PhD in CULTURAL STUDIES
The programme supports transdisciplinary investigations into city and visuality, identity and representation that include tensions between the local and the global, the visual and the linguistic, non-western and western intellectual traditions.
We invite research on visuality and visual culture, photography, place and memory, graffiti and materiality of writing, spatial and visual practices intersecting architecture, the city, text and image, and bookworks.
Specific area expertise in the programme includes the cultural landscapes of East/Central Europe and the post-socialist city, and semiotic spaces of the Canadian city.
We also welcome research interest in visual essay, critical writing forms, experimental visual methodologies, and practice-led investigations within the overlapping concerns of textual and design practices. Driven by our interest in trans-disciplinarity and critical design pedagogies, we insist on close collaborations and scholarly conversations among the research students in Cultural Studies and Architecture by creative practice (by Design).
The programme benefits from a broad research expertise across Architecture and the Edinburgh College of Art, and from close collaborations with colleagues at the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (in Chinese Cultural Studies, Spanish, Italian and German) as well as with researchers in Cultural History, Sociology, Canadian Studies and Religious Studies.
ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS
• a good postgraduate degree in a relevant subject;
• an interesting research proposal fitting within the research expertise at Edinburgh;
• for non-native speakers: evidence of English proficiency: minimum of IETLS 7.0 (with minimum 7.0 in writing) or equivalent;
• two academic letters of reference sent directly to the Graduate School.
IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU DISCUSS THE PROPOSED TOPIC OF RESEARCH WITH A MEMBER OF ACADEMIC STAFF BEFORE APPLYING
ONLY COMPLETE APPLICATIONS WILL BE CONSIDERED
YOUR DOSSIER MUST INCLUDE:
• transcripts and degree certificates
• language proficiency certificate for non-native speakers
• detailed CV
• statement of interest
• portfolio of work including a writing sample (this could be a published article, as essay or a chapter from your graduate dissertation)
• detailed research proposal and provisional bibliography.
CURRENT RESEARCH STUDENTS
Fiona Hanley (PhD Cultural Studies) Writing Languages of Inquiry: the role of writing in academic research. Graduate School of ACE Award for 2010‐13, AHRC Doctoral Scholarship 2011‐13 (with Prof Mark Dorrian, Newcastle Architecture Research).
Wendy Anne Stewart‐Zyw (PhD in Cultural Studies) Street Art and the Politics of Indigenous Space in Vancouver and Belfast, 2011‐14. (with Dr Claudia Hopkins, Art History)
Konrad Matyjaszek (PhD in Architecture) Jewish Places: Visibility of Jewish Memory in the Urban Space of Poland. ECA PhD Scholarship 2012‐15. (with Dr Hannah Holstschneider, Jewish Studies)
Alexandra Ntouvli (PhD in Cultural Studies) Teaching critical literacy and popular culture. Greek Educational Scholarship 2012‐15. (with Dr Nick Prior, Sociology)
Jane McArthur (MSc Research Cultural Studies) War Ruins: Sites and Memories of Destruction. Andrew Grant Postgraduate Award for MSc Research 2010-11.
Maria Güther (MSc Research Cultural Studies) Visual Representations of Competing Memories in the Lithuanian Museum and Memorial Landscape. 2012-13. (with Dr Hannah Holtschneider, Jewish Studies)
IN COLLABORATION WITH OTHER PROGRAMMES:
Konstantinos Avramides (PhD by Design in Architecture) Mapping the Social Life of Walla: On graffiti, territoriality and public space, ECA PhD Scholarship 2012‐15. (with Dr Dorian Wiszniewski, Architecture)
Piotr Lesniak (PhD Architecture by Design) Political Destruction, Spatial Remedies. Principal’s Scholarship for Architecture 2011‐2014 (with Dr Dorian Wiszniewski, Architecture)
PAST RESEARCH STUDENTS:
Konrad Matyjaszek:
Visibility of Jewish Memory in Warsaw. MSc by Research in Architecture/Cultural Studies 2012 (AHRC Scholarship 2011/12)
Piotr Lesniak:
Drawing (out) the Invisible. MSc by Research Architecture/Cultural Studies 2011
(AHRC Scholarship 2010/11)
Jack David Burton:
Representations of Family and Fatherhood in Contemporary British Media.
PhD 2011 (AHRC Scholarship 2007-2010
Hanna Sommerseth-Cannon:
Being Virtual: Experience and Embodiment in Interactive Computer Game Play.
PhD 2010 (Overseas Research Student Award, 2005-2008)
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