Robert Coe

Robert is an author and screenwriter based in Kent. After graduating from his Creative Writing MA & Scriptwriting BA, he is now undertaking a PhD in The Contemporary Novel: Practice as Research. Robert's research explores cinema, identity and generational theory within film. His MA dissertation on office life, greed and corporate power is now being developed into a novel. He has trained as an Assistant Script Reader and provides editorial services for novels, plays and screenplays (film and TV).  

Robert’s research interests include cinema, identity, relationships, loneliness, collecting and fandom.

PhD title

Beyond the Silver Screen: An examination of film’s influence on identities and relationships in Generations X and Z. 

Are we more influenced by film or is film more influenced by us? 

This study, as a contemporary novel, will evaluate how film’s influence/exposure reshapes social, cultural, and individual identities and relationships. Research will be reflected through characters, action, dialogue, and plot across 70 chapters (70 years of cinema). The narrative will follow a troubled relationship between a father and son, who, literally, travel through an IMAX cinema screen on a journey of self-enlightenment (via 90s Rom-coms, 80s Horror, 70s War-Drama, 60s Science-Fiction and 50s Westerns - mirrored with the son’s post-00s Superhero blockbusters, Tween franchises, and Crime-docs to discover why we attach our identities to certain eras and films). My characters will then interact with key existing storylines from films that bridged generations or redesigned outlooks, beliefs, and relationships, to understand the other generation better. I hope to identify how we can utilise cinema (as much as literature) to improve knowledge, worldviews, and cross-generational relationships for the better.

Professor Scarlett Thomas