university of edinburgh phd humanities

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What is the Doctoral College?

The University of Edinburgh Doctoral College is a coordinating structure for all postgraduate researchers, supervisors and relevant staff at the university, designed to enhance and support the postgraduate student experience. 

For information and resources for research staff, please see the Research Staff Pages:   https://www.ed.ac.uk/researchers

A Doctoral College Welcome Event for all Postgraduate Researchers was held on 12th September 2023. A recording of this event is available to watch here -  https://edin.ac/3PIYbYv 

A Town Hall Event for all Postgraduate Researchers ran on the 23rd January 2024 - A recording of this event is available to watch here - Recording

PhD stories

Our extraordinary PhD students come from all walks of life and all backgrounds. In this collection of short videos, some of them share their experiences -   PhD Stories

Vision and strategy

The purpose of the Doctoral College, our vision and strategic objectives.

People and structure

About the Doctoral College leadership and management structure, and the wider Doctoral College team.

Personal and professional development and training

Information about professional, careers and personal development training and opportunities for  UoE   PGR  students.

Wellbeing, community and representation

Information on student representation, wellbeing services and opportunities for engagement.

Support for PGR supervision

Information and guidance for staff who supervise research students.

Doctoral training centres

Information on funded PhD training programmes and support for directors and administrators of these programmes.

Essential information for postgraduate researchers

Code of Practice for Supervisors and Research Students (PDF)

College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences - PGR pages

College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine - PGR pages

College of Science and Engineering  (EASE log in required)

Information for prospective postgraduate research students

New student pages

Postgraduate study degree finder

This article was published on 2023-12-07

Humanities-led responses to current crises

Find out about our latest activities, and opportunities

Our reading group meets once a month

Exploring recordings of our lectures & workshops

Discover upcoming and past events (within and beyond EEHN)

Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network

The edinburgh environmental humanities network presents researchers within the humanities with a forum in which to engage with each other’s work, to share insights, and develop collaborative partnerships., news & events, reading group, upcoming events.

Lost in West Port Garden times – Invite to workshop 4th June

Professor Dolly Jorgenson, ‘New natures: Artificial reefs, oil structures, and fishy agency’ Wednesday, 29 May

CRITIQUE-EEHN Seasonal Session: Spring in the Meadows – 8 May 2024, 1pm

EEHN | SPSS Social Anthropology hosted talk by Sophie Chao (University of Sydney) 14 May

EEHN Cromarty Retreat: Tidal Movements in Environmental Humanities

EEHN to host 2024 ASLE-UKI Biennial Postgraduate Conference

New Environmental Humanities Fellows for 2024

Reflections on ‘Resisting Toxic Climates: Gender, Colonialism, Environment’

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Digital Cultural Heritage

The Digital Cultural Heritage cluster brings together researchers from across the University of Edinburgh who work on analysing, understanding and developing new approaches to the relationships between data, digital and cultural heritage.

“People from across the University of Edinburgh work on research and knowledge exchange relating to cultural heritage. The Digital Cultural Heritage cluster connects these people and celebrates work they do that engages with a very broad range of topics, concepts and technologies.” Dr Jen Ross  and  Dr Philippa Sheail , Digital Cultural Heritage Cluster Leads

Working with a wide range of partners in the gallery, library, archive and museum sector, cluster members are researching tangible and intangible cultural heritage as it relates to digital preservation, sharing and copyright, new audiences, organisational transformation, learning from collections, community engagement, tourism, curatorial practice, text mining, and geographical information systems.

Our research spans both local and global heritage contexts, and draws on a wide range of theoretical perspectives.

Image credit: Mols, Nick; Khan, Asad; Boyd, Mike. (2019). 55 George Square during Edinburgh Festival, [dataset]. University of Edinburgh. Centre for Data Culture and Society.  https://doi.org/10.7488/ds/2730

Meet our researchers

Copyright, ip and access, digital documentation, tourism and heritage, geospatial data and heritage, digital engagement, learning and participation, working with digital archives and collections.

Alexander Hiscock

Andrea Kocsis

Ash Charlton

Beatrice Alex

Catriona Schofield

Chiara Bonacchi

Claire Sowton

Clare Llewellyn

Daryl Green

Edward Hollis

Emily Johnston

Guillaume Robin

James Loxley

Jessica Witte

John Harries

Jon Henderson

Kate Orton-Johnson

Kirsty Lilley

Larissa Pschetz

Laura Jeffery

Lucy Havens

Manuel Fernandez-Gotz

Marisa Wilson

Maureen finn.

Melissa Terras

Moa Carlsson

Nathan Sydenham

Niamh Moore

Nichola Dobson

Nicole Anderson

Niki Vermeulen

Patricia Erskine

Philippa Sheail

Raul Gomez Hernandez

Smita Kheria

Stuart King

Tanja Romankiewicz

Uta Hinrichs

Zoë Hollingworth

We explore the complex legal, social, educational and design implications of emerging patterns of access, changing orientations to copyright, methods and ethical implications of attempts to control intellectual property, and the nature of digital openness in the cultural heritage sector.

Digital documentation of cultural heritage is a site of significant innovation and technological change, as scanning technologies and methods become increasingly sophisticated and allow unprecedented forms of analysis of and access to heritage. Our research explores the uses and futures for these emerging technologies.

Our research in this area explores the implications of the digital in shaping and changing the relationships between tourism and heritage, including navigating preservation of and access to cultural heritage, and the role of tourism in producing heritage.

We design, develop, investigate and find new uses for geospatial applications and datasets. Geospatial analysis of archives, texts and collections generates new research insights and public engagement opportunities in a wide range of heritage contexts.

We research how people engage with digital and digitised cultural heritage; and how digital technologies and tools support new forms of learning, engagement and participation. Our work spans topics and approaches including crowdsourcing, public and participatory history, evaluation and engagement, community archiving and digital education.

We develop and use innovative methods for creating, analysing, searching, digitising, and combining archives and collections, including text mining, geoparsing, image recognition and other forms of knowledge discovery and creative uses of archives and collections as data. These methods help us better understand the past and shed light on present-day issues and questions.

Here are some of the projects that cluster members are working on – feel free to contact them for more information or to get involved.

Curious Edinburgh

Decoding Hidden Heritages

Enriching Exhibition Scholarship Project

Finding her name in the archive

Infrastructure Futures for Digital Cultural Heritage

Digital Footprints and Search Pathways: AHRC-funded project explores access to online cultural heritage

Gaelic Handwriting Recognition Project

Hearing History

Living Histories of Sugar

Practical applications of IIIF as a building block towards a digital national collection

Reanimating Data: Experiments with people, places and data

Updates & events.

New publication: Heritage and Nationalism

DCH Cluster Member awarded prestigious Chancellor’s Fellowship

Upcoming events

Past events

Upcoming events and workshops will be posted here.

