Professor Rob Stone BA, PhD

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• BA (Film and Art)
• PhD (Film and Literature)

After graduating in Film Studies and Art History, I worked for several years in Spain and completed my doctoral studies in Spanish film and literature at the University of Wales. I then worked as lecturer in the University of Aberystwyth before moving to Swansea University in 2004, where I was Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Media and Communication. I was promoted to Professor in 2007 and this was recognised by ANECA (Spanish Government) in 2010.

I became Professor of Film Studies at the University of Birmingham in 2012 and held a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship 2012-14. This enabled me to work on a monograph on Basque cinema with a colleague from the University of Deusto in San Sebastián that was published in English and Spanish. In 2015 I was awarded the Koldo Mitxelena Chair in Basque Studies at the University of Chicago.

I have contributed to numerous academic journals and edited books as well as Time Out, Cinemascope and Sight & Sound. I have also contributed film notes and commentary to the DVDs of the films of Julio Medem and a special feature with Dr Dave Johnson on The Criterion Collection blu-ray box-set of Richard Linklater’s The Before Trilogy.

At the University of Birmingham I co-direct B-Film: The Birmingham Centre for Film and Television Studies, supervise numerous research students, and lecture on World Cinema and American and European cinema.

I am currently working on a new, revisionist history of American Independent Cinema that builds on my recent work on the films of Richard Linklater and Greta Gerwig. This project includes my co-organisation of a major international conference in 2023 on the topic of A24 and American independent cinema.

I lecture and supervise research on World Cinema, American and European Cinema, Film Authorship, and European and American Philosophy in relation to the politics and aesthetics of World Cinema.

I welcome enquiries about research supervision in relevant areas of World Cinema. In recent years I have supervised and examined numerous theses.

"We are having a wonderful, life-changing postgraduate experience at the University of Birmingham with its state-of-the-art campus and various academic and social events for postgraduates, which offer opportunities to meet brilliant fellow students whose friendship is enriching. The PhD course gives you the freedom to direct and refine your own research with expert guidance from academics whose supervision is helpful, rigorous and inspiring. The close interaction between students and supervisors, other academic staff, and a cohort of research students keeps our research progress on track and constantly improving. We would recommend it to anyone with a penchant for film and a curious, inquiring mind because the University of Birmingham is the perfect place to study if film is your academic interest." - Hui-Han Chen, Luis Freijo, and Will McKeown, MA by Research and PhD in Film Studies students

Find out more - our PhD Film Studies  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

I have a wide range of research interests related to Film Studies and World Cinema and a long-standing interest in independent filmmaking as a cultural, political and philosophical force. I have significant expertise in Hispanic cinemas and the dynamics of World Cinema. My current research projects focus on the ethos and praxis of American independent cinema as demonstrated by my monographs on the cinema of Richard Linklater and Greta Gerwig’s film Lady Bird as well as the forthcoming conference on A24 and American Independent Cinema: https://www.americanindependentcinema.net

I am particularly interested in the interaction and overlap of history, politics and philosophy in relation to film aesthetics. I am currently working on a revisionist history of American independent cinema and the interaction of genre and gender in the Netflix series Sex Education. I have published in English, Spanish and Italian and have been awarded major research grants by the AHRC, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust and the Mellon Foundation.

I am founder and co-director with Dr Andrew Watts of B-Film: The Birmingham Centre for Film and Television Studies, a thriving research centre in the College of Arts and Law: @BFilm__

From 2015-2020 I edited or co-edited the annual Screen Arts issue of the Hispanic Research Journal and I am reader and reviewer for a great many journals and publishers. I am also on the advisory board of Buñueliana, (In)Transition, Ikusgaiak: Cuadernos de Cinematografía and Studies in Hispanic Cinemas. I serve on the review panels of GAČR: The Czech Science Foundation, the Qatar National Research Fund, the United Kingdom Research Institute (UKRI), the Leverhulme Trust and the Review Panel of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). I have also provided consultancy, onscreen film notes and full-length feature audio commentary on the Metro-Tartan DVD release of Julio Medem’s Basque Ball (2005) and I curated a season of Basque Cinema at the National Film Theatre, London. I also appear with Dr Dave Johnson on the special feature “3x2: A Conversation” on The Criterion Collection blu-ray box-set of Richard Linklater’s The Before Trilogy. I have spoken by invitation at numerous universities, arts centres, cinemas and cultural centres in the UK, Cuba, Spain, the Basque Country, and the USA, as well as at a Cultural Committee Meeting at the House of Commons, Westminster.

I also make films and video essays. I presented my own documentary on Basque Cinema at the Belfast Film Festival and my documentary Some Stories (2018) was screened as part of the British Academy Being Human Festival. My video essay ‘Before the End’ was selected by Sight & Sound as one of the ten best of 2020.