Dr Warren Buckland

PhD Film Studies

Reader in Film Studies

School of Arts

Role

Warren Buckland is Reader in Film Studies in the School of Arts. He studied photography (Derby, 1987) before moving into film studies (Ph.D. Film Studies, University of East Anglia, 1993). His research and teaching activities encompass film semiotics, cognitive film theory, narrative theory (puzzle films), and digital humanities.

Teaching and supervision

Courses

Modules taught

  • Film Theory
  • Independent American Cinema
  • Dissertation Supervision (BA and MA)
  • Research Methods (MA)
  • Digital Humanities

Supervision

  • MA Dissertations on film theory, Hollywood cinema, digital humanities, film style
  • Supervised PhD theses on on Film Style, Film-Philosophy, Puzzle Films, Hollywood Cinema. 

Research

Warren Buckland's areas of Research:

  • Film theory
  • Narratology
  • Contemporary cinema (Hollywood blockbusters; puzzle films; new sincerity) 
  • Digital humanities
  • Pedagogical research
  • Independent American cinema

Research grants and awards

  • British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Film Studies in 1994 (the first of its kind in film studies)
  • Senior Research Fellow in Cinepoetics, Freie Universität Berlin (Autumn semester 2016)

Research projects

  • Who Wrote Citizen Kane? A Computer Analysis of Disputed Co-Authorship
  • Narrational Strategies in contemporary cinema (including Christopher Nolan’s Following, Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir).

Groups

Publications

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Professional information

Conferences

  • Keynote: “Revisiting Videogame Logic: Impossible Storyworlds in the Contemporary Hollywood Blockbuster.”
  • Fast, Slow & Reverse. Faces of Contemporary Film Narration: Around Mainstream Cinema, Gdańsk, 24th–25th May 2017.
  • “The Impossible Storyworlds of Michel Gondry’s Music Videos.”
  • Watching Music Colloquium, Paris Philharmonic, December 2-3, 2016.
  • “Symbolic Meanings in Filmic Discourse: From Syntagm/Paradigm to Embodied Cognition (by way of Metaphor/Metonymy).”
  • Cinepoetics Workshop, Freie Universität Berlin, June 8-10, 2016.
  • “‘Practical Ways of Thinking’: Challenging the Film Theory/Film Practice Division.”
  • Film-Philosophy Conference, University of Oxford, July 20-22, 2015.
  • “The Dissociation of Body and Voice in The Trial (1963) and Inland Empire (2006).”
  • Listening Cinematically Conference, Royal Holloway, University of London, 25-26 June, 2015.
  • “The Craft of Independent Filmmaking.”
  • Independent States Conference, Institute for Creative Enterprise, Edge Hill University, 4-5 September 2014.
  • Keynote: “Source Code’s Videogame Logic.”
  • Film, Virtuality, and the Body conference at Rome 3 University, 26-28 November 2013.
  • Keynote: “Cognitive Semiotics Revisited.”
  • Opening address at the International Congress of the Colombian Association for Semiotic Studies, Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, Bogota, Colombia September 16, 2013.

Consultancy

  • Editor of the journal the New Review of Film and Television Studies (Routledge, 2003-2016) (editorial board member 2017-).
  • Member of the editorial board of the journal Signata: Annales des sémiotiques.
  • Member of the editorial boards of the following book series: Thinking Cinema (Continuum International Publishers) and The Hollywood Studio System (Routledge).
  • Reviewer of manuscripts and book proposals for Amsterdam University Press, Edinburgh University Press, Blackwell, The Open University Press, Wallflower Press, MIT Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Berghahn, Bloomsbury Academic, and Routledge.