Grounded Speculation: Feeling into Digital Ruins

David Livingstone’s Missionary Travels Manuscript: Digital Editing and the Literature of Victorian Exploration

Museums and AI: Imagining the AI We Want for Museums

Curatorial Labour, Voice, & Legacy: Mary Dorothy George’s Catalogues

Digital Cultural Heritage: Emotional Engagement, Storytelling & Co-creation

Responsible Operations: Previewing a Community Research Agenda

Songs at the Interface: Community interactions with online collections

The Wicked Findings of the Witchfinder General: Using linked open data to put accused witches on the map

Critical Archives Reading Group

Digital cultural heritage research network.

We work closely with the Digital Cultural Heritage Research Network, whose membership spans both the higher education and GLAM sectors. The network was launched in 2016, and is always open to new members.

We love to hear about projects and research related to our interests

If you’re interested in our work please get in touch.

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Michelle Bastian

Chancellor’s Fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh is a Chancellor’s Fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on the role of time in social methods of inclusion and exclusion. This… ×

Team Members

Chancellor’s Fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh

is a Chancellor’s Fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on the role of time in social methods of inclusion and exclusion. This work initially focused on philosophical concepts of community, particularly feminist critiques of community, but has since expanded to look at ‘more-than-human communities’. Case studies have included local food, community responses to climate change and resource depletion and extinctions. She is a member of the Extinction Studies Working Group ( http://extinctionstudies.org ) and co-ordinator of a range of other networks including Temporal Belongings ( www.temporalbelongings.org ), the Transition Research Network ( www.transitionresearchnetwork.org ) and the Edinburgh Time Network. She has been PI on a number of ARHC funded projects including one that explored the possibilities of more-than-human participatory research ( www.morethanhumanresearch.com ). You can found out more at www.michellebastian.net and www.twitter.com/mhbastian

David Farrier

Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature is Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature at the University of Edinburgh. His interests lie in Anthropocene poetics and the multi-scalar temporalities of climate change; extinction narratives; world-ecology;… ×

Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature

is Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature at the University of Edinburgh. His interests lie in Anthropocene poetics and the multi-scalar temporalities of climate change; extinction narratives; world-ecology; and the convergence of world-literature, postcolonial and eco-critical concerns. He convenes the Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network, and is a Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded Ancestral time project (ancestraltime.org.uk). [email protected]

Sonia Matos

Designer and Lecturer Sónia Matos is a designer and lecturer whose work primarily explores the intersection between design and ethnography. In February 2011 she completed a PhD in Cultural Studies (with a… ×

Designer and Lecturer

Sónia Matos is a designer and lecturer whose work primarily explores the intersection between design and ethnography. In February 2011 she completed a PhD in Cultural Studies (with a practical component in media) at the Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths College, University of London. Her doctoral project was dedicated to the research and study of the Silbo Gomero, a whistled form of language that is still alive in the small island of La Gomera in the Canarian archipelago. Part ethnographic study, part acoustic and ecological reinterpretation, this project has culminated in a doctoral dissertation and the design of audio-based media for sensory exploration for local youth.

In September 2011 Sónia joined Edinburgh College of Art as a full-time lecturer where she teaches various courses across different design disciplines at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Between 2012 and 2013 she was also a Research Affiliate at MIT’s Program for Art, Culture and Technology. Amongst other institutions, she has presented her work at the 21st Century research-based programme, Chisenhale Gallery (London, U.K.) and at the ‘Verbindingen/ Jonctions 13’ an annual multidisciplinary festival organised by Constance – Association for Art & Media (Brussels, Belgium). Part of her dissertation has been published in the peer-reviewed proceedings of the 8th Conference of the International Committee for Design Histories & Design Studies and in the upcoming publication ‘Memory in Motion: Archives, Technology and the Social’ published by Amsterdam University Press and edited by Ina Blom, Trond Lundemo and Eivind Røssaak

Currently she is working in collaboration with biologist Dr. Ana Neto from CIIMAR – Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (University of the Azores, Portugal). Focusing specifically on the wild and edible seaweed of the Azorean archipelago, this project attempts to actively contribute toward the safeguard of local vernacular knowledge of the marine environment.

Andrew Patrizio

Art Historian Andrew specialises in Scottish visual culture since 1945, art history & ecology, and other art/science cross-disciplinary work. He works across both scholarly writing and curatorial projects. His edited book… ×

Art Historian

Andrew specialises in Scottish visual culture since 1945, art history & ecology, and other art/science cross-disciplinary work. He works across both scholarly writing and curatorial projects. His edited book and exhibition, Anatomy Acts , of 2006 won the Royal Medical Society’s Book of the Year. He is based in History of Art at Edinburgh College of Art / University of Edinburgh. [email protected] / @scovulture

Jeremy Kidwell

Post-doctoral researcher, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh Jeremy conducts empirical research which explores the social and cultural shape of environmental activism and also works on themes in religious ethics, particularly biopolitics and the moral context engaged… ×

Post-doctoral researcher, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh

Jeremy conducts empirical research which explores the social and cultural shape of environmental activism and also works on themes in religious ethics, particularly biopolitics and the moral context engaged when religious groups respond to ecological crisis.  academia  /  [email protected]

Emily Brady

Professor of Environment and Philosophy in the School of Geosciences at Edinburgh is Professor of Environment and Philosophy in the School of Geosciences at Edinburgh. Her research interests include aesthetics, environmental ethics, eighteenth-century philosophy, and animal studies. Her most recent book… ×

Professor of Environment and Philosophy in the School of Geosciences at Edinburgh

is Professor of Environment and Philosophy in the School of Geosciences at Edinburgh. Her research interests include aesthetics, environmental ethics, eighteenth-century philosophy, and animal studies. Her most recent book publication is The Sublime in Modern Philosophy: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Nature (Cambridge UP, 2013). [email protected]

Michael Northcott

Franklin ginn.

Human Geographer at Edinburgh University is a Human Geographer at Edinburgh University, whose work concerns gardening naturecultures, landscape temporality, and ethics and philosophies of nature in the Anthropocene. His work has been funded by… ×

Human Geographer at Edinburgh University

is a Human Geographer at Edinburgh University, whose work concerns gardening naturecultures, landscape temporality, and ethics and philosophies of nature in the Anthropocene. His work has been funded by the AHRC (ancestraltime.org.uk) and Carnegie Trust. http://franklinginn.wordpress.com /  [email protected]

PhD candidate at the University of Leeds Emma is researching the poetry and archives of Jon Silkin and Simon Armitage. Interests include poetic interactions with the environment and literary ecology. ×

PhD candidate at the University of Leeds

Emma is researching the poetry and archives of Jon Silkin and Simon Armitage. Interests include poetic interactions with the environment and literary ecology.

