Three Adventure Mini CDT PhD Studentships:
Feminism, Sexual Politics and Visual Culture
Loughborough University, England

Application details:
Informal information day: 21/4/2018
Closing date for applications: 18/5/2018
Interview date: 14/6/2018
Start date of studentship: 1/10/2018

Our PhD scholarships in feminist thinking, sexual politics and visual culture respond to this generation’s political-cultural challenge and celebrate adventure, risk, urgency and promise. Global complexities in academic, political, and artistic relationships between feminist praxis and culture are radically changing. Our scholarships support this movement and are based on feminist pedagogic principles, aiming to extend proven expertise into the new cultural sexual politics.

The supervisory group is committed to applying feminist thinking to research. We welcome proposals informed by (and informing) recent developments in theoretical frameworks of feminism, sexual politics, and visual culture. Applicants may have experience in- or out-side the academy, not only in the creative, performing and literary arts, politics and social science, but also in fields with strong investment in sexual politics and visual culture, such as medicine, robotics, or engineering. Supervisory teams are allocated from the Adventure CDT: Feminism, Sexual Politics and Visual Culture group as appropriate for the successful applicant. See information in the link below.

1. Spaces of (Mis)Rule:
Activist movements like #metoo and #notsurprised have made public widespread sexual- and power-abuse across arts practices and institutions, shattering the image of these spaces as liberating, experimental, and interrogative of the status quo. How can we, as feminist theorists and practitioners, respond to this exposure and new cultural risks? How can the collective joy of activism work strategically to prevent backlash? How can new historiographies of these spaces, and creation of new spaces, aid our understanding of and resistance against systemic exploitation? What are the critical and practical implications for the places of arts education, production, exhibition, or performance?
Reference number: SAED-HR1-18

2. Dissenting Identities:
(Re)definitions of gendered, sexual and transnational identities frequently respond to – or are challenged by – hyper-masculinity and ultra-nationalism. The current climate makes urgent the need for new, historically-informed theories of alternative masculinities and queer, trans*, and transnational identities. How might exploration of non-normative culture, history and community through arts practices and theories help protect and develop dissenting, precarious, or marginal identities? Do attempts to promote these identities (for example, in presentation spaces and criticism) run the risk either of neutralising radical identity positions through assimilation, or of erasing the most marginal in the search for solidarity?
Reference number: SAED-HR2-18

3. Decolonising Theory and Intersectionality:
How does feminist thinking in arts theory and practice intersect with critical race thinking? How are raced subjectivities, identities and bodies negotiated through the arts, their environment, and the academy, and how can they be historicised, within an intersectional feminist framework? How can feminism as a political project be legible in differing cultural contexts? We welcome case studies that move beyond multi-national perspectives on contemporary creative/professional practices and feminist theory, including into new ways of writing feminist theory and testing it through practice.

Reference number: SAED-HR3-18

Find out more:
An optional open information session, followed by opportunity for a one-to-one informal discussion of your project will be held on: 21/4/2018. Further details of this, the supervisory group, and what is required in your proposal can be found at:
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/aed/pg-research/phd-research/centre-doctoral-research/

Entry requirements:
Applicants should normally have at least a 2:1 Honours degree (or equivalent), an MA and/or practical experience in a discipline or area related to their proposal.

Funding information:
Studentships will be paid for a period of up to three years, starting October 2018 and will provide a tax-free annual stipend of £14,777 (18/19 RCUK rate) and tuition fees at the UK/EU rate. International (non-EU) students may apply however the total value of the studentship will be used towards the cost of the International tuition fee in the first instance.

Contact details:
Name: Emma Nadin (School Postgraduate Research Administrator)
Email: E.L.Nadinlboro.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1509 228901

Academic project enquiries:
Name: Professor Hilary Robinson
Email: h.robinsonlboro.ac.uk

How to apply: Online only, at http://www.lboro.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/apply/