Dr. David Sorfa
Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer in Film Studies
MA (Cape Town), PhD (Kent)
Email
Tel: +44 151 231 5102
Research Interests
European and World cinema, film and interpretation, psychoanalysis, surrealism, deconstruction, Czech cinema, animation, film and philosophy
Courses Taught
World Cinema, European Cinemas, Film Language, Film Criticism, Interpretation in Film and TV, Film Adaptation, Documentary: Film & Reality
Editor
Managing Editor of the journal Film-Philosophy
Current Projects
Surreal Taxonomies: The Films of Jan Švankmajer (proposed book); the city in Southern African film; World Feature Animation
Publications
2010: The Cinema of Michael Haneke: Europe Utopia. Ben McCann and David Sorfa, eds. London: Wallflower. (forthcoming)
2009: "Laura Mulvey" in Film, Theory and Philosophy: The Key Thinkers, Felicity Colman, ed. London: Acumen.
2006: "Uneasy Domesticity in the Films of Michael Haneke", Studies in European Cinema, 3.2, 2006: 93-104.
2006: "The Object of Film in Jan Svankmajer", KinoKultura, Special Issue 4, Czech Cinema (Nov. 2006). (available here)
2006: "The Trauma of History: Riders in the Sky and Dark Blue World", KinoKultura, Special Issue 4, Czech Cinema (Nov. 2006). (here)
2006: "The Nature of Animation", Senses of Cinema, no. 40, July-Sept, 2006. (here)
2006: "Reanimating the Auteur", Film-Philosophy, 10,1: 2006. (here)
2005: Finále Festival of Czech Film. Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies (University of Nottingham, 2005). (here)
2003: "Architorture: Jan Švankmajer and Surrealist Film" in Screening the City. Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice, eds. (London: Verso, 2003), pp. 100-112.
2003: “Helicopters in the Mist: The Nature of Technology and the Vietnam War Film” in Search and Destroy: Vietnam War Movies. Jack Hunter, ed. (London: Creation, 2003), pp. 233-249.
2001: “Hieroglyphs and Carapaces: Laura Mulvey’s Fetishism and Curiosity”. Film Philosophy. Vol 5, No. 5, 2001. (here)
2000: “No Spectators: Four Films on Ecstasy”. Addicted: The Myth and Menace of Drug Cinema. Jack Stevenson, ed. (London: Creation Books, 2000).
1999: “Interrupted Flows: The River Journey Film”. Lost Highways: An Illustrated History of Road Movies. Jack Sargeant and Stephanie Watson, eds. (London: Creation Books, 1999)
1993: "'Small Comfort': Significance and the Uncanny in The Crying of Lot 49". Pynchon Notes. Spring-Fall, 1993: 75-85.
1993: "The Law of the Name: Censorship and Fetishism in the South African Cut of Blue Velvet". Inter Action 2. Loes Nas and Lesley Marx, eds. (Bellville: University of the Western Cape, 1993).
Reviews
2003: “Why Bother With Cinema?” Review of Paolo Cherchi Usai’s The Death of Cinema: History, Cultural Memory and the Digital Dark Age. Preface Martin Scorsese (BFI: London, 2001). Film-Philosophy. Vol. 7, No. 9. (here)
2003: Review of Joan Plowright’s And That's Not All: The Memoirs of Joan Plowright in Cercles: revue pluridisciplinaire du monde Anglophone. (here)
2002: Review of J.M. Coetzee’s Youth in Cercles: revue pluridisciplinaire du monde Anglophone. (here)
1998: “N/M: Misreading the Womand”. Review of Patrick McGee’s Cinema, Theory, and Political Responsibility in Contemporary Culture (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1997). Film-Philosophy. Vol. 2, No. 23. (here)
Conference Presentations and Invited Talks
2010: "The Avatar Revolution", Televised Debate, France24, Part 1; Part 2
2009: "Phenomenological Autosexuality: Touch and Imagination in Švankmajer, Brouk and Patocka", Across the Frontiers: International Surrealism, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge.
2009: "The (W)hole of Film", The Film-Philosophy Conference, University of Dundee.