Emily Alder

Lecturer in Literature and Culture at Edinburgh Napier University is Lecturer in Literature and Culture at Edinburgh Napier University, teaching nineteenth-century literature, popular culture, and ecocriticism. Her research interests are in the intersections between literature and science, especially… ×

Lecturer in Literature and Culture at Edinburgh Napier University

is Lecturer in Literature and Culture at Edinburgh Napier University, teaching nineteenth-century literature, popular culture, and ecocriticism. Her research interests are in the intersections between literature and science, especially in genre fiction of the long nineteenth century. She has published on the fiction of H. G. Wells, William Hope Hodgson, and Stephen Donaldson. [email protected] / https://napier.academia.edu/EmilyAlder

Matthew Bampton

Professor of Geography at the University of Southern Maine is Professor of Geography at the University of Southern Maine, in Portland Maine, where he has worked for the past 22 years.  He specializes in applied geographic information systems… ×

Professor of Geography at the University of Southern Maine

is Professor of Geography at the University of Southern Maine, in Portland Maine, where he has worked for the past 22 years.  He specializes in applied geographic information systems (GIS) and field mapping.  His work centres on high-resolution digital mapping and the integration of diverse data sources.  His current project, Shetland Island Climate Change and Settlement is part of a larger multi-disciplinary collaboration and explores the links between climate change at the end of the Little Ice Age, human use of the landscape, and dynamic environmental processes.  He is currently on sabbatical leave from USM and is Fulbright Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh.

David Borthwick

Lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Glasgow is a Lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Glasgow. David’s research concerns literature’s responses to the environment, in particular poetic responses to landscape and place.  David… ×

Lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Glasgow

is a Lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Glasgow. David’s research concerns literature’s responses to the environment, in particular poetic responses to landscape and place.  David is interested in the ecopoetic strategies of contemporary UK poets including John Burnside and Alice Oswald. His research seeks to examine the problematic and multivalent nature of place, and its future.

Erin Despard

FQRSC postdoctoral fellow in the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow is an FQRSC postdoctoral fellow in the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow. She studies plants and urban landscapes from the perspective of materialist… ×

FQRSC postdoctoral fellow in the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow

is an FQRSC postdoctoral fellow in the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow. She studies plants and urban landscapes from the perspective of materialist media studies. You can read about her research at www.communicativelandscapes.wordpress.com , or follow her on Instagram.

Maria Fusco

Senior Chancellor’s Fellow at Edinburgh University, Reader in Edinburgh College of Art Maria Fusco is a Senior Chancellor’s Fellow at Edinburgh University, Reader in Edinburgh College of Art, and previously Director of Art Writing at Goldsmiths. Her research traverses the transdisciplinary… ×

Senior Chancellor’s Fellow at Edinburgh University, Reader in Edinburgh College of Art

Maria Fusco is a Senior Chancellor’s Fellow at Edinburgh University, Reader in Edinburgh College of Art, and previously Director of Art Writing at Goldsmiths. Her research traverses the transdisciplinary registers of art criticism, fiction and theory. She is currently working on a new site-specific work and radio broadcasts commissioned by Artangel/BBC Radio 4 which will take place inside a mountain on the west coast of Scotland in 2015. mariafusco.net / [email protected]

Derek Gladwin

SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of English, University of British Columbia Derek’s interdisciplinary research broadly examines responses in twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature and forms of media to environmental, energy, and spatial issues in society. In autumn 2015, he served… ×

SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of English, University of British Columbia

Derek’s interdisciplinary research broadly examines responses in twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature and forms of media to environmental, energy, and spatial issues in society. In autumn 2015, he served as the Visiting Research Fellow of the Environmental Humanities through The Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. For more, visit his website at www.derekgladwin.com .

Michelle Keown

Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh Michelle specialises in Postcolonial literature and theory (particularly that of the Pacific region) and current research interests include (inter alia) representations of the body in postcolonial literature with reference… ×

Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh

Michelle specialises in Postcolonial literature and theory (particularly that of the Pacific region) and current research interests include (inter alia) representations of the body in postcolonial literature with reference to illness and disease caused by social inequalities and environmental degradation, particularly as a result of nuclear imperialism.

Wood Roberdeau

Lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London Wood’s current research involves the capacity for modern and contemporary artworks to inform environmental studies and the question of whether a poetics of the everyday might be remobilized to… ×

Lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London

Wood’s current research involves the capacity for modern and contemporary artworks to inform environmental studies and the question of whether a poetics of the everyday might be remobilized to coincide with an ecological aesthetics.

Bradon Smith

Research Associate at the Open University, University of Bath is a Research Associate at the Open University and the University of Bath working on the AHRC funded Stories of Change project. His background is in English literature, with doctoral research… ×

Research Associate at the Open University, University of Bath

is a Research Associate at the Open University and the University of Bath working on the AHRC funded  Stories of Change  project. His background is in English literature, with doctoral research on popular science writing. He is interested in literary representations of climate change and energy production and consumption. [email protected]

Alice Tarbuck

PhD candidate at the University of Dundee & the Scottish Poetry Library. Alice Tarbuck is a PhD candidate at the University of Dundee & the Scottish Poetry Library. Her thesis examines the poetry & practice of Thomas A. Clark, a contemporary… ×

PhD candidate at the University of Dundee & the Scottish Poetry Library.

Alice Tarbuck is a PhD candidate at the University of Dundee & the Scottish Poetry Library. Her thesis examines the poetry & practice of Thomas A. Clark, a contemporary Scottish poet writing formally innovative work on landscape & walking. Her research interests include the relationship between formally innovative poetry & environmental humanities, minimalism, eco poetics/ eco criticism, land reform, nature writing & ecology more generally.

Owain Jones

Professor on the Environmental Humanities, Bath Spa University Owain Jones gained a PhD in Cultural Geography at the University of Bristol in 1997 and since then has researched and written about many aspects of nature-society relations, landscape,… ×

Professor on the Environmental Humanities, Bath Spa University

Owain Jones gained a PhD in Cultural Geography at the University of Bristol in 1997 and since then has researched and written about many aspects of nature-society relations, landscape, place, memory and the environmental crisis. He has conducted research projects on trees, place and landscape; floods, communities and memory; food chains and ecology; tidal landscapes; animals and society; and children, nature and place. His is currently leading a 1.5 million pound Arts and Humanities Research Council Connected Communities project which involves eight UK universities, community partners and artists in four case study areas across the UK. This project is seeking to creatively explore and transform connections within and between communities, and communities and nature, in relation to water issues. Owain was appointed as the first Professor on the Environmental Humanities in the UK in 2014 at Bath Spa University. He has published over 70 scholarly articles and two books – Geography and Memory: Identity, Place and Becoming (2012) with Jo Garde-Hansen; and Tree Cultures: The Place of Trees, and Trees in their Place (2002) with Paul Cloke.

