MA Film Studies (Part Time)

Key details

MA FILM STUDIES (PART TIME)

Start Year

2023

Attendance

Part Time

Award

Degree of Master of Arts

Duration (years)

Are you fascinated by film as an art form? Are you intrigued by the creative possibilities of this medium, as well as its power of representation? Do you want to deepen your understanding of cinema’s history and global influence? Then this MA is for you.

On our MA Film Studies, you’ll explore the social, cultural, political, industrial, historical and aesthetic dimensions of film through a range of global case studies from Hollywood cinema to anime. As well as deepening your understanding of global cinemas, you will be taught by experts in the field of British film.

You’ll benefit from being based at a groundbreaking and world-respected centre for the subject. UEA pioneered the study of the form and remains a leading institution in the field. The MA Film Studies will give you the skills and knowledge to analyse and understand this multi-billion-pound global industry and to explore the ways in which it plays a crucial part in shaping how we understand the world around us.

About

Whether you’ve studied film and media before or are simply passionate about the field, this MA course will give you the skills to seek a career in the media, arts and related cultural industries or continue on to further study at PhD level.

You’ll jump straight in and explore the history, political significance and aesthetics of a global range of cinema, with teaching from award-winning lecturers and exposure to the most innovative and contemporary thinking.

In the Film, Television and Media Studies department our research and teaching are focused on the relationship between film, television and other media, and the creative and cultural contexts in which they are produced and consumed. We are recognised as a leading centre for the study of British, Hollywood and Asian cinemas, popular film and television genres, media consumption and feminist approaches to media.

Your studies will come to life in a number of different ways. As well as lectures, seminars and film screenings, you’ll have access to our state-of-the-art Media Suite, packed with cutting-edge media technologies including editing suites, cameras, sound equipment, sound studio and a digitisation suite.

We are also home to the extensive East Anglian Film Archive, a unique resource which you can make use of during your time here. And we have close links with the British Film Institute in London and with film festivals and local production companies.

Graduates from our MA frequently progress to PhD study or go on to rewarding careers in various fields including archiving, academia, journalism, and in the film and television industries

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Important Information

Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the courses listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the regular review of course programmes. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes, there will normally be prior consultation of students and others. Changes may for example consist of variations to the content and method of delivery of programmes, courses and other services, to discontinue programmes, courses and other services and to merge or combine programmes or courses. The University will endeavour to keep such changes to a minimum, and will inform students.

Assessment for Year 1

We know that every student has different strengths, so we use a range of individual and group assessment methods – from essays to presentations and assessed discussions. All of these assessments help strengthen your critical thinking and give you skills that are attractive to future employers.

We also use formative assessments, which do not contribute to your overall mark, but prepare you for the assessments that do. These offer an excellent opportunity to test the knowledge you’ve learned in modules, gain specific feedback on your working practices, and strengthen the chances of better marks at the end of them.

Compulsory Modules

FILM STUDIES: HISTORY, THEORY, CRITICISM

Code AMAM7002A

Credits 20

How can different theories and approaches change the way we understand film? This module provides you with a firm grounding in key theoretical and historical approaches to studying cinema and film, allowing you to navigate the complex networks of competing and intersecting debates that must be considered in undertaking postgraduate research. There will be extensive emphasis on the use and analysis of primary archival documents, equipping you with the skills to undertake your own analyses. At the end of the module you will undertake independent research that poses new questions and offers new perspectives in an area of film studies that interests you.

BRITISH CINEMA: REALISM AND SPECTACLE

Code AMAM7012A

Credits 20

What is British Cinema in the 21st century? A succession of global blockbuster successes such as the Harry Potter and James Bond franchises - or smaller, home-grown films that are aimed at a domestic market? The key to understanding the current state of the British film industry lies in the unique history of that industry, and the films, genres, and movements it has produced. It is an industry caught between different roles: wanting to speak to the world, but also producing films that speak to the 'British' character; aesthetically torn between European artistry and Hollywood commercialism. You will study how two different aspects of British cinema - described as 'realism and tinsel' (or spectacle) - move between claims of quality , emotional restraint, and documentary realism and visually extravagant, excessive and generic pleasures. You'll focus on key genres and industry trends - heritage, social realism, comedy, the 1930s British documentary movement, the 1960s 'New Wave' - that recur in the modern era, and exert a powerful hold on how British cinema is imagined. The consideration of realism alongside spectacle will allow you to consider why one has been privileged over the other, to explore those 'other' (potentially more potent) visual alternatives, and give you a better understanding of how claims of 'realism and tinsel' have clashed and co-existed within aesthetic and critical debates around British cinema. Using individual case study topics from the wealth of British cinema history, you will explore concepts of genre, authorship, class, and stardom. You'll also investigate the British response to technological innovations such as sound, colour, widescreen/3-D, and special effects, creating an alternative heritage of what counts as 'British cinema'.

