Third-cycle (doctoral) programme in Film Studies
Interested in doing research within the field of film studies? We offer opportunities for research on film and moving images in an environment where film history, contemporary media culture, archives, popular culture, and societal issues intersect.
In film studies, the development of moving‑image media is examined from the birth of cinema to today’s diverse media landscape. Subjects addressed are filmmakers, genres, technologies, and the aesthetic, ideological, economic, and societal significance of film. Central questions concern how film and other moving images create meaning, shape perceptions, and interact with their historical and cultural contexts.
Research Areas
Film studies research at Linnaeus University encompasses both historical and contemporary perspectives. Research includes, for example:
- Swedish and Nordic film
- Children’s film
- Film and national imaginaries
- Popular culture
- Gender and sexuality
- Film censorship
- Film archives
- Cultural heritage
- Digitalization
- Documentary film
- Early cinema
- Film and colonial history
- The relationship between film and other media
As a doctoral student, you will have the opportunity to develop an independent research project in dialogue with a research environment where film is understood as an art form, cultural heritage, social phenomenon, and historical source.
General study plan
An Interdisciplinary Environment
Film studies at Linnaeus University has strong connections to several research environments. Researchers in film studies are active within the Linnaeus University Centre for Intermedial and Multimodal Studies (IMS), which brings together researchers and doctoral students working on intermediality, multimodality and media.
For projects with colonial, postcolonial, and global‑historical perspectives, there is also an important link to the Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, an interdisciplinary research environment focusing on colonialism, imperialism, and their historical and contemporary consequences.
Film studies also intersects with the Centre for Popular Culture Studies (PoCuS), where popular culture is studied in historical and contemporary contexts, and the Centre for Childhood Research in Literature, Language and Learning (CHILLL), which includes research on children’s and youth film.