Tim Collins and Reiko Goto

Collins & Goto Studio, Glasgow Scotland In 2006 Tim Collins and Reiko Goto emigrated to the UK to work within academia. They initiated Plein Air in (2008) with funding from universities. They moved to Scotland… ×

Collins & Goto Studio, Glasgow Scotland

In 2006 Tim Collins and Reiko Goto emigrated to the UK to work within academia. They initiated Plein Air in (2008) with funding from universities. They moved to Scotland in 2010 where Goto would finish her PhD, Collins would support the development of work for an exhibition at Peacock Gallery in Aberdeen. Concurrently they were involved in exhibitions in Taiwan, New York and Pittsburgh; they would also publish one report and seven articles a new website. They were invited to seminars and in Asia, Ireland, the UK and the US. Residencies included the Headlands Center for the Arts in California (2008); Collins was visiting fellow at the Institute for the Advanced Humanities, University of Edinburgh (2010). Collaborators included plant physiologists, hardware and software experts, musicians and philosophers. In 2012 they left academia and the studio in Glasgow was established. In 2013 they received funding from Creative Scotland, the Landscape Research Group and the Forestry Commission enabled eighteen months of work on the topic of the Black Wood of Rannoch. Funding from Creative Carbon Scotland supported the development of work for CO2 Edinburgh during the Edinburgh Art Festival. 2014-15 they had exhibitions at the Perth Museum and Art Gallery, the Tent Gallery (twice) and Summerhall Edinburgh (for the science festival), and at a visual sounds / new music exhibition in Cologne Germany. They published one book and sixteen articles during this time. They were invited to interdisciplinary seminars and conferences in Italy, Finland, Germany, Sweden, Taiwan and the UK, they were keynotes at an arts humanities and environment conference in Australia. Goto was visiting fellow at the Institute for the Advanced Humanities, University of Edinburgh (2012). Current collaborators include a social scientist and hardware and software experts.

David A.G. Clarke

PhD candidate at the Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh. David A.G. Clarke is a PhD candidate at the Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh. He is interested in the convergence of environmental philosophy, ethics and education…. ×

PhD candidate at the Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh.

David A.G. Clarke is a PhD candidate at the Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh. He is interested in the convergence of environmental philosophy, ethics and education. His research focuses on post-human and new materialist philosophy and the influence of these areas on environmental education and learning for sustainability. His background is in outdoor education and he currently contributes to teaching on the MSc Learning for Sustainability, MSc Outdoor Education and MSc Outdoor Environmental Sustainability Education.

Matt Brennan

Chancellor’s Fellow at the Reid School of Music, University of Edinburgh. Matt Brennan is a Chancellor’s Fellow at the Reid School of Music, University of Edinburgh. He has served as Chair of the UK and Ireland branch of the International… ×

Chancellor’s Fellow at the Reid School of Music, University of Edinburgh.

Matt Brennan is a Chancellor’s Fellow at the Reid School of Music, University of Edinburgh. He has served as Chair of the UK and Ireland branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM), and was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow prior to taking up his current post. His current areas of research include the British live music sector, music festivals and environmental sustainability, and the social history of the drum kit.

Alan Macpherson

PhD candidate in English and Visual Culture at the University of Aberdeen. Alan Macpherson is a PhD candidate in English and Visual Culture at the University of Aberdeen. His research concerns the relationship between text and visual culture in contemporary poetics,… ×

PhD candidate in English and Visual Culture at the University of Aberdeen.

Alan Macpherson is a PhD candidate in English and Visual Culture at the University of Aberdeen. His research concerns the relationship between text and visual culture in contemporary poetics, new nature writing, and contemporary art, and how these intersect with critical and theoretical approaches to literature and the environment in the Anthropocene. His thesis addresses these interests through the work of Kathleen Jamie. He teaches on the English and Literature in a World Context programmes at Aberdeen and writes for Deveron Arts in Huntly, Aberdeenshire.

Christos Galanis

PhD candidate in Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh Christos Galanis is an artist, researcher, and teacher who enjoys migration – facilitated by Greek and Canadian passports. He is a PhD candidate in Human Geography at the University… ×

PhD candidate in Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh

Christos Galanis is an artist, researcher, and teacher who enjoys migration – facilitated by Greek and Canadian passports. He is a PhD candidate in Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh where he is pursuing research on Scottish Hillwalking Culture. He holds an MFA in Art & Ecology from the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, USA) and a BFA in Music from Concordia University (Montreal, Canada). Christos has taught workshops and created walking-related performances and works in Mexico, Puerto Rico, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Canada, U.S., and Greece, including long walks over the course of several hundred kilometers. He enjoys collaborating with both humans and non-humans alike, especially donkeys.

Web: http://peripateticpraxis.weebly.com/ www.christosgalanis.com

John Telford

Lecturer in outdoor and environmental education at the University of Edinburgh John Telford is a lecturer in outdoor and environmental education at the University of Edinburgh. John has worked in a variety of educational contexts with young people and adults from… ×

Lecturer in outdoor and environmental education at the University of Edinburgh

John Telford is a lecturer in outdoor and environmental education at the University of Edinburgh. John has worked in a variety of educational contexts with young people and adults from a variety of backgrounds. His interdisciplinary work relates to a wide range of areas including environmental philosophy, the application of social theory to outdoor and environmental education, and pedagogy. He is particularly interested in ideas concerning human/more-than-human relationality and global ecological flourishing. John is Programme Director for two MSc programmes – MSc Outdoor Education and MSc Outdoor Environmental and Sustainability Education.

Fields of Expertise

• Modern and Contemporary Literature (4)
• Visual Cultures (2)
• Interdisciplinary Studies (1)
• Environment and Philosophy (1)
• Art Writing (1)
• Human Geographer (1)
• Architecture and Landscape Architecture (1)
• Geographical and Earth Sciences (1)
• Postcolonial Literature (1)
• Environmental Activism (1)
• Scottish Visual Culture (1)
• Art History & Ecology (1)
• Ethnography (1)

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Tamam Shud. Performance by Alex Cecchetti, (Paris, 21.07.16), commissioned by David Maroto for his practice-led PhD The Artist's Novel

Art - PhD/MPhil

Postgraduate research in the School of Art, Edinburgh College of Art is internationally renowned, interdisciplinary and publicly engaged. Our research creates, embodies and responds to new registers of contemporary art and culture, whilst rearticulating processes and practices associated with established artistic media.  

We are an intellectually vibrant, ambitious and supportive community where research produced by staff and students – both individually and collectively – is disseminated nationally and internationally. Collaboration, experimentation and outward facing distributive actions are central to this; we understand our research to constitute cultural impact within and beyond the University. We lead scholarly inquiry into artistic practice in relation to the full range of academic disciplines and professional contexts available within one of the world’s leading research universities.  

Our MPhil and PhD candidates are supported by bespoke supervisory arrangements made across the University of Edinburgh and supported by training run by the Institute of Academic Development. Our membership of the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities allows us to arrange cross-institutional supervision with our partners in the consortium, ensuring expert supervision and guidance for interdisciplinary projects.  

• Use the People Directory to identify potential supervisors in the School of Art

Graduates with a MPhil or PhD in Art have career opportunities as academics concentrating on teaching and research, or research-only roles. They are also equipped for research and other roles within the industry, depending on the focus of their research, and how effectively they have taken advantage of the several non-academic links offered by the University with non-academic institutions, such as galleries, museums, and private companies. 

How to apply and entry requirements

We operate a gathered field approach to PhD/MPhil applications, followed by an interview process for shortlisted applications.

If you'd like to study on a postgraduate programme at Edinburgh College of Art, you must apply through EUCLID, the University's online application system. You can find out how to do this on the University of Edinburgh website, where you'll also be able to:

• see detailed entrance requirements for each programme on the Degree Finder
• get information on what to expect after you apply
• find out about study modes, start dates and fees
• find out if, and how, you need to submit a portfolio, showreel or research proposal
• find out where to go for further advice and guidance.

