In Memory of Robert Furze

It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of Robert Furze (1971-2013), who passed away on March 29, 2013 at the age of 41. Robert was a member of the Faculty of Humanities at Dublin City University (DCU), where his research was supported by a two-year Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) scholarship. Robert had been a member of SCMS from 2011 to the present.

Robert was awarded first class honours for his B.A. degree in Histories of Modern Art, Architecture and Film at Sheffield Hallam University in 2004, and for his M.A. in Film and Television at DCU. He completed his Ph.D. thesis, entitled "The Visceral Screen: Between the Cinemas of John Cassavetes and David Cronenberg, a Barthesian Perspective,” at DCU in 2011 under the supervision of Dr. Pat Brereton. Robert lectured undergraduate and postgraduate students at DCU in courses on Analyzing the Media, The Social Applications of Film, and Science Fiction Cinema, while supervising M.A. students working on film and multimedia theses. He also taught courses and led workshops at Filmbase, Dublin’s non-profit resource center for aspiring filmmakers.

Robert presented his work at a number of international conferences, including a symposium on "The Writer on Film" at The University of York in 2010 and at "Media in Transition 7" at MIT in 2011. He published essays and reviews in various journals, including Convergence and Estudios Irlandeses; his co-authored articles on Avatar and The Tree of Life are forthcoming. He was completing a contracted book based upon his dissertation at the time of his death, and planning collaborative research on the aesthetic connections between video games and cinema. He was passionately dedicated to his chosen field. We hope that his work will serve as a partial tribute to a career that ended too soon.