Professor David Forrest

School of English

Faculty Director of Learning and Teaching

Professor in Film and Television Studies

David Forrest standing at podium giving a lecture
Profile picture of David Forrest standing at podium giving a lecture
d.forrest@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 8493

Full contact details

Professor David Forrest
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

I came to Sheffield in 2002 to study as an undergraduate and stayed on to do an MA in International Cinema and a PhD in British social realism. After finishing my PhD in 2009, I undertook a variety of teaching, research and public engagement roles in the School of English before being appointed Lecturer in Film Studies in September 2012. In 2018 I was made Faculty Director of Learning and Teaching, having previously served in an interim capacity as Assistant Faculty Director of Learning and Teaching and University Director of Learning and Teaching for Student Engagement.

Research interests

My research is concerned with questions of realism, class, region, and sport in film, television, and literature, and I am increasingly interested in the relationships between representations of place and landscape and audiences’ and readers’ lived experiences. I have published widely in the areas of British film and television drama, working-class literature, and pedagogy.

Much of my work has been focused on the novelist and film and television writer Barry Hines, perhaps best known for the novel A Kestrel for a Knave (1968) and the TV play, Threads (1984). Together with my co-author Professor Sue Vice, I completed a book on Hines that was published by Manchester University Press in 2017.

My third monograph, New Realisms: Contemporary British Cinema, was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2020, and concluded a decade long exploration of the evolution of realist cinema in Britain.

Between 2017 and 2021 I was co-investigator on the AHRC project ‘Beyond the Multiplex: Audiences for Specialised Films in English Regions’, working alongside colleagues from the universities of Glasgow, Liverpool and York. This work developed my interests in audiences and particularly the use of focus groups in film studies research. 

I am currently co-investigator on the OFS/Research England-funded project ‘Transforming and Activating Places’, collaborating with colleagues from Arts and Humanities Knowledge Exchange to better understand ‘what works’ in student knowledge exchange. This two-year project funds 140 students to undertake enhanced work placements with partner organisations in Sheffield and beyond, and builds upon my longstanding interests in engaged learning, employability, inclusive pedagogy, and place-based education.

My other ongoing research projects concern the role of sports narratives in British culture. I am particularly interested in what happens when former athletes, such as David Storey and Barry Hines, become writers, and what their ‘sports stories’ have to tell us about class, mental health, education, and gender.

I serve on the editorial board of The Journal of British Cinema and Television and review journal articles for Studies in European Cinema, The Sociological Review, New Cinemas, and The European Journal of Cultural Studies, amongst others, and co-convene the British Association of Film and Television Studies Special Interest Group on British Cinema and Television.

Aside from my academic work, I have written about running for The Guardian and Like the Wind magazine. 

Publications

Books

  • Wessels B, Merrington P, Hanchard M & Forrest D (2022) Film Audiences Personal Journeys with Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D (2020) New Realism: Contemporary British Cinema. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D & Vice S (2017) Barry Hines: Kes, Threads and Beyond. Manchester: Manchester University Press. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D (2013) Social Realism: Art, Nationhood and Politics. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Rodriguez-Falcon E, Barrett J, Allam C, Evans M & Forrest D (2010) The Inclusive Learning and Teaching Handbook. The Inclusive Learning and Teaching Project, University of Sheffield. RIS download Bibtex download