Preparing your application

Common to all research programmes are a set of research aims, a research context, a research process and a research product/outcome. The research proposal should include reference to all of these elements. All applicants for postgraduate research programmes must submit a research proposal.

Portfolios or writing samples are also required for some research degrees.

People Directory | Edinburgh College of Art

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Dr Kristin Mojsiewicz

Senior Lecturer in Art

Director of Postgraduate Research in Art; Programme Director, PhD Art

George Agbo

Lecturer in the Arts of Africa

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School of Social and Political Science

School of social and political science phd scholarship.

The scholarship application system for academic year 2024/25 closed at 23:59 (GMT) on Thursday, 1st February 2024. Late applications cannot be accepted.

As a guide to competition levels, in the 2023/24 cycle 123 applicants (future students) applied for 2 scholarships, and 17 applicants (current students) applied for 1 scholarship. The number of available awards may change each year. For 2024/25 we are offering a minimum of 1 School of SPS PhD Scholarship to future students, and 1 School of SPS PhD Scholarship to current students. 

This award will support you to be part of the next generation of social science thought leaders. It is available to students researching any area within the School of Social and Political Science.

Please note these scholarships are only for PhD study, not for MSc by Research study.

These awards are available both to students intending to begin PhD study in the next academic year and to students currently in Year 1 (full-time equivalent) of their PhD in the School (if successful this will be a two-year award, full-time equivalent).

These awards are available to all areas of research within the School of Social and Political Science.

When making decisions, the Selection Committee will consider:

• the applicant's academic achievements
• research proposal
• research potential
• any publications made
• any relevant non-academic experience
• the degree of support provided by references

Financial status and nationality are not taken into account.

Please ensure you read the self-assessment  section to ensure you meet all the criteria as the application process is very competitive.

The award covers:

• Full tuition fees (UK, EU or Overseas level)
• The stipend will be set to the UKRI level for 2024/25. The UKRI level for 2023/24 is currently £18,622 for full-time students, or the pro rata equivalent for part-time students.

Awards for new students are made for one year in the first instance and are renewable for up to a further two years (pro-rata for part-time students), subject to satisfactory academic progress. 

PhD students in the School of Social and Political Science can apply to the  PGR Research Support Fund  for help with fieldwork and other research-related costs throughout their period of study, providing they meet the fund's eligibility criteria. SPS PhD scholars may apply for this fund.

In order to gain access to the scholarship application system, applicants must have applied for admission to the University of Edinburgh.  Applicants must submit two separate applications by the deadline:

• Application for admission to a PhD degree in the School of Social and Political Science (must be submitted at least 5 working days before the scholarship deadline )
• School of Social and Political Science PhD Scholarship application

Updated or additional documents or information for your PhD programme application cannot be accepted after you have received an offer for the programme. Before then, any updated or additional documents must be uploaded directly to your PhD application via your MyEd account.

Updated or additional documents or information for your scholarship application cannot be accepted after you have submitted your scholarship application.

Late applications cannot be accepted.

Ensure you visit the Important Information and Recommendations section before you apply. We consider this section to be essential reading.

The scholarship award application process involves two main applications:

• Apply for your chosen PhD degree programme
• Apply for your chosen scholarship

Application for admission to a PhD degree

Please note: you will only be able to apply for a scholarship after you have submitted an application for a PhD programme.  

The application to study is made via the University's online applications system EUCLID.

You must submit a full application by the deadline, including:

• final or interim official undergraduate and postgraduate transcripts (note - PhD Social Anthropology applications require undergraduate only)
• name of proposed supervisor

References and research proposal for the application to study are also used for the scholarship application and will be automatically pulled through to the scholarship system.

The application to study must be submitted at least 5 working days prior to the scholarship application deadline. This allows your University Username (UUN eg s1234567) to be activated in time for you to submit your scholarship application before its deadline.

You do not need to wait to receive an offer to study before applying for the 'SPS PhD Scholarship' - but you must submit a complete application to study by the deadline or your 'SPS PhD Scholarship' application will not be considered.

Please note that the 'SPS PhD Scholarship' application is extremely competitive, and every year demand far outstrips supply. 

For further information on PhD study please see our  PhD Programmes  webpage.

For further information on the application process, please see our  how to apply  page.

Application for SPS PhD Scholarship

Once you have submitted your application for study, you can then submit your funding application(s). You must submit a separate application for each individual funding scheme you are applying to.

Application to the SPS PhD Scholarship for future students is via the University's online scholarships application form located within the EUCLID applicant hub.

After submitting your application for your programme of study, you will receive a University Username (UUN) and access to MyEd where you can reach the scholarship application system.

Before applying, please read the  self-assessment page , which provides helpful information about the factors that help make a successful application.

Please note that applications for the 'SPS PhD Scholarship' are extremely competitive, and every year demand far outstrips supply. 

Supporting documents

The supporting documents submitted with your application to study (research proposal, academic transcripts and references etc.) will be used to assess your funding application.

Research proposal

We recommend you follow the guidance on writing research proposals.

Personal statement

The scholarship application system will ask you to provide a personal statement (up to 500 words/3,500 characters including spaces).

We are interested in you as a whole person, not just academically. Please tell us about your preparedness to undertake and complete a PhD and to flourish as a result of PhD funding, and how you will contribute to a positive and diverse PhD community within the School. This could include diversity of identity, experience, or viewpoint. You may also wish to include any experience of overcoming adversity.

Conditional offers

If you are in receipt of conditional offer (including conditional on English language), you are still eligible to apply for the 'SPS PhD Scholarship'.

Should you receive an award, but not meet the conditions of your offer, they would not be able to take up the award.

Help and guidance

Information on the Student Systems website may help you with guidance on the scholarship application system.

Applying for a postgraduate scholarship

Technical support and guidance

You can also view our applying for scholarships frequently asked questions: 

Frequently asked questions - applying for scholarships in the MyEd portal

Postgraduate Advisors and supporting Subject Area academics assess scholarship applications for their Subject Areas.

Scholarship applicants are then ranked and the top candidates are put forward to the next stage. Applicants not progressing to Stage Two will be notified by the end of April.

A   panel of assessors, comprising of the Director and Deputy Director of Postgraduate Research Programmes and at least one other senior School academic, assess all ranked scholarship applicants and rank them individually.

The ranks are then collated, and agreement on awards, reserves, and unsuccessful applicants are documented, with notifications emailed to applicants. Awardees are given 7 calendar days to respond to the scholarship offer. If no response is received by the given date, the offer will be rescinded and awarded to the next reserve candidate.

Assessors will use the  SGSSS Marking Framework for their ranking process in both stages.

The School selection panel will meet in the Spring, and results will be communicated to candidates by email shortly thereafter.

Note that we also hold a reserve list; in the event that a successful candidate later declines their award, for example because they obtain different funding. In this case, the award will be offered to the top candidate on the reserve list. 

We aim to have contacted all SPS PhD Scholarship candidates to let them know the outcome of their application by the end of May.

