Dr David Sorfa

Dr David Sorfa (MA, PhD)

Senior Lecturer in Film Studies (on Research Leave for 2023)

Film Studies
School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Tel: +44 (0)131 650 3637
Email: David.Sorfa@ed.ac.uk
Web: Edinburgh Research Explorer profile

Street: Room 4.03
50 George Square
City: Edinburgh
Post code: EH8 9LH

I am on Research Leave until January 2024

Biography

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 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)

Responsibilities & affiliations

Film-Philosophy Editorial Board
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 and PhD in Film Studies (2013-2022)
Postgraduate Research Director (2020-2022)
Member of the Board Trustees of the Africa in Motion Film Festival (2015 - 2019)

Teaching & PhD supervision

Undergraduate teaching

The Cinema of Alfred Hitchcock

Postgraduate teaching

Film Theory
Film-Philosophy
Film and Existentialism
Research Methods in Film Studies

Introduction to European Cinema
Film Adaptation
Cinema Auteurs
Film Criticism and Analysis
Comparative Literature (2 seminars on Jacques Derrida)

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Areas of interest for supervision

Unfortunately I am unavailable for new PhD supervision in 2024/25.

Otherwise, I consider PhD applications in the areas of film-philosophy, film theory and cinematic aesthetics. I am also interested in projects related to European and classical Hollywood cinema.

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
Irene Dunne and Classical Hollywood Cinema

Past PhD students supervised

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 - http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/1883
2021: PhD: Late Night Double Feature: Queer Monstrosity and Cult Cinema - http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/1531
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

Research summary

Film-philosophy and theory
Czech, European and classical Hollywood cinema
Art house film
Post-structuralism and phenomenology
Existentialism
Subjectivity in cinema
Genre, especially the Detective film, the Western and Romantic Comedy
Surrealism
Film Adaptation

Research activities

The Lad Meets the Existentialists: Tony Hancock, The Rebel and Rendezvous in July 4 Apr 2023
Existentialism and Film Studies: Party Girl (1958) Precedes Party Girl (1995) 25 Jan 2023
Can We Take Existentialism Seriously? Tony Hancock and The Rebel (1961) 2 Nov 2022
Interrogating the Modes of Videographic Criticism 24 Feb 2022
Cinemas of Freedom and Alienation: Frantz Fanon and Postcolonial Existentialism 8 Dec 2021

View all 81 activities on Research Explorer

Publications

The loves of a system: Miloš Forman and Barrandov 30 Mar 2020
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Accepted/In press)
Bohuslav Brouk 21 Feb 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474208031.01644
Research output: › Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary (Published)
Seeing oneself speak: Speech and thought in first-person camera cinema 4 Feb 2019 In: JOMEC Journal: Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, pp. 104-121
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18573/jomec.185
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Belief in film: A defence of false emotion and Brother Sun, Sister Moon (21 pages) 8 Jan 2018 In: Film and Philosophy, vol. 22, pp. 36-57
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/filmphil2018224
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Review of Karl, Lars and Pavel Skopal (eds.): Cinema in Service of the State: Perspectives on Film Culture in the GDR and Czechoslovakia, 1945-1960 21 Dec 2017 In: Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17892/app.2017.0005.74
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (E-pub ahead of print)
Irony, sexism and magic in Paolo Sorrentino’s films (16 pages) 12 Oct 2017 In: Studies in European Cinema, vol. 14, pp. 200-215
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2017.1386368
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Introduction: Cinema Is (197 pages) 30 Oct 2016 In: Film-Philosophy, vol. 20, pp. 195
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2016.0010
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Editorial (Published)
The touch of history: A phenomenological approach to 1960s Czech cinema (20 pages) 24 Oct 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474405140.001.0001
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published)
What is Film-Philosophy? (5 pages) 21 Jan 2016 In: Film-Philosophy, vol. 20, pp. 1-5
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Ester Krumbachová (10 pages) Oct 2015
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published)
There is nothing outside the real: Preston Sturges on André Bazin 29 Jul 2015
Research output: › Digital or Visual Products (Published)
Entries on Kolya (1996), Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), Closely Observed Trains (1966), A Page of Madness (1926) (16 pages) 6 Sep 2014
Research output: › Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary (Published)
Phenomenology and Film (6 pages) 2014
Research output: › Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary (Published)
Beyond work and sex in Czech cinema (18 pages) 18 Dec 2013
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137370860_7
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published)
Review of A Society in Distress: The Image of the Czech Republic in Contemporary Czech Feature Film (Jan Čulík) (1 page) Oct 2013 In: Viewfinder, pp. 23
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published)
Laura Mulvey (10 pages) 1 Jan 2012
Research output: › Chapter (Published)
The Past is a Different Country: Two Czechoslovak Films Adrift in Time: Morgiana / Adelheid: Studies in Eastern European Cinema (4 pages) 2012 In: Studies in Eastern European Cinema, vol. 3, pp. 245-248
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/seec.3.2.231_5
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published)
Czech and Slovak Cinema: Theme and Tradition (2010) by Peter Hames: The Slavic Review (2 pages) 2012 In: Slavic Review: Interdisciplinary Quarterly of Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies, vol. 71, pp. 167-168
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5612/slavicreview.71.1.0167
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published)
Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses (2010) by Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener: New Review of Film and Television Studies (4 pages) 2012 In: New Review of Film and Television Studies, vol. 10, pp. 311-314
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17400309.2012.664051
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published)
Mother Joan and Her Discontents: On Mother Joan of the Angels / Matka Joanna od Aniołów (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1960) (11 pages) 2012 In: Second Run Booklet, pp. 7-17
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)

View all 50 publications on Research Explorer

External Examiner

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

This article was published on 23 Sep, 2023