Two AHRC-Funded PhD Studentships in Performance Studies

Two AHRC-Funded PhD Studentships in Performance Studies

Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London
Drama, Theatre and Performance, Roehampton University, London
Live Art Development Agency, London

Two full PhD studentships are being offered, one based in the Visual Cultures Department at Goldsmiths, the other in Drama, Theatre and Performance at Roehampton. Both studentships will commence 1 October 2009 and run for three years until September 2012.

The studentships will comprise an integral component of an innovative three-year research project 'Performance Matters', funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). This project will explore the challenges to ideas of cultural value presented by contemporary live art and performance practices. Co-directed by Dr Gavin Butt (Goldsmiths), Professor Adrian Heathfield (Roehampton) and Lois Keidan, it will comprise the staging of discursive and performance events in the Higher Education and cultural sectors in London. The project will be transdisciplinary in approach and is intended to investigate the changing status of performance within the institutions and practices of visual art, dance, and theatre, as well as within academic theory and cultural life more broadly.

Each of the studentships relates to a specific theme, or research track, within the project. One, addressing the theme of 'Performing Idea', will be based at Roehampton and be supervised by Professor Heathfield. The other will relate to the theme of 'Trashing Performance' and be supervised by Dr Butt at Goldsmiths. You should decide which studentship you wish to apply for and apply directly to the appropriate institution (see below). Applications are welcomed in a broad range of areas associated with performance studies, but are especially invited in the specific areas of: performative writing and forms of criticism; performance, temporality and cultural value; critical and creative dialogue; performance writing and experimental dramaturgy; and performance, transferable knowledge and curatorial practice (for Performing Idea); and on de-valued and/or vernacular performance including camp, trash, street, queer, and popular forms; 'non-serious' modes of performance participation and consumption; taste and critical judgement; unofficial performance archives and community testimonies; and performance in visual arts institutions and discourses (for Trashing Performance).

Candidates may work through either theoretical or practice-as-research methodologies. The award holder will be selected on the basis of her/his qualifications and research abilities; her/his capacities to work in a collaborative research environment; the preparedness and viability of her/his thesis proposal; and the fit between her/his proposal and the research concerns of Performance Matters.

For further information and enquiries contact either Dr Gavin Butt or Prof. Heathfield.
Application forms can be found at Goldsmiths or Roehampton.
Please mark your application 'AHRC Performance Matters studentship'.

The deadline for applications is 10am Monday 16th March.

Interviews will take place on the 2nd or 3rd April.