Professor Jonathan Bignell

-
Professor of Television and Film
REF Unit of Assessment Lead
Areas of interest
I work primarily on television history and the methodologies of television and film analysis. So my work includes using archival sources alongside the detailed study of the audiovisual form and style of films and television programmes, mainly from the UK and USA. I was taught by Raymond Williams, Stephen Heath and other screen theorists, studying at the universities of Cambridge and Sussex. I also have longstanding research interests in Samuel Beckett's media drama. I have led teams of researchers on several major collaborative externally funded research projects:
- Spaces of Television (2010–2015)
- Acting with Facts (2007–2010)
- Beckett and the Phenomenology of Doodles (2006–2009)
- British TV Drama and Acquired US Programmes, 1970–2000 (2005–2008)
- Cultures of British Television Drama, 1960–1982 (2002–2006)
- The BBC Wednesday Play and Post-War British Drama (1996–2000).
- Harold Pinter: Histories and Legacies (2017-20).
- Supervising Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow, Dr Pim Verhulst’s project, “Entangled Theatre History and the Ephemerality of Radio" (ETHER), (2025-2027).
Postgraduate supervision
I have supervised over 20 PhD theses on topics in TV drama, science fiction film and television, Beckett's media plays, and screen adaptations of British classic novels.
Teaching
I have taught television, cinema, critical theory and literature at the universities of Sussex, Royal Holloway and Reading.
Research centres and groups
Professional bodies/affiliations
- General Editor, The Television Series, Manchester University Press
- Member of the editorial advisory board, Journal of Science Fiction Film and Television
- Member of the editorial advisory board, Studies in Documentary Film
- Member of the editorial advisory board, Journal of Popular Television
- Scientific Committee, Revue LISA/LISA e-journal
- Member of the Board of Trustees, the Beckett International Foundation
- Member of the Advisory Committee, the British Association for Modernist Studies
Selected publications
Full-text PDFs of some of my publications can be downloaded for free on Academia or from the list of publications below.