Dr Chiara Quaranta
Teaching Fellow in Film Studies
Address
- Street
-
Room 4.33A
50 George Square - City
- Post code
Availability
Office Hours
Mondays, 11.30am-12.30pm
Please email me in advance.
Background
Dr Chiara Quaranta is Teaching Fellow in Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh and an editorial board member of the Film-Philosophy journal and the book series Filosofia del cinema. She has previously taught film courses at the Universities of Edinburgh, Stirling and Dundee.
Qualifications
Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (University of Edinburgh, 2024)
PhD in Film Studies (University of Edinburgh, 2019)
MA (Università degli Studi Roma Tre, 2014)
Master Certificate (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2011)
BA (Università degli Studi Roma Tre, 2010)
Responsibilities & affiliations
Director of Learning & Teaching, Graduate School
Editorial board member of Film-Philosophy journal
Editorial board member of the book series Filosofia del cinema
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Member of BAFTSS – British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies
Undergraduate teaching
Introduction to European Cinema
Gender and Visual Representation
Previous:
Global Cinema
Global Film as/& Philosophy
Classic European Cinema
Post-War European Cinema
Reading the Screen
Postgraduate teaching
Sound and Cinema (course organiser)
Global Women Filmmakers (course organiser)
Film-Philosophy
Film Theory
Film Adaptation
Cinema Auteurs
Research Methods in Film Studies
Current PhD students supervised
Tina Kandiashvili (second supervisor)
Lucy Lu (second supervisor)
Research summary
- Film-philosophy
- Iconoclasm/Image destruction and film
- The voice in cinema
- European cinema
- Sound and film
- Film Moods
- Boredom and/in Cinema
- Gender and cinema
- Cinematic ethics
- Film and religion
- Art house film
- Film aesthetics
Invited speaker
"The Bright Night of Images: On the Black Screen in French Cinema", Modern French Research Seminar, University of Cambridge (October 20, 2025)
"Opaque Openings: On the Ambiguous Iconoclasm of the Black Screen", St Andrews Speaker Series (April 2, 2025)
"Twilight of the Icons: Cinema with a Hammer", Keynote speaker, 7th International Symposium on Cinema and Philosophy, Ankara (December 7-8, 2024)
Papers delivered
‘“Night at Its Blackest”: The Iconoclastic Aesthetics of João César Monteiro’s Branca de neve’, Film-Philosophy Conference, Espinho, July 1–3, 2024.
"'Don't Tell Mama': Empathic Unsettlement and the Body as Living Archive in Sharp Objects," NECS Conference, University of Oslo, 13-17 June 2023.
"Echo and Narcissus: Listening to Film as Being-with", BAFTSS Conference, University of Lincoln, 3-5 April 2023.
“Iconoclastic Gestures: Image-Destruction and Ethical Imagination in the Cinema.” SineFilozofi, International Symposium on Cinema and Philosophy V, Ankara, 9-11 December 2022.
“Desiring Bodies: Céline Sciamma's Sensuous Cinema.” BAFTSS Conference, University of Southampton, 7-9 April 2021.
Interview (September 30, 2020). Interview on Ray Harryhausen, documentary report. BBC Scotland [C. Bobyn, interviewer].
“Icons and Idols: Philosophical Iconoclasm in the Cinema.” Film-Philosophy Conference, University of Brighton, 9-11 July 2019.
“A Blind Tale in a Visual Medium: João César Monteiro’s Anti-Mimetic Snow White.” NECS –European Network for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, University of Gdańsk, 13-15 June 2019.
“Cinematic Images: Audio-Visual Flux or Relational Entities?” Film-Philosophy Conference, University of Gothenburg, 3-5 July 2018.
“Cinematic Iconoclasm, or the End of the Filmic World (as We Know It).” Franco-Scottish Doctoral Seminar with Antoine de Beacque, French Institute Edinburgh, 1 December 2017.
“The Image between Iconoclasm and Iconophilia: From Plato to Cinema.” The 8th International Conference on the Image, Venice International University, 31 October-1 November 2017.
