Doctor of Philosophy - Arts

This subject focuses on the common challenges of designing a research project at PhD level. These include framing research questions in the context of the existing research literature, selecting and developing an appropriate and refined research strategy, and clarifying the stages of a research project. These are all elements required at Confirmation, and the intensive is intended to accelerate students’ preparation toward that goal. The subject will be collaboratively taught to reflect the diversity of approaches to research across the many disciplines in the faculty.

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Action Research (AR) combines the new scholarship of active engagement with social research methods to generate collaborative inquiries, commitment and action. This interdisciplinary graduate course introduces the ways in which researchers and the community and/or industry members collaborate to study actual problems, with the aim to solve them to improve one’s welfare. The major goal is to provide doctoral students with an understanding of useful theories, strategies of AR, an appreciation of advantages and limitations of this research strategy, and skills necessary for conducting AR projects. Towards the end of the course, students will be expected to design an AR project on a topic relevant to them. Previous students’ projects have included cultural heritage management, human resource strategy, museum exhibit creation and youth theatre. The primary course format will reflect the participatory commitment to co-teaching and co-learning. Experts and practitioners will join in the discussions to broaden idea generation.

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The subject, conducted as six fortnightly seminars, introduces commencing graduate students to various tools and traditions of reading, writing, researching and thinking about the past. The subject will touch on a range of key methodological approaches in historiography over the past half century. Its intention is to focus students' attention on issues to do with researching and communicating knowledge of the past and on discussion of the broader role and claims of historical scholarship. We will consider changing modes of historical writing and publication, as well as the place of the PhD itself in historical training.

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This fortnightly workshop will be structured around six key thematic categories that shape research in the text-based humanities: text; reading; author; archive; context; value. These themes will be engaged as the vital building blocks of a research project in literary or performance studies. The workshop will engage these categories through a range of methodological approaches and conceptual positions that inform critical engagement with literature, theatre and other forms of textual practice. It will encourage students to reflect upon their own social, cultural and intellectual positioning as researchers and writers, and in relation to the projects they are beginning to define. Students will examine a range of historical debates on the nature and practice of research in the text-based humanities. They will also engage with current debates about the role of the humanities, in general, and literature, more specifically, in contemporary culture and society.

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Those students electing to take the Researching Politics and Policy workshop will become familiar with the latest developments – the 'cutting edge' – in major branches of political science and policy theory. The underlying objective is for each student to be better prepared to select the most appropriate theoretical framework for their particular project.

Late penalty requirement: Assessment submitted late without an approved extension will be penalised at five per cent (5%) of the possible marks available for the assessment task per day or part thereof and will not be accepted after 20 University business days from the original assessment due date without written approval.

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This subject introduces a range of fundamental theories of the nature of language and approaches to the analysis of its structure and use. The way we will do this is to critically examine 6 sets of readings representing current issues, debates or opposing points of view; to make explicit their theoretical backgrounds and assumptions, how this affects the course of their arguments, and what counts as ‘evidence’. Many of these sets of articles represent a conflict between ‘emic’ (abstract, ‘insider’ knowledge) and ‘etic’ (observable, measurable) approaches; an opposition which is pervasive across linguistics and applied linguistics. All materials will be made available through LMS. Students are encouraged to begin reading early.

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This subject introduces PhD candidates to a range of art theories and art historical methodologies that remain available and relevant from the past, but that have been updated and critiqued in more recent times. It is also concerned with newer perspectives and trends. The subject will also introduce students to topics in the broader history of ideas or critical theory. Where possible, the class may feature in-class conversations with guest experts who will present an overview of their research experience and methodological shifts. Proposed texts will include selections from the works of major art theorists and historians, including Georges Bataille, Judith Butler, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Georges Didi-Huberman, Sigmund Freud, Michael Fried, Martin Heidegger, Laura Mulvey, Meyer Schapiro, Alois Riegl and Aby Warburg.

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This skills-led course is taught in computer labs. Students will learn how to collect website and social media data using both screen-scraping techniques and through APIs (Application Program Interfaces). The course is designed for non-programmers; no coding skills will be required. Once collected, students will learn how to clean and then analyse the data using two methods: content analysis and social network analysis. Finally, the course will introduce students to data visualisation techniques.

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This subject offers a comprehensive introduction to quantitative methods for the social sciences, with a focus on both descriptive and inferential statistics. Students will learn how to explore data, conduct hypothesis testing, and apply regression analysis to examine relationships between variables. The subject also introduces fundamental research designs for drawing causal inferences. In addition, students will gain hands-on experience in using software programs for data analysis and visualisation. No prior knowledge is required; however, a willingness to engage with quantitative reasoning and develop analytical skills is expected.

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The focus of this subject is to engage students in the process of making strategic and appropriate research design choices from the range of qualitative research methods suitable for social science research. The subject will move between gaining practical experience with in-depth interviewing as a core qualitative data collection technique, and understanding the sampling and recruitment strategies that frame data collection for qualitative research more generally. The elective is structured as an interactive workshop involving a mixture of lecture, discussion and practical activities. The elective will be most suited to those who have had some previous experience with qualitative research, though it is not essential.

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This subject introduces students to central contemporary methodological approaches to philosophy, such as: apriori reasoning and analyticity, experimental philosophy, the phenomenological method, and feminist epistemology.

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The subject offers a critical approach to the study of gender and sexuality through the exploration of a range of conceptual and methodological approaches central to the study of gender and sexuality, such as: intersectionality, situated knowledge, indigenous knowledge, media and representation, queering categories of difference, and affective methodologies. This subject is structured around six thematic workshops that are formed around contemporary debates in the fields of gender and sexuality.

The subject is designed for students who wish to deepen their existing knowledge of gender theories as well as for those who are interested in exploring how engaging with gender theories and methods might open up their projects in unexpected and useful ways. The subject will include guest lectures by gender studies specialists.

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