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The Centre for
Critical Cultural Research
in the faculty of arts
university of plymouth |
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Critical
Spaces |
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About
Critical Spaces: the Centre for Critical Cultural Research |
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Description:
The Centre for Critical Cultural Research is a vehicle for inter-disciplinary
research in the arts, humanities, social sciences and visual technologies,
at doctoral and post-doctoral levels.
It aims to contribute to, extend and test inter-disciplinary
understandings of critical cultural practices and theories, with
emphasis on the contemporary and the (post-)modern, the engaged
and political, the philosophical and pedagogic, and the transformative.
To realise this aim while aiding the development a vibrant research
environment in the Faculty of Arts, at doctoral and post-doctoral
levels, the Centre:
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originates post-doctoral research projects in areas such as
cultural agency, art/theory post-socialism, and art/theory
and non-teleological creativity and thought;
• offers doctoral research supervision in appropriate
fields [see below]; organises research seminars, reading groups,
symposia and conferences, within and outwith the University;
• facilitates dissemination of research findings through
publication, web-based and other appropriate means;
• makes links to other European (including UK) Universities;
• and seeks resources with which to pursue these objectives. |
The Centre has no formal membership. Its seminars at the University
of Plymouth are free and open to any doctoral or post-doctoral researcher
affiliated to any recognized University. A group of staff in the
Faculties of Arts, Technology, and Social Science and Business at
the University of Plymouth is available for research degree supervision
under the auspices of the Centre.
The Centre (previously the Critical Spaces Research Group) has organized
an AHRC-funded workshop on creativity and social agency (2007);
and co-organized an international conference on the public sphere,
with the National Association of Art Critics of Armenia, at the
American University, Yerevan (2005). Papers from both events are
being developed for publication in edited books. Past seminars have
been held in collaboration with the University of Westminster and
University of Newcastle as well as at University of Plymouth. In
2007, the group hosted the 8th International Utopian Studies Conference
at Plymouth, with over 100 participants from 63 institutions in
22 countries. The Centre is convened by Malcolm Miles, Professor
of Cultural Theory.
The Centre's day to day activities are supported by the University
of Plymouth. At present research degree bursaries specific to the
Centre are not available. Information on other bursaries offered
by the University is available on its website.
Intellectual Agenda
The Centre aims to facilitate and extend critical dialogues between
academic researchers in the arts, creative technologies, and social
sciences, and cultural producers and critics, on issues of contemporary
culture and society, the relation of cultural work to social and
political change, and the imagination and realisation of socio-cultural
transformation. The Centre views the function of a University as
enabling and informing critical reconsideration of the society and
culture in which it is situated.
The Centre works across the boundaries of discipline, and of theory
and practice, to contest and reconsider the means of cultural and
social production; the construction and reception of meaning in
the creative arts; the concepts of subjectivity, agency and intervention;
and the meaning and limits of liberation.
Research Supervisors: [January 2008]
Bob Brown (Architecture)
Dr Geoff Cox (Technology)
John Danvers (Art)
Dr Marta Herrero (Sociololgy)
Dr Anya Lewin (Art)
Dr Kevin Meethan (Sociology)
Dr Malcolm Miles (Cultural Theory)
Mike Phillips (Technology)
Dr Roberta Mock (Performance)
Chris Rodrigues (Film)
Dr Deborah Robinson (Art)
Colin Searls (Arts)
Research Degree Programme:
Applications are invited for doctoral study in the following areas
(supervisors indicated after each area):
1. Contemporary Arts and Media in practice,
criticism and theory; the philosophy and poetics of art [BB; GC;
JD; MH; AL; MP; RM; CR; DR; CS]
2. Emerging Socio-Cultural Formations [CS;
GC; MM; CR]
3. Post-Socialist Cultural and Political
Discourses [MM, GC; CR]
4. The Cultural and Creative Industries
[MH; KM; RM; MP]
5. Utopian Theories and Practices [BB; MM;
CR]
Post-Doctoral Programme
The Centre organizes a range of events within the Faculty of Arts
and in partnership with other Universities. These offer a critical
intellectual space in which ideas and research findings can be shared,
tested and challenged. Future events are in the planning stage subject
to resource availability and external funding applications.
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1.
Research Seminars with invited speakers, at post-doctoral
level but are open to research students registered at any
University.
Previous invited speakers at seminars and symposia include:
Vardan Azatyan (Fine Arts academy, Yerevan, Armenia); Daniela
Brasil (Bauhaus, Weimar); Sarah Carrington and Sophie Hope
(B+B curators, London); Andrew Calcutt (East London); Monica
Degen (Sociology, Brunel); Simon Fairlie (Tinkers Bubble);
Paul Gough (Arts and Media, UWE); Andy Hewitt and Mel Jordan
(Freee Art Collective); Hilary Powell and Dan Edelsteyn (Optimistic
Productions); Valerie Holman (English, Reading); Nazaret Karoyan
(National Association of Art Critics, Armenia); Alex Loftus
(Geography, Royal Holloway, London); James Marriott (Platform
artists' group, London); Barbara Penner (Bartlett School
of Architecture, UCL); David Pinder (Geography, St Mary's,
London); Marina Prentoulis (Philosophy, Essex); Jane Rendell
(Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL); John Roberts (Arts,
Wolverhampton); Marion Roberts (Planning, Westminster); Oliver
Ressler (artist, Vienna);
2. Research Degree Forum - sharing of intentions,
experiences, methods and speculations in doctoral research,
using workshop techniques - from October 2009, available
to any research student at the University of Plymouth (and
elsewhere by prior agreement);
3. Reading Groups - on demand as and when
a researcher is prepared to convene a group based on a selected
pre-distributed and read text;
4. Symposia with invited international contributors
- for example a symposium on the public sphere at Exeter
in June 2005 (prior to the October 2005 conference at the
American University, Yerevan, Armenia); next event: symposium
on Cultural Memory, May 2008;
5. International Conferences - including
to date the 2005 conference on the public sphere with the
National Association of Art Critics, Armenia; the 8th International
Utopian Studies conference at Plymouth in July 2007.
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Critical
Spaces: the Centre for Critical Cultural Research
in the faculty of arts, university
of plymouth |
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