Research opportunities in Media, Art and Communications are available for either full-time or part-time study.
Research supervision in Media, Art and Communications subjects is offered by an experienced team of research-active staff based at Pittville Studios. It embraces a wide range of theoretical and practical theory-based approaches to Fine Art, Design, Media, Film and Communications. In recent years the supervision of cross-cultural topics and approaches to research has become a successful addition to the studio’s supervisory expertise.
Fine Art and Design areas of supervision include Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Photography, Time-Based Media, and Art and Design History & Theory of the 20th Century. In the studio-based subjects, the proportion of studio practice to theoretical study is normally 60% to 40%. Supervision covers both practical and theoretical issues, and is provided through a supervisory team and regular individual tutorials with supervisor(s). Recent submissions include The Reaffirmation Of Singular and Unified Sculptural Form Through Contour Lines, and Drawing With Light: Space — The Pencil Of Nature.
Media, Film and Communication Studies’ supervision includes Film and Television Genres, Audiences and Reception Studies, Cultural Studies, Popular Culture, Photography, National Cinemas, Issues of Authorship and Queer Identities. It also includes Popular Music and Critical, Cultural and Media Theories of Bodies, Gender and Technology, Comics and Graphic Novels, and Journalism (both broadcast and print-based). Recent submissions include Heterosexuality at the Movies: An Auto-Ethnographic Study Of Young Heterosexual Women and Their Viewing Experiences, and Doubly Inscribed Objects and Privileged Signifiers: An Exploration of the ‘Optical Unconscious’ of the Crime Scene Photograph.
Students currently enrolled on our Research Degrees come from both the UK and overseas and include recent graduates, practitioners, theoreticians and tutors in Media, Art and Communications. Many follow a Research Degree out of either professional development or personal interest however for some it is an important step towards a lecturing career in higher education. Peer group seminars and discussions together with campus-based and university-wide open lecture programmes underpin supervisory support for Research Degree programmes, and we expect all research students to contribute to the experience.
We encourage attendance at relevant conferences, as well as the giving of papers and publication of articles towards the later stages of studies. There are opportunities to undertake interdisciplinary research within the Media, Art and Communications subject areas and indeed across the university. Our institutional policy of using a supervisory team, as opposed to an individual supervisor, makes this mode of study particularly appropriate.
Training in Research Methods
All research students who have not already completed a relevant Masters Degree or other appropriate postgraduate research methods training must complete the university's research methods training course: MR401 (philosophy and approaches to research) and MR402 (methodologies and methods).
Entry requirements
- you will need an Honours Degree of upper second class or above, from a UK university or equivalent, normally in a subject area relevant to your proposed research
- in exceptional circumstances, the University may consider applications from mature nongraduates with experience of undertaking research
- registration is usually for MA by Research, or for MPhil with possibility of transfer to PhD
- candidates with a recent Masters qualification in a relevant subject, which contained appropriate research methods training, may register for PhD directly.
Staff offering supervision
Andrew Bick BA MA
Senior Lecturer in Painting
Artists’ Books; Relief Constructions
Ben Calvert BA PhD
Head of Department of Media Production
Popular Music; Media History; Media and Cultural Theory
Justin Crouch BA MPhil PhD
Lecturer in Film Studies
Avant-garde Cinema, Animation; Propaganda; Spectatorship; Media History (particularly in relation to high/low debates); 1950s
Popular Culture/Film; Cinematic Authorship;
Comics and Graphic Novels
Bob Davison BA MA
Senior Lecturer in Painting
Painting and Drawing
Joanne Garde-Hansen BA MA PhD
Senior Lecturer in Media Communications
Critical, Cultural and Media Theories of Bodies; Media, Memory and Digital Culture
Nat Goodden BA MA
Senior Lecturer in Fine Art
Sculpture Installation; Work with Spatial, Interactive & Electronic Media
Robin Griffiths BA MA PhD
Course Leader - Film Studies
Lesbian/Gay/Queer Cinema & Theory; Postmodernism & the Avant-garde; Horror & Science Fiction Film; Underground & Independent Cinema; Contemporary Theatre & Performance
Sharon Harper BFA, MA, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Media Theory and Contextual Studies
Photography, History and Theory; Art/Media Connections; History and Theory of Art Production & Distribution; Contemporary Art Theory; American Art Post-WW11
Matthew Harris BA
Senior Lecturer in Fashion Textiles
Textiles
Ros Jennings BA MA PhD
Head of Postgraduate Research Centre
Film & TV Audiences; Australian TV and Film; National Cinemas; Feminist, Postmodern & Queer Theoretical Approaches to Representation
Michael Pinfold BA MA PhD
Principal Lecturer in Media Studies
Theorising the Media; Representations of Gender & Sexuality; Languages & Linguistics; Psychoanalytic Theory; Representations of the Body; Feminist Theory
Tico Romao BFA PhD
Acting Head of Department - Communication and Media Production
American Cinema; Contemporary Hollywood Cinema; Film Theory; Cognitive Film Theory; Historical Poetics
Paul Rosenbloom BA HDipAD
Senior Lecturer in Painting and Course Leader MA Fine Art
Painting & Drawing; Australian Art; 20th Century European & American Art
Richard Salkeld BA MA
Senior Lecturer in History & Theory of Art & Design
Theories of Cultural Value; Postmodernism
Nick Sargeant MA
Head of Department of Art and Design
Photography
Paul Shaw BEd MA PhD
Research Degree Tutor/Senior Lecturer in Media Theory
Influences on news selection; Representation and meaning in news content; Journalistic attitudes and behaviour
Thomas Soper BA
Lecturer in Popular Music
Popular Music
Professor Andrew Stonyer BA PhD
Professor of Fine Art
Sculpture; Research Methodology
Tracy Symonds BA
Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication
Screenwriting; Narrative theory; Gendered spectatorship; British Cinema
Isabel Young
Senior Lecturer in Painting
Painting and Drawing