Information for BA Film and Literature students 2025
Welcome to Film and Television Studies at Warwick!
We are absolutely delighted that you have chosen Warwick as your preferred place of study, and we look forward to welcoming you to the University in September. Below we have suggested some possible ways in which you might prepare for your first term, and it is accompanied by a list of preparatory reading suggested by the tutors who teach the Year 1 modules.
When you join Film and Television Studies this Autumn, you will be a member of a first-year cohort who are following one of two degrees: Film and Literature and Film Studies. All first years study four core modules in Film History, Film and Television Analysis, Film and Television Criticism and Film Theory, plus a number of additional modules. For Film and Literature students, your additional modules will be Modes of Reading and Adaptation: From Page to Screens. These modules continue into the second term as well.
The reading lists below will give degree-specific preparation, but there are a couple of general points which I thought it might be useful to explain as well. All Film and Literature students will have taken a literature A Level (usually English), and, consequently, the literature modules assume that students possess some existing knowledge of certain fundamental literary forms and modes of study that are typically explored on A-Level syllabi. Conversely, although we know that around half of you will have studied Film or Media Studies at A Level, our first-year film modules do not presume any existing familiarity with the history of cinema or key approaches to the study of the subject. If you have studied film before, I can also reassure you that you will not find that the first year at Warwick simply duplicates the teaching you’ve already experienced, because we study a dramatically broader range of films and topics, and we practice very different modes of study than is possible on any A-Level syllabus.
With regard to the reading lists, I’d also like to reinforce the fact that degree-level study involves a lot more independent reading than you will be accustomed to doing at A Level. Each film module typically involves the viewing of at least one new film per week, and there will also be compulsory supplementary critical reading which you are expected to undertake for the weekly seminars. It would be to your real benefit to undertake some preparatory reading (and viewing) over the summer.
Please also check these webpages for more information and advice about the induction process and the timetable for Welcome Week and the first week of the Autumn over the coming weeks.
The English and Comparative Literary Studies department has also provided some information and useful resources for students on joint honours degrees, including Film and Literature. You can find the relevant page on the Joint Honours information page.
We do really look forward to welcoming you to Film and Television Studies in September.
With warm wishes,
Dr Rick Wallace
Director of Film and Television Studies
Summer Reading Lists for Autumn Term Modules
For the Film and Television Studies side of your degree, an important priority should be to extend the range of your film viewing. Try to see as much as you possibly can of all types of film. Make the most of any streaming sites you have access to, along with films shown on television or in your local cinema. It would be especially useful for you to seek out films from parts of the world and periods in film history that you are unfamiliar with.
When you arrive at Warwick, you will be able to find copies or online editions of all the reading material listed below through the University Library. In the meantime, you can find preview versions of many of them through sites such as Google Books, Open Library and publishers’ websites.
Film History
This module is designed to introduce you to the study of the history of film and the study of the relationships between history and film. It will look at key film schools and movements in world cinema history from its first decades and through the twentieth century. The module will provide a survey of a range of national cinemas and situate them in relation to specific historical moments in the history of cinema. It will explore some of the factors in the global success of Hollywood cinema in the first half of the twentieth century and examine some of the ‘new waves’ and ‘new cinemas’ which have sprouted up across the globe since the post-World War Two war period. By exploring how cinematic movements are constituted and conceptualised in critical, aesthetic and political discourses, the module will aim to reflect on questions of canon formation, critical practice, the political impact of cinema, circuits of transnationalism, and modes of film production.
Suggested reading:
Two particularly useful books you might read in advance for this module are:
Kristin Thompson, David Bordwell and Jeff Smith, Film History: An Introduction, fifth edition (McGraw-Hill, 2022, or earlier editions).
Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (ed.), The Oxford History of World Cinema (Oxford University Press, 1996).
Film and Television Analysis
The first part of this module will introduce you to the main critical vocabularies for understanding the analysis of film form and meaning. It will offer extensive practice in developing the skills of close audiovisual film analysis.
The second part of the module will introduce you to the scholarly study of television, complementing and enriching your work on film in the first weeks; it will also equip you to follow a television-focussed strand of study through your degree, if you choose to do so.
Suggested reading:
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, twelfth edition (McGraw-Hill, 2020, or earlier editions). This is a useful guide to the terminology of film analysis; it has a comprehensive glossary of terms with which you should familiarise yourself as soon as possible. You can find excerpts from the book on David Bordwell’s website.
Tom Brown and James Walters (eds), Film Moments (British Film Institute, 2010). A fascinating anthology of readings of key moments from a broad spectrum of films. Readers in the UK can find an excerpt from the book on the publisher’s website.
Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White, The Film Experience: An Introduction, sixth edition (Bedford/St Martin’s, 2021, or earlier editions). A useful survey book that is best consulted in relation to Bordwell and Thompson.
John Gibbs, Mise-en-Scène: Film Style and Interpretation (Wallflower, 2002). A lucid and informative introduction to this key topic for the module.
V.F. Perkins, Film as Film: Understanding and Judging Movies (Penguin Books, 1972; De Capo Edition, 1993). An early and very influential book in film studies, written by a founding member of Film and Television Studies at Warwick.
Jonathan Bignell, An Introduction to Television Studies, fourth edition (Routledge, 2023, or earlier editions). A very useful introductory text on television studies. Readers in the UK can find an excerpt from the book on the publisher’s website.
Milly Buonanno, The Age of Television: Experiences and Theories (Intellect, 2008). A good critical and historical survey of many of the key transformations in television and television studies.
John Corner, Critical Ideas in Television Studies (Clarendon Press, 2009). A very useful introduction to key theoretical frameworks in television studies.
Karen Lury, Interpreting Television (Hodder Arnold, 2005). An excellent introduction to the textual study of television.
Adaptation: From Page to Screens (Autumn term)
This module will provide you with a thorough appreciation of a major issue that is central to your Film and Literature degree – the adaptation of texts. The first term offers a broad overview of the field by exploring the work of major theorists, including Bluestone, Cardwell, Elliott, Leitch and Stam and focussing on key debates arising in classic novel adaptation, heritage cinema and television, and popular genres, ending with a study of the figure of Sherlock Holmes.
These are the novels we will focus on in the first term (any edition is fine) the first three listed are studied in multiple weeks.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, with illustrations by Sir John Tenniel
Introductions to Adaptation Theory:
Robert Stam, ‘Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation’, in James Naremore (ed.), Film Adaptation (Athlone Press, 2000), pp. 54-76.
Sarah Cardwell's chapter entitled ‘What is (an) Adaptation?’, from Adaptation Revisited: Television and the Classic Novel (Manchester University Press, 2002).
Modes of Reading
This module is run by the English and Comparative Literary Studies department. You can find more information on the ECLS module page.