Edited books

Journal articles

Chapters

  • Forrest D (2020) Landscapes of Resistance in the English North: the Poetics of Freedom in Kes (1969) and The Selfish Giant (2013) In Müller KP (Ed.), Scotland and Arbroath 1320 – 2020 700 Years of Fighting for Freedom, Sovereignty, and Independence Oxford: Peter Lang. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Vice S & Forrest D (2020) Kes: from page to screen In Mayne L, Petrie D & Williams M (Ed.), Sixties British Cinema Reconsidered Edinburgh University Press RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D (2019) Art cinema and the British poetic realist tradition In Newland P & Hoyle B (Ed.), British Art Cinema: Creativity, Experimentation and Innovation Manchester University Press RIS download Bibtex download
  • Marwood K, Cleall E, Crewe V, Forrest D, Pillatt T, Thorpe G & Johnston R (2019) From researching heritage to action heritage, Heritage as Community Research (pp. 171-186). RIS download Bibtex download
  • Marwood K, Cleall E, Crewe V, Forrest D, Pillatt T, Thorpe G & Johnston R (2019) From researching heritage to action heritage, Heritage as Community Research (pp. 171-186). Policy Press RIS download Bibtex download
  • Cheeseman M & Forrest D (2018) The Narrative Nightclub, Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media (pp. 91-107). Springer International Publishing RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D (2017) Mike Leigh and the Poetics of English Suburbia In Forrest D, Harper G & Rayner J (Ed.), Filmurbia: Screening the Suburbs (pp. 49-63). London: Palgrave Macmillan. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D & Johnson B (2017) Introduction In Forrest D & Johnson B (Ed.), Social Class and Television Drama in Contemporary Britain (pp. 1-13). Palgrave Macmillan RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D (2017) Jimmy McGovern’s The Street and the Politics of Everyday Life, Social Class and Television Drama in Contemporary Britain (pp. 29-43). Palgrave Macmillan UK RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D & Vice S (2017) Screening South Yorkshire: The Gamekeeper and Looks and Smiles In Mazierska E (Ed.), Heading North: The North of England in Film and Television (pp. 113-132). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D, Harper G & Rayner J (2017) Introduction. Filmurbia: Cinema and the Suburbs, Filmurbia (pp. 1-10). Palgrave Macmillan UK RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D & Johnson B (2017) Introduction, Social Class and Television Drama in Contemporary Britain (pp. 1-9). Palgrave Macmillan UK RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D & Vice S (2016) Archival Traces of the North in Barry Hines' Looks and Smiles (1981) and Threads (1984) In Dobson J & Rayner J (Ed.), Mapping Cinematic Norths (pp. 17-45). Oxford: Peter Lang. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D & Vice S (2015) A Poetics of the North: Visual and Literary Geographies In Chignell H, Franklin I & Skoog K (Ed.), Regional Aesthetics Mapping UK Media Cultures (pp. 55-70). Palgrave Macmillan RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D (2013) 21st Century Social Realism: Shane Meadows and New British Realism In Bell M & Fradley M (Ed.) Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D (2013) Twenty-first-century social realism: Shane meadows and new British realism, Shane Meadows: Critical Essays (pp. 35-49). RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D (2013) Sheffield Film Studies and Sheffield Studies Film In Harper G & Rayner J (Ed.), Film Landscapes: Cinema, Environment and Visual Culture Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D (2013) Shane Meadows and the British New Wave: Britain’s hidden art cinema’, In Murphy R (Ed.), British Cinema. 4 Vols RIS download Bibtex download

Book reviews

Dictionary/encyclopaedia entries

  • Forrest D (2012) David Lean. In Directory of World Cinema: Britain. Britstol: Intellect. RIS download Bibtex download

Presentations

  • Forrest D & Hanchard M Through falling in love it’s like he’s seeing this landscape, seeing that beauty. University of Birmingham. RIS download Bibtex download

Other

  • Forrest D (2012) English Filming, English Writing by Jefferson Hunter. Journal of Screenwriting, 3(1), 119-121. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Forrest D (2010) Straight Outta Uttoxeter: Studying Shane Meadows, University of East Anglia, 15-16 April 2010. New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 8(2), 137-140. RIS download Bibtex download
Research group

I currently supervise and co-supervise PhD students working on a range of projects, including research on contemporary British realist cinema, an archival study of British television drama, and mixed reality storytelling. Previous student projects have included work on contemporary British realist cinema, the lost works of Barry Hines, and heritage television. I welcome applications from students wishing to work on most areas of British cinema, European cinema, television drama, and on literary, film and television narratives of region, sport and social class.

Teaching activities

I teach on and/or convene the following modules: LIT181: Introduction to Cinema; LIT 276 New Realisms: Contemporary British Cinema; LIT3058 Imagining the North; LIT6330: Analysis of Film (MA); LIT631: Post-war British Drama, Film and Television; and EGH 61006: Contemporary Cinemas.

In 2014 I was awarded a University of Sheffield Senate Award for excellence in Learning and Teaching, and in 2016 I was made a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.