Optional A Modules

(20 credits)

FANTASY GENRES

Code AMAM7001B

Credits 20

This module will develop your engagement with genre studies through the analysis of a range of fantasy genres, focusing particularly on science fiction film and television, and its overlaps with horror, epic fantasy and blockbuster Hollywood franchises. In the process, you’ll be required to think about how these genres work in terms of their textual codes and conventions, their historical contexts of production and consumption, and to analyse a range of texts in relation to a variety of social/cultural and political issues. You’ll engage with a range of theories and methods, which will also be grounded through the examination of specific texts and historical case studies.

MEDIA AUDIENCES

Code AMAM7006B

Credits 20

How do audiences engage with media texts? What approaches can we employ to understand the relationship between media and audiences? These questions are central to this module. Throughout the module you will explore a range of research traditions which seek to explain the ways audiences consume media. As well as gaining a firm grounding in different approaches in media audience research, you will engage in your own original research practice and be encouraged to reflect on its usefulness. We begin by critically exploring the main recent traditions for thinking about and researching media audiences, including approaches from mass communications, cultural studies, reception studies and the growing field of fan studies. Alongside this, you will be encouraged to reflect on the significance of the contexts which shape how audiences encounter, engage with, and respond to different kinds of media and cultural products (such as film, television, music, news, books, video games and live performances). To help grasp some of the key issues at hand, you will also read and evaluate original audience and reception research and be encouraged to assess what distinguishes good or strong from poor or weak research. As you study you’ll put your new knowledge into practice by designing and conducting some audience research of your own, while gaining experience in communicating your ideas in seminars, as well as through written work and presentations.

FEMINISMS AND TELEVISION

Code AMAM7009B

Credits 20

You will learn about the relationship between feminisms and the cultural history of (primarily) US and UK television from second wave feminism to the present. Your module charts the dialogue between feminism and television in Anglophone contexts from the 1970s through to the 2010s, focussing on flashpoint moments for feminism (e.g. the women’s liberation movement; millennial postfeminism; the global financial crisis) and touchstone texts (e.g. The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Prime Suspect, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sex and the City, Girls, Scandal) that have resonated particularly strongly with female audiences (e.g. soap operas; lifestyle TV; women centred dramas), struck a chord with feminist concerns (e.g. work/life balance, sexual freedoms, empowerment, the politics of relationships/singlehood/friendship), and generated foundational criticism by feminist television scholars. It will be structured chronologically, and topics may include feminism and female audiences; action heroines on television; the figure of the female detective; women’s work; intersectional identities (queerness, post-racial discourse, masculinities) and recessionary culture.

ANALYSING HOLLYWOOD CINEMA

Code AMAM7011B

Credits 20

'Hollywood' as an industry, cultural institution and maker of films has dominated the global cinematic imagination for decades. On this module, we investigate the history, production cultures and texts made by the US film industry from its classic period to contemporary filmmaking. This will include analysing Hollywood from a range of perspectives, which may include things like studio filmmaking, independent filmmaking, genre filmmaking and the blockbuster. In doing so we will discover the multiplicity of cinemas at work within the concept of Hollywood.

FILM AND COMICS

Code AMAM7017B

Credits 20

Comic books have a long association with the world’s film and television industries. Comics have long provided the origin sources for film and television adaptations, from the early animation and live action television to today’s blockbuster films. Moreover, comics from around the world, from Marvel and DC Comics in the USA to European bande desinee to Japanese manga, have become the origin points for vast multimedia franchises. This module seeks to understand the relationships between comics and their media adaptations. To do so, you will take a global view of the comics in film and television, considering examples from Hollywood to Asia. In doing so we will consider the range of genres and topics that comics have influenced within film and television cultures including: issues of ideology and gender, issues of adaptation, franchising and transmedia production.

