thus set against work on exile, diasporic movement, transnational exchanges and cultural transformations.


b. textual analysis - much research in TFTS is marked by close attention to textual detail, offering insights into particular textual instances, examining their critical contexts and discursive positioning and contributing to debates about the value of this methodology.


c. institutions, infrastructure and policy - this research develops work on context by specifically exploring and critiquing systems and structures of cultural production. It analyses how mainstream media and cultural activity is shaped and engages with debates about the impact of change.


d. representation and identity - with an emphasis on theory and critical analysis, debates on race and ethnicity, gender, class and sexual identity provide a key research theme for much work.

We offer postgraduate students a wide range of options for independent study, from one-year taught degrees to three-year doctoral programmes. Our outward-looking, multi-disciplinary research activities are based on high-quality, challenging and flexible graduate programmes. In undertaking such a programme, you will be joining a thriving and vibrant postgraduate community.

We welcome students from a variety of backgrounds, working on areas of specialist interest using methods from the arts, humanities and social sciences, including, where appropriate, research through practice.

Our research degrees
(all degrees can be taken part-time)

  • PhD (3 years)
  • MLitt (Research) (2 years)
  • MPhil (1 year)
  • MRes (1 year)


How to apply for a research degree

College of Arts Graduate School