Unit of Assessment 33
Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen

Our submission to Unit of Assessment 33 encompasses research from our Department of Film, Theatre & Television (FTT). We carry out research in defined specialisms across Film Studies, Television Studies and Theatre. Our research outputs are primarily historical and critical studies, complemented by research-led audio-visual essays in film, and performance, installations and curation practice.

• Ranked 12th in the UK for research outputs.
• 83% of our research outputs rated 4* (world-leading) and 3* (internationally excellent).

Our research is conducted within and between three audio-visual specialisms:

• Film: research centres on the analysis of films and the histories of cinema, including work on mise-en-scène, on avant-garde and art film and digital and 3D aesthetics and technologies.
• Theatre and Performance: research explores the historical, cultural, political and production contexts of twentieth and twenty-first century performance in British and Irish theatre; diasporic performance, translation, and non-Anglophone theatres; and interdisciplinary practice-as-research.
• Television research combines archival and historiographic methods to analyse the aesthetics of TV programmes and their histories, especially of British and US drama and documentary.

Our staff have leading roles in two of the University’s Interdisciplinary Research Centres:

• The Centre for Film Aesthetics & Cultures brings together academics, filmmakers, and producers to examine political, historical, and cultural contexts of filmmaking.
• The Samuel Beckett Research Centre attracts national and international scholars to study the University’s unique collection of Beckett papers.

Staff and doctoral students

We submitted 13 staff (12.6 FTE) to REF2021 including 6 Professors, 3 Associate Professors and 4 Early Career Researchers.

Over the assessment period there were 19 doctoral completions and we developed an MA by Research to prepare further graduate students for PhD. We have increased student numbers and now have an average of 25 PhD students at any one time. In 2019/20 doctoral students came from 11 countries including the UK.

We are a member of the AHRC South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Programme. A bequest from former Reading staff member Professor Mary Bryden funds a PhD studentship in Beckett Studies.

Research centres and partnerships

• Federal University of São Carlos and the Museum of Image and Sound, Brazil: international collaboration on the IntermIdia project on intermediality in Brazilian cinema and performance.
• Trinity College Dublin: our collaboration includes testing innovative VR performance that pushes technological boundaries and opens up new forms of live, interactive experiences of Beckett’s work for digital users.
• Tate Exchange programme: we are an institutional partner in the Tate Exchange programme, creating research-focused public events for Tate Modern.

Sector recognition

Selected examples of national and international recognition between 2014 and 2020:

• Best International Documentary Prize at the Los Angeles Brazilian Film Festival (2020) (Professor Lucia Nagib)
• Treasurer, British Association for Film & Screen Studies (Professor Lucia Nagib)
• International Advisor to The Gate Theatre (Dublin) Network (Professor Anna McMullan)
• Co-convenor, Performance and Ecology Working Group for the American Society of Theatre Research (Dr Lisa Woynarski)

Examples of the impact our research has had at local, national and global levels.