2009: "Romantic Comedies and Psychoanalysis: Bad Objects in Film Studies and Philosophy”, Emergent Encounters in Film Theory: Intersections between Psychoanalysis and Philosophy, King's College London.
2009: "Better In or Out? Psychoanalysis and Philosophy in Film Studies (with some thoughts on Romantic Comedies, Michael Haneke and Vomit)", Research Seminar, Philosophy Department, University of Dundee.
2008: "Home is Where the Heat Is (Burning Down the House): The Trouble with the Uncanny (Badlands and Time of the Wolf)", Rediscovering the Domestic: Interdisciplinary reflections on contemporary global cultures, School of Media, Critical and Creative Arts, Liverpool John Moores University.
2008: “Superegos and Eggs: Repetition in Funny Games (Michael Haneke, 1997, 2007)”, Philosophy and Film / Film and Philosophy: A multidisciplinary conference, University of Bristol.
2008: “Mother Joan and her Discontents: Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971) and Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s Mother Joan of the Angels (1961)”, 1970s British Culture Conference, University of Portsmouth.
2007: Introduction and discussion of Michael Haneke’s 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance at Club Filmosophy, Roxy Screen, London.
2007: “(S)tone Poem II: Sound, Silence and the Acousmatic Object in the Films of Jan Švankmajer”, AHRC Centre for Surrealism and its Legacies, Manchester Metropolitan University.
2007: “(S)tone Poem: Sound, Silence and the Acousmatic Object in the Films of Jan Švankmajer”, Living in Surrealism: 5th International Symposium on Surrealism, West Dean College, Chichester.
2007: “Mad Bodies: Representations of Insanity in Lunacy (2005) and A Page of Madness (1926)”, AHRC Centre for Surrealism and its Legacies, University of Essex.
2006: “Looking for Quays: Film as the MacGuffin of Film Studies”. The Philosophy of Film: Towards an Understanding of Film as Art. Liverpool University.
2006: “The Object of Film in Jan Švankmajer”. European Cinema Research Forum. Swansea University.
2005: “Faithless Games: A Romantic View of the Czech/Slovak Velvet Divorce”. European Cinema Research Forum. University of Leeds.
2003: “Beautiful People: Jamie Uys, the Bushmen and Other Animals”. Beasts and Texts. Association for Research in Popular Fictions. Trinity and All Saints College, University of Leeds.
2002: “World Cinema and the British University: More Than Cultural Tourism?”. International African Film & History Conference. University of Cape Town, South Africa.
2001: "PolyGram Filmed Entertainment (1991 - 1998): The Demise of a 'British' Film Studio in the Age of Global Capitalism". Screen Conference. University of Glasgow.
1999: “Architorture: Surrealist Film and the Oppression of Buildings”. Cinema and the City Conference. Centre for Film Studies, University College Dublin.
1998: “Impossible Places of Desire in the Quay Brothers’ Institute Benjamenta and the University”. The Impossible Conference. School of Drama, Film and Visual Arts, University of Kent at Canterbury
1998: “Re-Animating the Dead: Surrealist Film in the Czech Republic and Elsewhere”. Film Research Seminar. University of Kent at Canterbury.
1997: “A Lesson from Elsewhere: Jan Švankmajer, Toy Story and the Animation of the Uncanny”. Considered Unsightly: A Transdisciplinary Conference on the Freakish and Monstrous. Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Leeds.
1997: “’A wolf’s skin was hairy on the outside/ His on the inside’: Ambiguous Fetishism and the Attraction of Hair”. Romance: Loves, Lures and Illusions Symposium. Chelsea Institute of Art and Design, London.
1996: “A Metalsound of Irony: Silence and Erasure in Three Texts by Coetzee, Hagerfors and Stockenström”. THINKINGalien Conference: Thinking through Image and Sound. Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Leeds.
Other Activities
Co-founder of experimental electronic music event Hive (funded by the Arts Council, PRSF, Capital of Culture)
PhD Title
The Fetishism of Meaning: Disavowal in Kafka, Švankmajer and the Quay Brothers