Due to the volume of applications we receive and the lengthy assessment and ranking process, we are unable to answer individual responses until then.

This funding form is also used for several other awards, including:

• Edinburgh Doctoral College Scholarships - SPS
• 'CAHSS Research Award - SPS'
• Alice Brown PhD Scholarship
• Chrystal Macmillan PhD Scholarship
• Macqueen Scholarship

Important - please ensure you check each scholarship deadline as they may differ.

You must enter a separate funding application for each award you wish to be considered for.

Year 1 full-time PhD students already at the School of Social and Political Science would, if successful, receive two years' funding to the end of the Prescribed Period of Study.

Part-time current PhD students would receive the pro-rata amount to the end of their Prescribed Period of Study.

Application is via your  MyEd account . The scholarship application section for current students is via the MyEd 'Student Self-Service' channel.

Details on how to find the scholarship section can be found on the Student Systems website.

Applying for a scholarship through MyEd Student Self-Service channel

Academic references

The default position is that we will look at the two references and your original research proposal provided on your EUCLID application for PhD study.

However, we would recommend that current Year 1 (full-time equivalent) students request assistance from their supervisors, who can comment on your progress to date, to provide updated references (maximum of 2 new references). 

These can be emailed to the PGR Support team ( [email protected] ) by either yourself or your referee no later than the scholarship closing date. Guidance for referees can be found in our request for an academic or non-academic reference document .

Please ensure you name the scholarship you are applying for and provide your UUN in the email.

We also strongly advise that you update your  research proposal  (three to four pages). These must be emailed (from your University account) to the PGR Support team ( [email protected] ) no later than the scholarship closing date.

The scholarship application system will ask you to provide a personal statement (up to 500 words/3500 characters including spaces).

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PhD in Digital Humanities

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Course closed:

Digital Humanities is no longer accepting new applications.

The PhD in Digital Humanities, run by Cambridge Digital Humanities and based in the Faculty of English, is a research-intensive programme that aims to enable students to engage at doctoral level with projects demanding the use, production and critique of digital methods, tools, approaches, and critical/theoretical orientations. The programme expands the humanities offering at research postgraduate level at Cambridge by offering a route for cross-disciplinary engagement, responding to the growth of the field of Digital Humanities as a research area. 

The programme is designed to enable students to develop the critical literacy and practical skills and knowledge to understand and engage with digital futures, digital research, and digital cultures, as questions arise around the ethics of automation, algorithmic analysis, privacy/surveillance, virtual cultures, data sharing, intelligent agency and creativity, archival justice and digital histories, and around collections and heritage issues. Through supervisions and technical support from a research software engineer, contextualised by a research culture including guest seminars, lectures and practice-driven workshops, Cambridge Digital Humanities provides the conditions for original PhD research in Digital Humanities or in other arts and humanities/social science disciplines that make a significant intervention into shaping the field. 

The course aims to:

• enable students to engage at doctoral level with projects that require the use and generation of digital methods, tools, approaches, and/or of critical/theoretical orientations;
• expand the humanities offering at research postgraduate level at Cambridge by providing a cross-disciplinary route for engagement, responding to the growth of the field of Digital Humanities as a research area;
• enable humanities and social science-trained students to develop critical literacy and practical skills and knowledge to understand and engage with digital materials and methods for the study of matters relevant to the humanities;
• provide the conditions to enable the production of original PhD research in Digital Humanities or other arts and humanities/social science disciplines that make a significant intervention into shaping the field; and
• respond to the need for the humanities to grapple with emerging forms, practices, and social formations shaped in a digital age.

The course will benefit:

• students with relevant MPhils who want to engage with the field of Digital Humanities, enabling them to hone critical and methodological skills, develop new approaches, test them out, and specialise;
• students locating themselves in other home disciplines who wish to develop advanced projects including Digital Humanities approaches and orientations; and 
• students entering into or returning to other careers in GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums), creative industries, digital media industries, and media arts by giving them the advanced critical perspectives, practical digital literacies, and methodological insights to pursue these pathways.

Learning Outcomes

This course will equip students with: 

• the ability to create and interpret new knowledge in Digital Humanities, through original research or other advanced scholarship, of a quality to satisfy peer review, extend the forefront of the discipline, and merit publication;
• a systematic acquisition and understanding of a substantial body of knowledge which is at the forefront of Digital Humanities or related areas of research and practice;
• the general ability to conceptualise, design, and implement a research project for the generation of new knowledge, applications, or understanding in Digital Humanities, and to adjust the project design in the light of unforeseen problems;
• a detailed understanding of applicable techniques for research and advanced academic enquiry in Digital Humanities;
• the ability to make informed judgments on complex issues, often in the absence of complete data, and be able to communicate their ideas and conclusions clearly and effectively to specialist and non-specialist audiences; and
• the ability to contribute substantially to the development of new techniques, ideas, or approaches in Digital Humanities, and to engage with the wider research community.

MPhil students in Digital Humanities who wish to continue to the PhD must apply for admission through the University’s admission processes, taking funding and application deadlines into consideration. Readmission is not automatic and each application is considered on its own merits. The expected standard for continuation is an overall mark of at least 70% in the MPhil course

The Postgraduate Virtual Open Day usually takes place at the end of October. It’s a great opportunity to ask questions to admissions staff and academics, explore the Colleges virtually, and to find out more about courses, the application process and funding opportunities. Visit the  Postgraduate Open Day  page for more details.

See further the  Postgraduate Admissions Events  pages for other events relating to Postgraduate study, including study fairs, visits and international events.

Key Information

3-4 years full-time, 4-7 years part-time, study mode : research, doctor of philosophy, faculty of english, course - related enquiries, application - related enquiries, course on department website, dates and deadlines:, michaelmas 2024 (closed).

Some courses can close early. See the Deadlines page for guidance on when to apply.

Funding Deadlines

These deadlines apply to applications for courses starting in Michaelmas 2024, Lent 2025 and Easter 2025.

Similar Courses

• Digital Humanities MPhil
• European, Latin American and Comparative Literatures and Cultures by thesis MPhil
• Film and Screen Studies PhD
• European, Latin American and Comparative Literatures and Cultures by Advanced Study MPhil
• Education (Arts, Creativity & Education) MPhil

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Solar physicists unlock the key to how sunspots form—and much more

Images of the sun over 10 years reveal how the star's activity spikes and dips over time. (Credit: The Yohkoh mission of ISAS, Japan, and NASA, United States)

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A team of solar scientists have uncovered the possible originals of the engine that drives much of the sun’s volatile nature—generating the sunspots that move like storm clouds over the surface and causing the sun’s activity levels to rise and fall over 11-year cycles.

The secret behind this engine, also known as the “solar dynamo,” may be among the oldest “unsolved problems of physics,” said Benjamin Brown, a solar physicist at CU Boulder.

In new research, he and his colleagues used mathematical equations to simulate the behavior of the sun, arguing that the dynamo may begin in the star’s outermost layers—not deep in its interior as many scientists have believed for decades.

