Applications are invited for PhD studentships aligned specifically to the 'Genders and identities' research theme and to our mini-CDT in 'Feminism, Sexual Politics, and Visual Culture' at Loughborough University. We are looking for highly motivated scholars and practitioners who are keen to contribute to our vibrant and eclectic research culture.

Loughborough University is a top-ten rated university in England for research intensity (REF 2014). In choosing Loughborough for your research, you will work alongside academics who are leaders in their field. You will benefit from comprehensive support and guidance from our Doctoral College, including tailored careers advice, to help you succeed in your research and future career.

The Genders and Identities theme and the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT): Feminism, Sexual Politics, and Visual Culture are led by Professor Hilary Robinson. Genders and identities are understood as inclusive, intersectional, concerning not only gender as a category and feminism and a set of politics, but also addressing all forms of identities – 'race', ethnicities, national identities, class, sexualities, etc. The CDT is aligned to this theme. The CDT studentships are focused at the intersection of feminism and visual culture, exploring areas that include, but are not limited to: critical race theory; activist interventions; curation and arts' canons; masculinities; post-humanisms; and queer theory. Further, 'visual culture' or 'arts' to us is inclusive of all practices where visuality is significant, including performative and written modes.

The Genders and Identities theme would especially welcome research proposals focused on one of the following subjects:

- Feminist making and doing. From personal conversations to the most public of awards, women have highlighted gendered and raced inequalities within arts spaces and canons. How might feminist approaches to curation, archiving and canonisation (including critique of masculinist canon- and discipline- formation, verbatim theatre, 'queering' the gallery, or identity-specific literary prizes) challenge these inequalities? How, in association with institutional partners, might these challenges provide adventurous pathways to real and measurable change within the arts? How can we interrogate the gendered and raced associations of materials and processes of making and doing in highly gendered and raced working environments, and how do we negotiate the personal, artistic, academic, and professional risks in doing so?

- Critical race theory, national and trans-national identities: how does feminist thinking about art intersect with critical race thinking? How are raced identities in the art world negotiated, and how can they be historicised, within a feminist framework? How can we produce feminist critiques of national identities? How might we engender feminist methodologies capable of addressing transnational mobility and cultural movement across boundaries? 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 art and feminist theory as well as explorations of new ways of writing feminist art theory.


For 2019-20, the CDT in 'Feminism, Sexual Politics and Visual Culture' is looking to offer a PhD studentship to a researcher working on the subject of post-human bodies. Revolutions in bio-engineering, robotics, medicine, architecture and social media have transformed our relationships with bodies. Working in the intersections of arts and applied sciences, and of new technological and theoretical developments, how can we bring feminist methodologies to bear on the process of (re)making the body? How can we re-evaluate our dependency within and between human, animal, mechanical, virtual and other hybrid bodies? What does it mean to be human in a post-human world?

https://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/aed/pg-research/phd-research/feminism-sexual-politics-visual-culture-cdt/
https://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/aed/staff/academic/hilary-robinson/