Status: Closed
Applications open: 12/07/2021
Applications close: 30/08/2021
About this scholarship
Over the last few decades, the status of ‘the human’ has been challenged on a number of fronts. Scientific knowledge of animal culture, mind and behaviour has questioned presumptions of human uniqueness. New media, robots and other technologies have transformed our sociality, producing new ways of living, dying and communicating with nonhuman others. Climate change and the Anthropocene thesis have brought to the fore our embeddedness in a wider environment subject to entangled processes of construction, destruction and extinction. And with these reconfigurations of the place of the human come questions about the capacity of traditional humanities scholarship to adequately account for these new dimensions to its object of study.
Aiming at understanding these challenges to the status both of the human and the humanities, the Posthumanities, Animalities, Environments research program is dedicated to identifying the constraints and the opportunities these cultural and intellectual developments broach. Working at the overlap of three fields of contemporary scholarly innovation — the posthumanities, the animalities, and the environmental humanities — the program seeks to develop transformative concepts and methods for humanities research in the Anthropocene.
Key problems tackled by this program include:
• understanding the role, status, potential and limits of human values and human agency in today’s changing world of new relationships, technologies, knowledge and risks.
• formulating and assessing new methodological practices appropriate to the changing human condition and to the changing demands of humanities research.
• identifying how to anticipate and respond to the challenges posed to contemporary political, social, economic and conceptual systems by an increasing recognition of human entanglement with nonhuman systems, forces and entities.
• determining the potential to compose new relations with various others—animals, machines, things, environments—and how to anticipate and evaluate the effects of these relations.
Applications are sought from candidates with Honours level undergraduate training in concepts and methods from cultural studies, critical theory, posthumanism, science and technology studies, animal studies, and/or the environmental humanities to engage in research in one of the following areas:
• Biopolitics and its limits: drawing on developments in biopolitical theory in order to assess the scope for contemporary structures and rationales of politics and government to accommodate changing relations between human and nonhuman forms of life.
• Ecocultures: engaging poststructuralist and posthumanist theories of significance to problematise the concept of culture in the wake of developments in ethology, ecology and environmental philosophy, and to investigate the role of nonhuman agencies and processes in the formation of socio-cultural institutions.
• Contemporary anthropogenesis: understanding the ongoing reproduction and evolution of figures of the human and humanity in the context of the Anthropocene and the posthuman condition.
Expressions of Interest are also sought from suitably qualified applicants looking to draw on cultural theory (post-structuralism and deconstruction) and political philosophy (Hobbes, Arendt, Foucault, Agamben, Esposito) in order to conduct research on related problems within the scope of the Posthumanities, Animalities and Environments program.
- Future Students
- Faculty of Humanities
- Higher Degree by Research
- Australian Citizen
- Australian Permanent Resident
- New Zealand Citizen
- Permanent Humanitarian Visa
- Merit Based
Total value of the annual scholarships (stipend and fees) is approx. $60,000 - $70,000 p.a. Curtin PhD Stipends are valued at $28,597 p.a. for up to a maximum of 3.5 years.
Successful applicants will receive a 100% Fee offset.
Scholarship Details
1
All applicable HDR courses
• MPhil or First-class Honours in literary studies, cultural studies, continental philosophy, anthropology, or related discipline
• Strong grounding in cultural theory, poststructuralism and/or posthumanism
• Exceptional written communication and comprehension skills
• Familiarity with social media and online communication cultures
Application process
If this project excites you, and your research skills and experience are a good fit for this specific project, you should email the project lead, expressing your interest (EOI) in this project.
Your EOI email should include your current curriculum vitae, a summary of your research skills and experience and the reason you are interested in this specific project.
Enrolment Requirements
Eligible to enrol in a Higher Degree by Research Course at Curtin University by March 2022
Enquiries
To enquire about this project opportunity contact the Project lead (listed below).
Name: Dr Robert Briggs
Email: [email protected]
Contact Number: 9266 4795
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