Click to enlarge Visualization of magnetic fields lines emerging from the sun's surface. Sunspots sit at the base of these loops. (Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA/LMSAL)

Click to enlarge Drawing of a sunspot by John of Worcester in 1128 A.D. (Credit: Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons )

It’s a pursuit that, in many ways, started with the famed astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1612 A.D.

“Galileo first observed the sunspots 400 years ago, and he learned quite a bit about them, including how they move over the sun’s surface,” said Brown, a co-author of the research and associate professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences . “But he couldn’t figure out where they came from. We’ve struggled with the question ever since.”

The researchers, led by Geoffrey Vasil of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, published their findings May 22 in the journal Nature. Co-authors of the study included Keith Julien, an applied mathematician from CU Boulder who died in April after a short illness.

The findings hinge on the dynamo, the term for the complex physics and chemistry in the sun that produce its wild magnetic fields. Earth boasts its own dynamo that powers the planet’s magnetic field—the reason why all compasses on the ground point north.

The sun’s inner workings matter a lot for people, Brown said. The sun’s dynamo generates solar storms that, among other things, pose risks to human power grids. Such storms also caused the auroras that appeared in the skies above the United States earlier this month.

For the researchers, the study represents an achievement decades in the making. 

“Geoff Vasil and I have been thinking about these ideas ever since we were both grad students at CU Boulder 20 years ago,” Brown said.

Wild yet orderly

In general, scientists agree that the solar dynamo begins in the sun’s “convection zone,” or roughly the outer one-third of its interior. There, plumes of hot and charged particles, known as plasma, climb toward the surface.

While Earth’s magnetic field is mostly uniform, the churn of plasma throughout the sun’s convection zone warps and twists its magnetic field lines into a pattern that looks a like a bowl of noodles.

Despite that chaos, the solar dynamo powers behavior that is surprisingly predictable, Brown said. Every 11 years or so, the sun moves from a period of low activity, when sunspots pop up less often, to a period of frenzied activity, when sunspots abound—then it flips and starts all over again. Right now, the sun’s activity is on the frenzied side.  

“You could practically set a calendar to the solar dynamo,” he said. “How is it so wild yet also so orderly?”

Spinning dancers

To find out, researchers first need to know exactly where in the sun the dynamo begins. In the 1990s, scientists proposed that the dynamo emerged roughly 130,000 miles below the sun’s surface—a theory nicknamed the “dynamo in the deep.”

That notion, however, struggles to explain the order that emerges from the sun’s chaos. Instead, Vasil, Brown and their colleagues turned to a phenomenon in physics called a “magnetorotational instability.” It’s a sort of imbalance that forms whenever magnetic fields interact with rotating plasmas where those flows move faster as you go deeper.

“It’s kind of like dance partners slinging each other around in a spin while holding arms,” Brown said.

Keith Julien

Researchers have long examined how this phenomenon arises in the disks of hot gases that circle black holes. Its role in the sun is less clear. 

In the current study, Vasil, Brown and their colleagues ran a series of calculations on computers to study how such an instability could influence the sun’s activity. They discovered that the process could easily whip up the sun’s insides to form the solar dynamo and explain how the 11-year cycles start. Those physics would also take place in the outer 10% of the sun, or a paltry 20,000 miles from the surface. The solar dynamo, in other words, might be powerful, but it’s also a little on the shallow side. 

The researchers have a lot of work to do before they can fully cast off the dynamo in the deep theory. But Brown is hopeful that the study could become its own dynamo—generating a wave of new research in the field.

Vasil added that the work is a testament to his colleague and friend, Julien.

As a doctoral student at CU Boulder, “My advisors and mentors were Nic Brummell, Juri Toomre and Keith Julien,” Vasil said. “I recall first having a ‘huh, that's funny’ moment about sun's the near-surface instability one morning in 2004 while flipping through an astrophysics textbook. Keith was the first person I literally ran to tell about it. He was such a fantastic friend all these years. He supported ideas and gave encouragement to a generation of energetic young researchers, like I was back then. It's astonishing he won't be here anymore. But he was thrilled this work happened and was to be published in Nature. The silver lining is that his ideas and personality will live on in the astonishing number of people that he inspired over the years.”

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Use this A-Z and search tool to explore all of Oxford's graduate courses. 

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Joe cleary appointed john m. schiff professor of english.

Joe Cleary, one of Ireland’s most distinguished literary critics, was recently appointed the John M. Schiff Professor of English, effective immediately.

He is a member of Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) in the Department of English.

Cleary is well-known for his ambitious and groundbreaking work on wide-ranging topics that include Irish modernism, literary theory, national literatures and partition, modernist world literatures, and postcolonial literatures.

His most recent books are “Modernism, Empire, World Literature” (2021) and “The Irish Expatriate Novel in Late Capitalist Globalization” (2021). “Modernism, Empire, World Literature” examines how Irish and American writers transformed the London- and Paris-centered world literary system in the period after World War I. “The Irish Expatriate Novel in Late Capitalist Globalization” examines how Irish writers have engaged with the wider world beyond Ireland in the post-Cold War era in the contexts of a shift of the center of gravity of the Anglophone world literary system from England to the United States and the contemporary rise of China. The book was awarded the American Conference for Irish Studies Robert Rhodes prize for books on Irish Literature in 2022. Earlier, Cleary wrote on national literatures and partition in “Literature, Partition and the Nation-State: Culture and Conflict in Ireland, Israel and Palestine” (2002) and on 19th- and 20th-century Irish literary, cinematic, and music cultures in “Outrageous Fortune: Capital and Culture in Modern Ireland” (2007).

His edited volumes include “The Cambridge Companion to Irish Modernism” (2014), “The Cambridge Companion to Modern Irish Culture” (2005), and three special issues of journals. Cleary is currently working on a new volume on the transformation of modern Irish culture, tentatively titled “Six Revolutions: Modern Irish Culture and Society from the Great Famine to Climate Change.”

Cleary is a distinguished citizen of the university. He has served on the Humanities Division Graduate Studies Doctoral Reform Committee, the Yale College Executive Committee, the Undergraduate Studies Committee, and the Honor and Prizes Committee. In his previous employment at NUI Maynooth, Ireland, he served as acting chair of the Department of English (2006-2007), MA coordinator (2005-06), and director of postgraduate studies in the English Department (2003-2004).

A sought-after speaker on Irish modernism, literature, and culture, Cleary has been an invited speaker at the University of Almeira, Spain; Trinity College Dublin; Maynooth University; Williams College; University of Pennsylvania; University of Kent; St. John’s College, Cambridge, and numerous other institutions. Currently, Cleary serves on editorial boards for the Irish University Review, College English, The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Critique, and International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies, and he has served as reader for Yale University Press, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Cork University Press, and Edinburgh University Press.

At Yale, Cleary’s undergraduate and graduate classes include “The Irish Revival and Modernism,” “Novels of Education and Formation,” “The Modernist Novel in the 1920s,” “Modernism, Empire, World Crisis, 1980-1950,” “Irish and Irish-American Modernism,”  “Imperial and Anti-Imperial Writing,” and “Western Marxist and Postcolonial Cultural Theory” He has also mentored dozens of graduate students in English.

