Dr David Sorfa (MA, PhD)
Senior Lecturer in Film Studies | Director of PhD Film Studies
- PhD Film Studies Director
- School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Contact details
- Tel: +44 (0)131 650 3637
- Email: David.Sorfa@ed.ac.uk
- Web: Edinburgh Research Explorer profile
Address
- Street
-
Room 4.03
50 George Square - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH8 9LH
Availability
Office hours: https://edin.ac/3AQU6gh
Background
Dr David Sorfa is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh and editor-in-chief of the journal Film-Philosophy. He has written on Michael Haneke, Czech film, surrealism, belief in cinema and the philosophical implications of point-of-view. He has particular interests in film-philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida and the presentation of thought and thinking in cinema.
He has acted as Programme Director of the MSc and PhD in Film Studies and as the Postgraduate Research Director for the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures. He was previously Head of Film Studies at Liverpool John Moores University.
Qualifications
- PhD (University of Kent)
- MA (University of Cape Town)
- BA (Hons) (University of Cape Town)
Responsibilities & affiliations
- Director of the PhD in Film Studies
- Editor-in-Chief, Film-Philosophy journal
- Convenor of the Edinburgh University Press Academic Committee
- Edinburgh Network for Studies in Secrecy
- Member of the SGSAH Media, Communications, Film & TV Catalyst
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
Membership
- British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS)
Previous
- Programme Director of the MSc in Film Studies (2013-2022)
- Postgraduate Research Director for LLC (2020-2022)
- Board Trustee of the Africa in Motion Film Festival (2015 - 2019)
Undergraduate teaching
Postgraduate teaching
- Film Theory
- Film-Philosophy
- Film and Existentialism
- The Cinema of Alfred Hitchcock
- Research Methods in Film Studies
Previous:
- Film Adaptation
- Cinema Auteurs
- Film Criticism and Analysis
- Comparative Literature (2 seminars on Jacques Derrida)
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Areas of interest for supervision
I welcome PhD applications in the areas of film-philosophy, film theory and cinematic aesthetics. I am particularly interested in projects related to existentialism.
If you are interested in applying for the PhD in Film Studies please go to: https://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/film/phd-film-studies
Current PhD students supervised
- Coming-of-Age in American, British and Czech/Slovak Cinema
- Existentialism and the War Film
- Justice in Contemporary American Horror Film
- Lars von Trier and Søren Kierkegaard
- Epistemic Injustice, Fiction and Reality in Cinema
- H. P. Lovecraft and Postliterary Adaptation
Past PhD students supervised
- 2024: PhD: Faith, Frolics, and Femininity: Re-Evaluating Irene Dunne's Hollywood Stardom
- 2023: PhD: Contemporary Poetic Cinema through the Lens of Traditional Chinese Poetics
- 2023: PhD: The Upside Down of Memory: Nostalgia and Dystopia in Contemporary American Science Fiction Television
- 2022: PhD: Queer Spies in British Cold War Culture: Literature, Film, Theatre and Television
- 2021: PhD: Late Night Double Feature: Queer Monstrosity and Cult Cinema
- 2021: PhD: Chilean Film Festivals: Promotors of Film Culture and Cinephilia in Chile
- 2020: PhD: Absurd Black Humour as Social Criticism in Contemporary European Cinema
- 2020: PhD: Cinema and Heidegger: The Call to Being in Ozu, Antonioni, Tarr
- 2019: PhD: The Interpreter of Desires: Iranian Cinema and Psychoanalysis
- 2019: PhD: Gesture in French Post-New Wave Cinema
- 2019: PhD: Broken Images: The Aesthetics and Ethics of Cinematic Iconoclasm
- 2018: PhD: The Liminal and the Invisible: Trauma and the Human Trafficking Survivor in the UK
- 2017: PhD: Spirits in Solitude: Romanticism in the Films of Sofia Coppola, Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman and Wes Anderson
- 2016: PhD: Silent Era Adaptations of 19th and 20th Century Gothic Novels and Psychological and Aesthetic Interpretations of the Monster Figure
- 2015: PhD: Aesthetics of Destruction in Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema
- 2014: PhD: Visceral Material: Cinematic Bodies on Screen
- 2014: PhD: The Communicating Village: Humphrey Jennings and Surrealism
Research summary
- Film-philosophy and film theory
- Existentialism
- Phenomenology
- Czech, European and English-language cinema
Current research interests
Fiction and imagination via existentialismConference details
https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/persons/david-sorfa/activities/
- 2016 - 2020: MA Film Studies, King's College London
- 2016 - 2020: BA Film Studies and English, MLitt Film Studies, University of Dundee
- 2010 - 2014: BA Film, Falmouth University
- 2010 - 2014: BA Film, University of the West of England, Bristol
- 2008 - 2012: MA Screening Europe, University of Swansea
PhD External Examiner
- 2023: University of Sydney
- 2019: Liverpool John Moores University
- 2019: University of Leeds (MPhil)
- 2016: Royal College of Art
- 2014: University of Cape Town
- 2014: University of Western Australia
- 2008: University of Cape Town
- 2007: University of Cape Town