UNSW Offering PhD Scholarship: Applications Being Accepted Now @UNSW

From Dr. Ben Golder, Associate Dean (Education), Faculty of Law, UNSW Sydney

UNSW is continuing its generous Scientia Scholarship scheme, which features a full fee waiver, a $41,209 (AUD) annual stipend, and an annual professional development fund.

The UNSW Scientia PhD Scholarship Scheme is part of UNSW’s dedication to harnessing our cutting-edge research to solve complex problems and improve the lives of people in local and global communities. Scientia candidates will have a strong commitment to making a difference in the world with demonstrated potential for contributing to the social engagement and/or global impact pillars of the UNSW 2025 Strategy.

Applicants are required to express their interest in a specific research area with an identified supervisory team. There are over 190 research projects to choose from. The following project, working with Dr Ben Golder, Dr Jessica Whyte and Dr Daniel McLoughlin, may be of interest to members of this list and their students:https://www.scientia.unsw.edu.au/scientia-phd-scholarships/crisis-human-rights

This project critically interrogates the claim that there is a contemporary ‘crisis’ of human rights. Under threat both from right-wing authoritarians and xenophobic populists and from left-wing critics of their neoliberal politics and apologetics for militarised humanitarian intervention, proponents of HR face a reckoning with our troubled political times. What is the fate of human rights in the era of populist insurgencies, neoliberal austerity and endless global war? Using the tools of critical theory, the project will examine scholarly and public critiques of human rights, asking whether existing HR movements, organisations and norms are sufficiently robust to respond to them. 

PhD Fellowship, School of Humanities and Digital Sciences: Deadline August 31, 2018 @TilburgU

The Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences of Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands, invites applications for a four-year PhD position (1,0 fte) in continental political philosophy, the philosophy of culture, or cultural studies, starting November 1, 2018 or later this year, on the topic of social media and the public sphere.

Profile Candidates must hold a MA/MSc degree or equivalent by the time of appointment. Apart from philosophy graduates, candidates with degrees in other relevant disciplines are welcome if they can demonstrate a high level of familiarity with political philosophy or philosophy of culture. The selected candidate will be a member of the Graduate School of the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences.

The selected candidate is expected to become member of the research groups Philosophy of Humanity, Culture and Ethics and Rapid Social & Cultural Transformations. They sustain large international networks and regularly organize conferences, workshops and seminars in different traditions of continental philosophy and cultural studies, respectively. The candidate is expected to have written a PhD thesis on the topic of social media and the public sphere by the end of the contract.

The PhD thesis is funded by the Advancing Society: Impact program of Tilburg University, theme: Empowering Resilient Society. The subject of the thesis is expected to be an interdisciplinary research, which combines two or more of the following disciplines: Philosophy of Humanity, Culture, and Society; Philosophy of Art and Media; Cultural Studies; Literary theory; Online culture and Digitalization Philosophy of Law; Critical Theory; Democratic Theory. The thesis will be written under the supervision of Prof. M.S. Prange (Department of Philosophy); Prof. O.M. Heynders (Department Cultural Studies); Dr. M. Bot (Department of Law).

This PhD project explores possibilities for democratic communication in an age of social media and digital technologies. The project explores how social media and digital technologies can facilitate free communication among equal members of democratic publics, and it explores how social media and digital technologies can undermine such free communication, for instance through bots and trolling and by providing platforms for narratives, symbols, and sentiments of inequality, particularly of race, religion, gender and sexuality.

More about the position, including application information, here.

PhD Studentship Available At VR Lab, Bristol

From the mailbox, via Dr. Thom Giddens @ThomGiddens

Collaborative PhD Studentship - Authoring Augmented Public Space: Design for Experiential Placemaking

Applications are open for a three-year full-time Doctoral studentship, fully funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council/National Productivity Investment Fund (AHRC/NPIF), to undertake practice-led research into creative forms that consider new forms of engagement with public space in light of new immersive experiences.

Technologies for the Creative Industries, specifically technologies of immersion like augmented and virtual reality, will reshape the ways in which we experience increasingly hybrid physical and digital spaces. Fundamental to these technologies are well-designed immersive and interactive experiences that put the human at the centre of the experience. This practice-based studentship, working alongside the research team in Bristol’s newly launched VR Lab, will explore a set of speculative experience design experiments that consider how public spaces will become more playful and engaging through the use of technologies of immersion.

Combining theories of design, human-computer interaction, emerging & transformative digital technologies and immersion and presence, with speculative prompts and design provocations from industry collaborator and mentor Arup Global Research, you'll explore and develop near future experiences of the Augmented City. Design research topics will investigate creative approaches to storytelling and performance, considering playful and playable experiences with enchanted public spaces that might exist at the intersection of the physical and digital world.

   Possible research areas include:  

• Immersive Technologies, including Augmented and Virtual Reality
• Speculative Futures and Design Fiction
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Experience Design for Immersive Experiences
• Architecture and Urban Design

Joining an interdisciplinary Design Futures Lab cohort of 12 collaborative PhD students, you will be part of an innovative and cutting-edge group of researchers dedicated to reshaping industrial technologies and processes through embedded practice-based research.

The DCRC has a strong track record of successful PhD completions and offers access to an exciting creative and intellectual community, and students researching emerging creative practices. The Centre, based in the Pervasive Media Studio is home to the i-Docs research group and symposium and the Ambient Literature project. We expect research students to take a full and active role in the Research Centre and to take part in regular workshops, conferences and seminars. The studentship commences October 2017.

Applicants will be expected to attend an interview in Bristol on either July 10 or 11 and demonstrate:

• imaginative and viable preliminary ideas for research into this subject area
• an appreciation of the nature of PhD study and of both independent and collaborative research
• evidence that you have, or can develop, the skills required to start the proposed research

For an informal discussion about the studentship contact jennifer.stein@uwe.ac.uk

Deadline for applications is 17:00 on Monday June 19.

Further information regarding eligibility and the application process visit: http://3d3research.co.uk/information/npif-studentships-general-information-live

The NPIF studentships comprise tuition fees at Home/EU rates and, for UK award holders, a maintenance award (£14,553 per year) tenable for a minimum period of 3 academic years. EU students are welcome to apply, but are eligible for tuition fees only. We also welcome applications for part-time studentships; these comprise tuition fees and a pro-rata maintenance award for a 5-year period.

Call For Applications: Centre for Law and Culture, PhD Studentship

The Centre for Law and Culture, St. Mary's University, Twickenham, London, is accepting applications for a fully funded full-time three-year PhD studentship, beginning in October of 2017. Here is a link to the webpage.


The Centre for Law and Culture is an interdisciplinary hub for research at the intersections of law, justice, and the humanities; it is a home for the cultural study of law. It aims to incubate and promote critical research that crosses and challenges traditional legal boundaries in a cultural context. It has a growing reputation as a rallying point for such culturally enriched legal research, with Centre activities engaging scholars whose work spans topics and themes from across critical and cultural legal studies.

Visit the Centre for Law and Culture webpages for more information about the Centre. The studentship will provide full-time PhD student fees at the home/EU rate of £4,020 p.a. and a bursary of £13,000 p.a., as well as £300 p.a. conference attendance budget.

Applicants should have a Masters at distinction or a Masters with Merit and a distinction in the dissertation.