“Profound Boredom as Aesthetic Category: Isidore Isou’s Traité de bave et d’éternité.” Film-Philosophy Conference, Lancaster University, 4-6 July 2017.
“Cinematic Iconoclasm in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours: Blue.” Doctoral Seminar, The University of Edinburgh, 1 March 2017.
Book
Iconoclasm in European Cinema: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Image Destruction. (2023, Edinburgh University Press) https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-iconoclasm-in-european-cinema.html
Articles
"A Digital Reimagining of the Real: Indexical Loss and Creative Potentialities in the Cinema", co-authored with F. Sticchi, Journal of Continental Philosophy [Special Issue: "The Current State of Cinema"], Volume 5, Issue 2 (April 2025). DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/jcp20254859
"In the Mood for Heideggerian Boredom? Film Viewership as Being-in-the-world." Film-Philosophy [Special Issue: "Heidegger and the Phenomenology of Film"], Volume 28, Issue 1 (February 2024), pp. 31-46. DOI: https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/film.2024.0253
“Confirmations that Were not Meant to Be: Religion, Violence and the Female Body in Love Like Poison, Heavenly Body and Stations of the Cross,” co-authored with S. Angeli, Studies in European Cinema, (online May 2021); Volume 20, Issue 1 (March 2023), pp. 20-35. DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/.../10.../17411548.2021.1921931
“A Cinema of Boredom: Heidegger, Cinematic Time and Spectatorship,” Film-Philosophy, Volume 24, Issue 1 (February 2020), pp. 1-21. DOI: https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/film.2020.0126
Book Review
"Tanya Shilina-Conte (2024) Black Screens, White Frames: Gilles Deleuze and the Filmmaking Machine,” Film-Philosophy [forthcoming]
“Nathan Andersen (2014) Shadow Philosophy: Plato’s Cave and Cinema,” Film-Philosophy, Volume 22, Issue 2 (June 2018), pp. 317-320. DOI: https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/film.2018.0082
Organiser and moderator of the Edinburgh Film Seminar. The series is aimed at expanding opportunities of knowledge exchange with students and the wider University community. Seminars organised to date:
• Forthcoming: 'Beyond the Wasteland: In Search of the British Horror Film', (November 26, 2025), Dr Johnny Walker (Northumbria University)
• 'Restitution, Repatriation, and Reclaiming Ghana’s Audiovisual Heritage', (May 14, 2025), Judith Opoku-Boateng (University of Ghana)
• '“I came into the room of paintings": Real interiors in Jane par Charlotte', (March 20, 2025), Professor Emma Wilson (University of Cambridge)
• 'Film-philosophy in Action: Screening and Discussion of Film-Philos-Orama', (February 7, 2025), Dr David Fleming (University of Stirling)
• 'Visual Trouble and the Desiring Gaze: from Pandora’s Box to The Substance', (November 12, 2024), Dr Sarah Artt (Napier University)
• ‘Transition and the Historiographical Vagaries of Silent American Cinema’, (May 22, 2024), Professor Charlie Keil (University of Toronto)
• ‘Fission-Fusion in Contemporary Film: A Case Study of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe Series’, (March 26, 2024), Dr Miranda Anderson (University of Edinburgh and Open University)
• ‘Dementia-Friendly Screenings: Caring, Useful, Colonial’, (February 13, 2024), Dr MaoHui Deng (University of Manchester)
• ‘Seberg, Stewart and Sobchack: The Posthumous Phenomenology of the Star Biopic’, (October 18, 2023), Professor Lucy Bolton (Queen Mary University of London)
• ‘Toward a Feminist Historiography of Horror Cinema’, (March 9, 2022), Dr Alison Peirse (University of Leeds)
• ‘Stanley Cavell, Scepticism, and Gender in Contemporary Film and Television’, (March 26, 2021), Dr Michelle Devereaux (University of Warwick)
• ‘Reenactment, Memory, and Witnessing: Cinematic Ethics in The Look of Silence (2014) and S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003)’, (February 24, 2021), Professor Robert Sinnerbrink (Macquarie University).