ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Durham University - Department of Sociology and Social Care

Location: Durham

Salary: £33,797 to £40,322

Hours: Part Time

Contract Type: Fixed-Term/Contract

Placed On: 27th July 2020

Closes: 16th August 2020

Job Ref: 20000380

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Sociology with a particular emphasis on violence and abuse: in intimate relationships, in hate relationships, on campus, in communities. The postholder will provide dedicated assistance to Professor Catherine Donovan during her period of appointment as Head of Department. Professor Donovan is working on a range of projects with internal and external collaborators and the PDRA will provide support for these as required in line with the duties below.

The successful applicant will be expected to:

• Contribute to fostering a collegial and respectful working environment which is inclusive and welcoming and where everyone is treated fairly with dignity and respect.
• Contribute to the planning and delivery of research projects.
• Conduct literature searches and write annotated bibliographies of the literature
• Actively and positively contribute to the Centres for Research into Violence and Abuse and Communities and Social Justice.
• Deal with problems that may affect the achievement of agreed goals and deadlines by discussing with Catherine Donovan and offering creative or innovative solutions.
• Write up results of research work.
• Prepare and deliver presentations on research activities, progress and outcomes to bodies supervising research in a clear and accurate manner.

Broader Responsibilities:

• Liaise with research colleagues/collaborators and make internal and external contacts to develop knowledge and understanding to form relationships for future research collaboration.
• To understand and convey specialist information which needs careful explanation through presentations, discussions and meetings which contribute to the production of research reports and publications.
• To conduct research projects under the direction of Catherine Donovan.
• To engage in wider citizenship to support the department and wider discipline.
• To work with the Principal Investigator or Grant-holder and other colleagues in the research group, as appropriate, to identify areas for research, develop new research methods and extend the research portfolio.
• To plan and manage own research activity, research resources in collaboration with others and contribute to the planning of research projects.
• To engage in continuing professional development by participation in the undergraduate or postgraduate teaching programmes or by membership of departmental committees, etc. and by attending relevant training and development courses.
• To deliver training in research techniques/approaches to peers, visitors and students as appropriate.

This post is fixed term for 2 years to provide support during Professor Donovan’s period of office as Head of Department. As such, the post-holder is employed to work on research which will be led by Professor Donovan. Whilst this means that the post-holder will not be carrying out independent research in his/her own right, the expectation is that they will contribute to the advancement of the work, through the development of their own research ideas/adaptation and development of research protocols.

Special issue of Loading

Deadline: August 14, 2020

The Kingdom Hearts franchise straddles worlds, falling between the realms of Disney and Square Enix, invoking myriad characters and franchises from both companies and finding fans not just in Japan and America, but all over the world. Despite the success of this franchise, which now extends to eight mainline instalments produced since 2002 (not to mention additional remasters and mobile game spin-offs) collectively selling 24 million units to date (Minotti, 2018), Kingdom Hearts has yet to be fully interrogated as a nexus point for game culture. As a remedy, this Special Issue of Loading seeks to investigate how Kingdom Hearts occupies a locus point between cultures, industries and fandoms. In Kingdom Hearts, we argue, games studies finds an exemplar of current debates and theories, including, but not limited to issues like: Ludo-adaptation and narratology (Punday, 2019), representation, identity and diversity (Chess, 2017; Kocurek, 2015; Malkowski and Russworm, 2017; Ruberg and Shaw, 2017) and participatory culture and fan taste cultures (Consalvo and Paul, 2019; Sharp and Thomas, 2019). In particular, we seek to find the moments of tension, synergy and unexpected synchrony enabled by the blending of Square Enix and Disney’s characters, worlds and business cultures. In doing so, we aim to interrogate the impact such transnational, transcultural and transindustrial co-productions can have on wider games culture

This Special Issue will build on an existing project about Kingdom Hearts, but we are looking to expand its remit, especially in the areas outlined below. If these, or any other topics interest you, please do get in touch with us:

• Transmedia storytelling
• Ludology within Kingdom Hearts
• Ancillary merchandising
• Adaptation of Disney characters in Kingdom Hearts
• Music and sound in Kingdom Hearts
• Kingdom Hearts in the history of the Japanese Role-playing Game
• How Kingdom Hearts relates to current key theoretical debates in Games Studies
• Issues of representation, particularly anthropomorphism, ethnicity and sexuality
• Fan creativity around Kingdom Hearts

If you would like to submit a proposal, please send a 300 word abstract by 14 August 2020, including full contact details, to the editors at: kingdomheartstransmediaproject@gmail.com

Works cited

Chess, S., 2017. Ready Player Two: Women Gamers and Designed Identity. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Consalvo, M., Paul, C.A., 2019. Real Games: What’s Legitimate and What’s Not in Contemporary Videogames. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Kocurek, C.A., 2015. Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Malkowski, J., Russworm, T. (Eds.), 2017. Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

Punday, D., 2019. Playing at Narratology: Digital Media as Narrative Theory. The Ohio State University Press, Columbus.

Ruberg, B., Shaw, A. (Eds.), 2017. Queer Game Studies. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Sharp, J., Thomas, D., 2019. Fun, taste, & games: an aesthetics of the idle, unproductive, and otherwise playful, Playful thinking. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Queensland University of Technology

The QUT Digital Media Research Centre is offering a three-year PhD scholarship associated with a major ARC Discovery research project on mis- and disinformation in social media. Working with DMRC research leaders Axel Bruns, Stephen Harrington, and Dan Angus, and collaborating with Scott Wright (Monash University, Melbourne), Jenny Stromer-Galley (Syracuse University, USA), and Karin Wahl-Jorgensen (Cardiff University, UK), the PhD researcher will use qualitative and quantitative analytics methods to investigate the dissemination patterns and processes for mis- and disinformation.

Ideally, the PhD researcher should be equally familiar with qualitative, close reading as well as quantitative, computational research methods. They will draw on the state-of-the-art social media analytics approaches to examine the role of specific individual, institutional, and automated actors in promoting or preventing the distribution of suspected ‘fake news’ content across Australian social media networks. Building on this work, they will develop a number of the case studies of the trajectories of specific stories across the media ecosystem, drawing crucially on issue mapping methods to produce a forensic analysis of how particular stories are disseminated by a combination of fringe outlets, social media platforms and their users, and potentially also by mainstream media publications.

Interested candidates should first contact Prof. Axel Bruns (a.bruns@qut.edu.au). You will then be asked to complete the DMRC EOI form (https://research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/dmrc-eois-2020-annual-scholarship-round/), by 31 August. We will assess your eligibility for PhD study, and work with you to develop a formal PhD application to QUT's scholarship applications system, by 30 October. The PhD itself will commence in early 2021. International applicants are welcome.

The DMRC is a global leader in digital humanities and social science research with a focus on communication, media, and the law. It is one of Australia’s top organisations for media and communication research, areas in which QUT has achieved the highest possible rankings in ERA, the national research quality assessment exercise. Our research programs investigate the digital transformation of media industries, the challenges of digital inclusion and governance, the growing role of AI and automation in the information environment, and the role of social media in public communication. The DMRC has access to cutting-edge research infrastructure and capabilities in computational methods for the study of communication and society. We actively engage with industry and academic partners in Australia, Europe, Asia, the US, and South America; and we are especially proud of the dynamic and supportive research training environment we provide to our many local and international graduate students.