He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, and a Ph.D. at Columbia University.

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Visiting Research Fellowships

The Visiting Research Fellowships are fellowships between   two and six months. No limitation is placed on the area of research within the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. The Institute exists to foster interdisciplinary activities in the Humanities and Social Science and has a particular interest in using its visiting fellowships to build international collaborations.

The Institute is housed in a nineteenth-century courtyard close to the University Library and about twenty-five scholars are in residence at any time. Fellows are allocated a private office in the Institute with all the usual research facilities and are expected to play a full part in the activities of the Institute. They are also encouraged to develop their contacts with colleagues within the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. They give at least one seminar on their current research work during their tenure. These Fellowships are not funded, as they are designed to accommodate scholars who are already in receipt of funds from their own institution, grant funding or sabbatical funding .

For 2025-26, we particularly welcome applications from scholars based in the Nordic and Baltic countries, as part of the university's Northern Scholars scheme.

Application procedure

Closing date

Applications for the 2024-25 round have now closed . Applications for the 2025-26 round will close on 28 February 2025. Applications received after that date will not be considered. Successful candidates will be notified by email by the end of April with a formal letter of confirmation to follow; please ensure that you supply a valid email address so that you can be contacted quickly after decisions are made.

The application form

You can find our application form here .

• A minimum of two and a maximum of three confidential references are required. 
• At least one referee should come from outside the institution of the applicant.
• Referees should comment on the nature and quality of the research proposal, as well as on the qualifications of the applicant.

Applicants should ask their referees to send their references by email to the Institute Director at  [email protected]  by 28 February 2025 .

Notes for guidance

• Candidates for Fellowships will hold a doctorate or equivalent professional qualification. Consideration will be given to the academic record and the publications of all applicants and their capacity to disseminate their views among a community of like-minded people. Candidates should give evidence of any contact they have made with researchers at the University of Edinburgh, and of proposed collaboration during and beyond their visit to Edinburgh; those who do make such contact before submitting their applications will be at an advantage. Competition for Fellowships is intense and preference may be given to applicants who have not previously held a Fellowship at the Institute or an equivalent institution.
• The Institute was established in 1969 to promote enquiry of the highest standards in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Inter-departmental and interdisciplinary study is encouraged.
• Fellows are expected to be resident in Edinburgh throughout the tenure of their Fellowship and to play a full part in the activities of the Institute. The Institute will be pleased to help with finding suitable accommodation in Edinburgh but is unable to pay accommodation costs. The minimum tenure for a Fellowship is two months; applications for less than two months will not be considered.
• Visiting Research Fellowships are not accompanied by a stipend, but we are able to support successful applicants with applying for grants from their own institutions, learned societies and other bodies.
• No regular teaching is required but Fellows will give at least one seminar at IASH on their current research work and may be asked to speak to an appropriate subject group within the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science.
• The Institute is close to the University Library and within easy reach of the National Library of Scotland, the Central City Library, the National Galleries and Museums, the Library of the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland, the library of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and the National Archives of Scotland. Access to both the extensive archival and online resources of all of these collections can be arranged for Fellows as appropriate.
• Only fully completed applications will be considered. It is the responsibility of each applicant to ensure that all documentation is complete, and that referees submit their reports to the Institute by the closing date. Applications may include a copy of any one article or publication that is thought to be specially relevant to the research proposal and Fellowship submission.

Related links

• College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

• Schools & departments

Arts and Humanities Research Council

The University of Edinburgh is now part of a consortium of 10 Universities which have been awarded funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to support postgraduate studentships and training in the Arts and Humanities in Scotland.

AHRC/SGSAH PhD Studentships 2024/25

The Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (SGSAH) AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) is comprised of the Universities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Highlands & Islands, St Andrews, Stirling, Strathclyde, Glasgow School of Art and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and offers PhD studentships each year. Further details of the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities can be found here.

Award The award will cover the PhD tuition fee and a stipend at the UKRI level for 3.5 years.

Eligibility

Candidates will normally hold a relevant First Class Honours degree (such as BA, BMus, BSc or LLB) and preferably a similar calibre of Master’s degree.

PhD students within the eligible subject areas who are currently in their first year of PhD study are eligible to apply.

Awards are available to Home fee applicants and limited awards available for International applicants. Please check the full UKRI eligibility criteria here .

To qualify for Home status an applicant must:

        Be a UK National (meeting residency requirements), or

        Have settled status, or

        Have pre-settled status AND meet residency requirement (3 years residency in the  

        UK/EEA/Gibraltar/Switzerland immediately before the start of the PhD.) or

        Have indefinite leave to enter or remain

Applications for this funding is now closed for 2024 entry.

Step 1: Apply for a PhD programme at the University of Edinburgh. Each School will have an individual deadline for this funding so please check the School web pages below.

Step 2: Complete the SGSAH funding application form and return it to the School by the relevant School deadline.

Step 3: The University will select and nominate applicants to go forward to the next stage of the competition.

Step 4: Nominated applicant submits the full SGSAH funding application form to the online SGSAH portal in early February 2024. SGSAH release the final funding decisions at the end of April.

School of Divinity

Edinburgh College of Art

School of GeoSciences

School of History, Classics and Archaeology

School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

School of Social and Political Sciences (only where the PhD project relates to an AHRC subject area)

School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Online Information Session

The Dean of Postgraduate Research will be hosting an online information session for prospective SGSAH applicants at 10am-11am BST 18 th October 2023 . No registration needed and please click on this link to join the session

https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/d17eb39a6c6b46979f52a42b5c3c4344

Further Information

For any further queries, please contact us

Postgraduate Research Student Office

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9 phd students were named 2024 humanities engage fellows.

Nine PhD students at the University of Pittsburgh have received research funding from the Pitt’s Humanities Engage project, which is committed to broadening and deepening the intellectual and professional development of all PhD candidates.

Six of the recipients pitched their own Summer Immersive Fellowships, which offer the chance to gain experiences with host organizations in collaborative, mission-focused project work drawing on their high-level skills as researchers and writers. They will be co-mentored by the host organization supervisors, a cohort of faculty mentors and the senior director for graduate advising and engagement for the humanities.

This year’s Summer Immersive Fellowship recipients are:

• Juwon Adenuga (Music)
• Monica Daniels (History of Art and Architecture)
• Luis Delgado (Music)
• Frederick Miller (Theatre Arts)
• Senjuti Mukherjee (Film and Media Studies)
• Ernest Owusu-Poku (Music)

The two-term Immersive Dissertation Research Fellowship supports Humanities dissertation projects that involve substantial professional development and will likely result in dissertation formats other than the conventional proto-monograph. The fellowship carries a competitive stipend, a tuition scholarship and professional development funds for its duration.

The Immersive Dissertation Research Fellowship awardees are:

• Rahul Kumar (Film and Media Studies)
• Apala Kundu (English)
• Warner Sabio (Music)

Pitt is updating its Campus Master Plan

Employees, benefits open enrollment is may 1-15, pitt is launching an office of sustainability in the health sciences.