Degrees by Research
61
PhD or MPhil PhD: 3 years full-time; 5 years part-time MPhil: 2 years full time; 3 years part-time The School of the Arts offers opportunities for research degrees in Art and Design and the History and Theory of Art and Design. We encourage research projects that have the potential to make a substantive contribution to these academic disciplines through the rigorous application of existing methods, as well as projects that reflect on practice within and across discipline boundaries. We support projects that exploit expertise in new technologies available within the School and across the University or that are interdisciplinary in nature. University regulations allow for a practice-based degree that includes the submission of text and the outcomes of practice for assessment, where the practice is integral to the research process.
Research Groups and Events Students are invited to contribute to our lively research community by taking an active role in various projects and research activities. We also encourage students to attend conferences, publish and exhibit. The School supports a number of distinctive research interests: ● Animation ● Interdisciplinary Fine Art Practices ● Politicized Practices ● Drawing and Visualisation ● Textiles and Technology The academic impact and reach of our research is evidenced by the School’s generation and development of five peer–reviewed journals – Tracey, Duck, Animation, Art & Public Sphere, and The Poster – which reflect our engagement with the development of worldleading scholarship and research cultures linked to historical, theoretical and practicebased research.
Animation Academy
The proposal should be about 2,000 words and include a provisional title, the question that forms the core of the enquiry, the scope of the topic, outline of methods and approach to be adopted, the relationship to current research and literature in the field, and a provisional timetable.
A centre for animation research, scholarship, practice and exhibition which embraces tradition and progress, education and industry, art and commerce – and is dedicated to excellence in all its activities. ● Maintaining the craft of animation in a changing technological and cultural climate ● Recovering the history, culture and significance of animation through critical analysis and theoretical enquiry ● Testing the role, function and definition of animation in a range of research contexts and production environments ● Animation as an entertainment, an educator, an industrial model, and an art ● Preserving animation materials and artwork for future generations of researchers and animation historians ● Creating a focus for the UK animation industry and its educational providers Academic staff: Professor Paul Wells Contact: p.wells@lboro.ac.uk
Entry Qualification
TRACEY: Drawing and Visualisation
Application and Research Proposal
Prospective applicants should contact us in the first instance indicating their topic of interest. We will then send them information on how to structure a research proposal. They must then develop a proposal and, if it meets our requirements, they will be asked to make a formal application.
Research Proposal
Good first degree and a masters degree or equivalent experience.
Funding Your Studies
Studentships are available annually on a competitive basis. Applicants are advised to contact the School for details.
Contact
Research Co-ordinator Johanna Hällsten E: j.hallsten@lboro.ac.uk Research Administrator Emma Nadin E: e.l.nadin@lboro.ac.uk T: +44 (0)1509 228901
School Support and Training for Research Students
● Students share a large seminar room and have access to all facilities within the School and across the University ● Students can apply for funding for conference attendance and for projects or activities related to their research ● In addition to the University’s extensive training provision, the School organises a more specific programme tailored to the needs of Art and Design research which includes practice-based methodologies ● Postgraduate study at the School offers opportunities for students to meet regularly with other students and staff by means of research forums, research seminars and involvement in one of the School’s Research Groups ● Academic and pastoral support: each student has one or two supervisors who provide academic support. Additional support and advice is provided by the Director of Research Degree Programmes and the Research Administrator ● Each student is invited to take an active role in projects, research activities and in one of the School’s research groups. We encourage students to attend conferences, publish and exhibit, and to contribute to our lively research community Selected Research Interests at the School ● Contemporary Art Practices and Theories ● Aesthetics ● Drawing ● Painting ● Performance ● Photography ● Art in the Public Sphere ● Sculpture ● Video / Moving Image ● Socially / Politically Engaged Art ● Collaborative Art Practices ● Modern European Art History and Theory ● Post-Colonial Art History and Practice ● Cultural History ● Women’s Art Practice ● Feminist Aesthetics ● Design History ● Visual and Material Culture ● Textile Design, Manufacture and Marketing ● Contemporary Jewellery and Ceramics, Practice and History ● Communication Arts Media / Illustration ● Graphic Design, High Technology, Future Trends ● Digital Media Arts and Animation
The Group focuses on understanding and promoting contemporary drawing practice, whilst contributing to the knowledge of the act of drawing, through outcomes of original and international significance. The Group is committed to enquiring into what drawing might be in the 21st century as a multi-disciplinary activity. ● Drawing practice in art and design ● Drawing as a means of communication ● Drawing as a visual language ● Process and cognition in drawing practice ● The nature and role of strategic knowledge in drawing practice ● The relationship of drawing to other art and design forms ● Drawing and new technology Academic staff: Alastair Adams, Andy Selby Contact: a.c.adams@lboro.ac.uk
Politicized Practice
The members of the Politicized Practice Group are artists, curators, designers, sociologists and writers. The scope of research undertaken addresses a range of disciplines including social graphics, art and the public sphere, curation, visual culture, art theory and contemporary art practice. The Group is interested in the relationship between the political and art, design and theoretical production. ● Starts from a shared question – what is a politicized practice? ● Takes an interdisciplinary approach and engages in cross-disciplinary dialogues ● Works to the principle that politicized practice – be it art, design or theory – ‘acts’ on the world ● Addresses these complexities in their individual work, while sharing a commitment to collective endeavour through engagement with the group Academic staff: Gillian Whiteley Contact: g.whiteley@lboro.ac.uk
Sexual Politics
The Sexual Politics Research Group is a multi-disciplinary group whose work encompasses historical, empirical, theoretical and practical research across the broad areas of feminism, sexual difference, gender identity and queer theory, as these pertain to the arts and humanities, sciences and social sciences. Our work is especially focused upon three, interrelated aspects of the field: ● The practices of women globally and the development of women-centred, grass-roots and networking initiatives ● Interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary gender-based research that engages with cross-cultural, migratory, diasporic and cosmopolitan ethics and aesthetics, that emphasises and promotes women’s ‘voices’ in research and that advances the development of transnational feminist theory ● The articulation of embodied, situated and intersectional subjectivities in and through the arts, sciences and humanities Academic staff: Professor Marsha Meskimmon Contact: m.g.meskimmon@lboro.ac.uk
Textiles
The Group is committed to promoting and supporting excellence through research in textiles art and design. ● The application of industrial process for the studio production of textiles, including digital jacquard technology, non-woven textiles, and laser applications for textiles ● Surface pattern and interior environments ● Textile design and new technology ● Market testing of innovative design Academic staff: Faith Kane Contact: f.e.kane2@lboro.ac.uk