June 21-23, 2021

Link Campus University, Via del Casale di San Pio V 44 – Rome

Deadline: November 15, 2020

Conference Website: https://www.detect-project.eu/detect2021/

[Keynote speakers to be announced soon]

Among the different expressions of popular culture, no other genre more than crime – meant as a composite made up of many different variants or subgenres -- has proved able to travel and expand its reach into international markets and with audiences. Nor has any other genre been more adept at laying bare the conflicts and contradictions – social, political and historical – that characterise contemporary European societies. The Detecting Europe conference offers an open forum to explore and discuss how narratives of crime and investigation, as well as their production and reception, have helped define the major industrial, commercial, thematic and stylistic trends of European popular culture since 1989, fostering both the transnational circulation of its products and the appearance of new transcultural representations in line with the emergence

of new social identities. We welcome proposals that interrogate the notion of Europeanness as a critical category, and its viability for the study of contemporary popular culture, both in print and screen media. We wish to explore both the scope and limits of the interrelated notions of transnational identity and cosmopolitanism when applied to the works of European crime fiction, including print fiction, film, and TV.

A few general — but not exclusive — questions may be asked. Are we to conceive of cosmopolitanism and the process of European transculturation merely as unifying factors, fostering the generation of a shared and uniform transnational identity? Or should we better acknowledge the existence of a variety of European transcultural identities, expressed in different writing and audio-visual styles, characteristic narrative models, place-specific production cultures and distribution and consumption patterns? What is the impact of national media ecologies in shaping the idea of the European, and how the national translate the European when foreign products appear in its mediascape? Should hybridization and transculturation be assumed as markers and powerful drivers of cultural homologation? Or rather the opposite is true, namely that cultural hybridization entails a growing differentiation of narrative forms and styles, contents and formats, production and reception practices, thus contributing to the emergence of a post-national assemblage of multiple and possibly diverging cosmopolitan identities? We deem it important, at this particular time, that the notion of Europeanness and its eventual instantiations in contemporary crime narratives is approached having in mind the multiple crises that are currently affecting the continent and its population.

We invite proposals from multiple fields of cultural studies, including representation studies, industry and production studies, and reception and audience studies. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Main stylistic trends of the crime-genre works produced in Europe in the last 30 years.

Debating/reframing Euronoir as a critical category for cultural studies.

• Hybridization and transculturation: toward homologation or increased cultural differentiation?
• Crime fiction and the European crisis: immigration, migrant labour, Brexit, and the rise of right-wing popularism.
• The restaging and critical analysis of Europe’s recent past in the work of crime writers, screenwriters and directors.
• Images of Europe and Europeans: investigating social change through the study of popular crime narratives.
• Restating vs challenging class, gender and ethnic stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination in the representation of crime.
• The multiple facets of European diversity: how have social, spatial and historical identities been expressed in the works of the European crime genre?
• Ecocriticism and environmental humanities in the era of widescale ecological crisis: eco-noir and the challenges to European environment policies.
• The profiled position of crime in fostering transnational cooperation in the European cultural and creative sectors.
• Relationships and discrepancies between national/local creative industries and transnational cultural policies in the production milieu of the European crime genre.
• Transnational production and distribution and the emergence of transcultural formats.
• The hopes and limits of European cohesiveness, as revealed in practices of co-production and

distribution of crime novels, films and TV dramas across the continent.

• Crime narratives and the media discourse on organized trans-European crime.
• Fictional representations of legal and forensic practices in comparative perspective.
• Translation, dubbing, subtitling as strategies for cultural adaptation and appropriation.
• The imbrication of local, national and transnational identities in the reception of foreign crime stories, between old and fresh perspectives on proximate or distant neighbors.
• Transnational distribution and the role of audiences in shaping the circulation patterns of European crime narratives across the continent.
• Detecting transcultural identity and social change through the study of the audiences’ response to crime stories and trans/cross-media universes.
• Engagement and design of crime audiences in the age of digital markets and online distribution.
• Making sense of social change through the audience’s response to the representation of female, gay, lesbian and queer characters.
• Theorising transnational/transdisciplinary research for the study of European crime narratives in print and screen media.

