Dr David Rolinson

Lecturer

Communications, Media and Culture University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA

Dr David Rolinson

Contact details

About me

I am a film and television historian with specialisms in docudrama and terrorism and have taught documentary for over two decades.

I have a first-class degree in English and History, and a Ph.D. in English, both from the University of Hull.

I joined the University of Stirling in 2009, before which I was a lecturer at the University of Hull.

My main administrative role at present is divisional Admissions/Recruitment officer. My previous roles include Programme Director of Film & Media, during which time Film & Media rose to #1 in Scotland and #6 in the UK, and senior Adviser of Studies for all CMC students.

My main research areas are docudrama and terrorism but I have a long record publishing on the history of British television drama. My methods include archival research, close textual analysis rooted in a sense of programme-making practice and industrial contexts, and attempts to conceptualise and interrogate methods of studying hybrid forms and television specificity.

My first book, Alan Clarke (2005), pioneered methods of studying television direction. Sight & Sound made it their 'Book of the Month'. I co-edited a collection of Dennis Potter's work, The Art of Invective: Selected Non-Fiction 1953-94 (2015), which was described by Jonathan Meades in Literary Review as 'one of the very finest collections of occasional (but far from ephemeral) writing I have read […] The scholarship of the editors is impeccable'.

Recent research topics include science documentary on mental illness using docudrama approaches; television branding in relation to coproduction; television formats relating to welfare; and torture in television drama on terrorism.

For over twenty years I have been committed to disseminating research outwith conventional academic routes. I contributed to various DVD and blu-ray releases for the BBC, BFI and Network: these include the award-winning Dissent and Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC and, most recently, Pinter at the BBC. I have written for many fanzines and non-academic book publishers. I have given public talks and interviews with practitioners at venues including the BFI Southbank, Manchester Cornerhouse and HOME.

I made dozens of contributions to the BFI resources Screenonline and Mediatheque, and I have contributed to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. I edit and write for my own website: www.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk, which has run since 2009 (and incorporates a Play for Today resource I have edited since 2003). The site includes a detailed list of my publications, conference papers, public talks, media appearances and much more: http://www.britishtelevisiondrama.org.uk/?page_id=4789.

PhD supervision:

I welcome any applications within film and television studies, in particular those which use historical, archival or textual approaches.

My primary areas of research expertise are documentary, docudrama, terrorism in the media, British television drama, British cinema, film history and television history, but I am happy to receive applications that don't necessarily fit with the topics listed above as a research topic or in my teaching list. I have experience teaching, researching and writing on a range of topics not immediately apparent from those pages, including adaptation, African literature, labour history, comic books, welfare and radio comedy.

I have supervised PhDs in film theory and cultural theory, and undergraduate dissertations with a wide range of approaches across media, film, television, feminism, artists' exhibition practices, creative industries, and interdisciplinary work such as a Faculty prize-winning dissertation synergising media and psychology approaches to binge-watching.