New PhD programme: Philosophy of Art & Culture

The NUI Galway and UL Alliance have announced an exciting new structured PhD programme in Philosophy of Art and Culture at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

This unique, inter-institutional PhD programme, which will run for the first time in the 2011/12 academic year, has been developed collaboratively by the Philosophy departments at NUI Galway and Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, with the Department of History at the University of Limerick. By blending expertise from the three partner institutions, the highly innovative programme seeks to explore the philosophy of art and culture in an intellectually enriched setting, combining Analytic and Continental Philosophy.
 
The programme offers students valuable insight into the theories and methodologies that are basic to research in all aspects of philosophy of art and culture. It aims to develop students’ skills as active researchers and their capacity to pursue research independently as well as their ability to work in collaboration with others and in broader networks of international research contacts. Students will be encouraged to formulate their work in such a way as to be presentable at conferences and colloquia at both the national and international level and will be instructed in how to teach and develop their research to international standards through specialist disciplinary education.
 
The programme will be offered on an inter-institutional basis across the three partner Institutions. Students will therefore register at either Mary Immaculate College or NUI Galway, but will, under the guidance of their supervisors, take a number of core modules in each of the participating institutions and will choose from a number of other modules on offer. Depending on which modules individual students select according to their own needs, there may also be an element of distance education. Among the modules expected to be taught on the programme at Mary Immaculate College are: Philosophy and the Subject: From the Modern to the Post-Modern; Introduction to Hermeneutics; Literary Aesthetics and Research Methodology. Phenomenology of Art and Culture, History and Philosophy of Pictorial Space and Modernity and Knowledge will be taught at NUI Galway, while modules in Art and Cultures of Display and The Look of the Past will be offered at the University of Limerick.
 
The MIC Director of the programme, Dr. Stephen Thornton, said: “This programme is the first of its kind in Ireland, and offers exciting new possibilities for the promotion of inter-institutional collaboration and research in the philosophy of Art and Culture, construed in a very broad and inclusive sense. We envisage that it will appeal to those who have an interest in Philosophy, Art, Literature and other aspects of contemporary culture and who wish to pursue that interest at the highest level, utilising the expertise available at the three participating institutions.”
 
NUI Galway Professor of Philosophy, Paul Crowther said: “We live in a time when the meanings of art and culture are being subjected to radical questioning through globalisation and modes of new technology. Our programme negotiates this challenge. It does so by combining depth and breadth in philosophical thinking about the arts and the meaning of culture. By this means, it also connects philosophical aesthetics to community-life and the bigger world-picture.”
 
Applicants will normally possess at least an upper second level (2.1) primary degree in Philosophy or a similar award from a cognate discipline from a recognised third level institution. Acceptance may be subject to interview and/or a sample of written work and is entirely at the discretion of the Programme Board. Candidates should be proficient in the use of English for academic purposes. A number of Assistantships will be available for applicants on a competitive basis.
 
For a copy of the Programme Brochure, please contact: Ms Linda McGrath, The Arts Office, Mary Immaculate College: 061-204525 or linda.mcgrath@mic.ul.ie.

Read more about postgraduate programmes at Mary Immaculate College and the University of Limerick.