Film Studies and East Asian Studies

Film studies and East Asian studies make for a genuinely illuminating combination. Cinema is one of the defining cultural forms of the modern era, and East Asia has produced some of the most significant, commercially powerful, and artistically distinctive filmmaking traditions in the world, from the golden age of Japanese cinema and the Hong Kong action film to the new waves of Chinese and South Korean cinema. Studying them together means you can bring film-theoretical rigour to a rich and often under-explored body of work, while the cultural and historical depth of East Asian studies gives you a more grounded understanding of the contexts in which that work was produced and received.

At the University of Manchester, this joint degree provides you with a thorough grounding in film theory and history, giving you the conceptual tools to analyse moving image media across periods, genres, and national traditions. Alongside this, you will develop specialist knowledge of East Asian culture, history, and thought, examining the societies and historical trajectories that have shaped the region and its cinemas. You will develop skills in close textual analysis, historical contextualisation, and theoretical argumentation, working across both disciplines to produce nuanced accounts of films and the worlds they inhabit.

The programme runs over three years full time.

Graduates are well equipped for careers in film and media in the broadest sense, including programming, criticism, curation, distribution, cultural journalism, and research. The combination of detailed cultural knowledge of East Asia and strong critical and analytical skills is particularly valuable in an era when East Asian popular culture has global reach and commercial significance. Further study at postgraduate level in film studies, East Asian studies, or related fields is a natural progression, as are roles in education, publishing, cultural diplomacy, and the creative industries more broadly.