CRITICALLY QUEER: SEX, GENDER AND SEXUALITY

Code HUM-7009B

Credits 20

How are sex, gender and sexuality brought together to ensure the normative privileging of heterosexuality and the sex/gender binary? What possibilities are there for resistance to these norms? How does such resistance situate us socially, culturally, and politically? With queer theory as its focus and drawing on case studies from different fields – literature, film, drama and performance, politics, history, among others – in this interdisciplinary module, you'll examine sex, gender, and sexuality as effects of historically specific socio-cultural and geo-political power relations. Rather than approaching queer studies as a singular or coherent school of thought, you'll be encouraged to continuously problematise queer studies as a field and a mode of analysis, asking: What does it mean for theory, in particular, to be queer? What is involved in queering theory and being critically queer? What kinds of bodies or desires does queer describe? What are the promises of queer theory, and what are its perils? What is the future of queer? While doing so, you'll explore a variety of topics, such as politics of difference, representation and cultural production, performance and performativity, temporality and spatiality, subjectivity and embodiment. Overall, in this module, you'll problematise and challenge normalisations, hierarchies and relations of domination and explore the powerful processes and languages that attempt to fix sex, gender and sexuality as unchanging and universal.

CULTURAL HERITAGE & ARCHIVING IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Code HUM-7011B

Credits 20

This module introduces you to the theoretical and practical study of digital heritage and archiving, through an engagement with the collections of the East Anglian Film Archive (EAFA) and the British Archive for Contemporary Writing (BACW). It will address theoretical developments in cultural heritage and digital humanities, comparing traditional approaches to archival principles and practices to new developments in preserving digital media. The module will allow you to explore practical issues of collection management and administration, including collection development, appraisal and accessioning policies, cataloguing and accessing data, copyright and licensing issues, and ethics and standards. It will take you through the ‘lifecycle’ of the archival object from acquisition to arrangement, description, preservation and subsequent access. Along this journey we will consider topics such as digitisation, migration, authenticity, restoration and copyright. At the end of the module you will have a good understanding of key issues and processes within the archive sector and be in a position to apply for internships or volunteer opportunities within UEA Archives or other heritage organisations.

September 2023 opportunities. Discover more

Open Days

Important Information

Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring and review of modules. Where this activity leads to significant change to a programme and modules, the University will endeavour to consult with affected students. The University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff. Availability of optional modules may be restricted owing to timetabling, lack of demand, or limited places. Where this is the case, you will be asked to make alternative module choices and you will be supported during this process.

Assessment for Year 2

Once you reach your second year in the MA programme, you’ll be moving towards even more independence in your assessment. From devising your own research questions for module-specific assessments to devising, developing and completing the extended research project of the dissertation, you will be assessed on your ability to work independently to collate and evaluate a range of materials.

Compulsory Modules

WOMEN AND FILM

Code AMAM7008A

Credits 20

Why are women still under-represented within film? Why are women filmmakers still struggling to get their creative visions on screens? Our intention is to explore and critically reflect upon the relationship between women and film whilst focusing on issues such as women’s cinema as counter cinema; women’s cinema as minor cinema; women filmmakers; international women’s film festivals; the representation of women in film; female spectatorship, (fe)male gaze; sexuality; feminism and post-feminism in film; female subjectivity; female desire, feminist filmmaking. We will focus on analysing contemporary films from a variety of national and transnational cinemas that may include Hollywood, British, Turkish, Japanese, Argentina, Palestine, India, Greece, Portugal, Africa and Brazil.

FILM STUDIES DISSERTATION

Code AMAM7500X

Credits 60

A dissertation is an opportunity to be creative and to pursue your own research interests. You will propose, plan and conduct your very own project, specialising in an area of academic research that interests you and you will contribute to this research with your dissertation. For students on MA Film Studies this contribution will take the form of an academic piece of research and writing, very similar to a journal article or book chapter. Your dissertation will be an opportunity to conduct a large project of independent research. You will be able to showcase advanced research skills. To help you make this project a success, you will be assigned a dissertation supervisor who will support you throughout your research journey. You will be able to discuss with them your research proposal, your contribution to existing research and your research findings.