Conference Chairs

Monica Dall’Asta (University of Bologna), Federico Pagello (University of Chieti-Pescara), Valentina Re (Link Campus University)

Organizing Committee

Luca Antoniazzi (University of Bologna), Sara Casoli (University of Bologna), Massimiliano Coviello (Link Campus University), Paola De Rosa (Link Campus University), Lorenzo Orlando (Link Campus University)

Advisory Board

Stefano Arduini (Link Campus University), Maurizio Ascari (University of Bologna), Jan Baetens (KU Leuven), Luca Barra (University of Bologna), Stefano Baschiera (Queen’s University Belfast), Giulia Carluccio (University of Turin), Silvana Colella (University of Macerata), Caius Dobrescu (University of Bucharest), Andrea Esser (University of Roehampton), Nicola Ferrigni (Link Campus University), Katarina Gregersdotter (Umeå University), Kim Toft Hansen (Aalborg University), Annette Hill (University of Lund), Dominique Jeannerod (Queen’s University Belfast), Sandor Kalai (University of Debrecen), Matthieu Letourneux (University Paris Nanterre), Natacha Levet (University of Limoges), Giacomo Manzoli (University of Bologna), Janet McCabe (Birkbeck University), Jacques Migozzi (University of Limoges), Andrew Pepper (Queen’s University Belfast), Marica Spalletta (Link Campus University)

Deadlines and practicalities

• Abstracts deadline: 15 November 2020
• Feedback: 15 December 2020
• Registration deadline: 31 January 2020

Regular conference fee: €120

Reduced conference fee (PhD students, Postdoctoral researchers): €90

Further information: info@detect-project.eu

Submissions guidelines

Submissions are welcome as individual papers (max. 20 minutes) and pre-constituted panels (3/4 papers).

Individual presenters are required to provide their name, email address, the title of the paper, an abstract (max. 300 words), references (max. 200 words), and a short bio (max. 150 words).

Submit your paper proposal here

Submit your panel proposal here (panel organizers are also asked to submit a panel title and a short description of the panel (max. 300 words).

The conference is supported by CUC – Consulta Universitaria del Cinema, Italy.

Special Research Topic of the journal Frontiers in Communication, Science and Environmental Communication Section

Deadline: December 26, 2020

Guest Editors:

• Dr. Dara M Wald, Iowa State University, Ames, United States
• Dr. Ulrike Felt, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
• Dr. Anabela Carvalho, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

We seek original research that can enhance our understanding of the social dimensions of COVID-19 by examining how communication relates to attitudes, practices and values that the pandemic has placed in harsh relief. In brief, we are particularly interested in exploring how publics are responding to social distancing and other protective measures; how trust, responsibility, uncertainty, accountability and democracy relate to each other during this pandemic; how messaging about the pandemic differs among and between countries, regions, organizations and key actors. We are also interested in theoretical and normative inquiries into science communication itself such as how engagement practices are shifting during COVID-19, how political considerations or presumptions about individuals and social collectives have shaped science communication and how inclusive and context-sensitive communication is being imagined and enacted.

We encourage multiple article types, including, but not limited to: original research, hypothesis and theory, review, perspective, opinion, conceptual analysis, community case study and policy & practice review.

Full manuscripts are due December 26, 2020.

Due to the importance and urgency of the topic, publication charges will be 100% waived for all papers submitted to this collection by the manuscript deadline.

Visit the collection homepage for the full description of the project: https://www.frontiersin.org/…58/

Special Issue of the Media Studies Journal (Medijske studije) 

Deadline: October 5, 2020

Guest editors:

• Domagoj Bebić, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Political Sciences, Croatia
• Dina Vozab, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Political Sciences, Croatia
• Oscar Luengo, University of Granada, Spain

Timeline:

• Submission Full Papers: 5th October 2020
• Peer Review and Revisions: 15th October – 10th December 2020
• Publication: December 2020 / January 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic crisis deeply influenced the relationship between media and politics. Slowing down of economic activity amid lockdowns and physical distancing influenced revenue and sustainability of media organizations and patterns of media consumption. Some preliminary research found that the crisis prompted higher trust in government and inclination to vote for the ruling party or president (Blais et al., 2020). Most of the parliamentary and presidential elections have been postponed in 2020. However, some have been held amid the 2020 pandemic (parliamentary elections in Croatia and Serbia, presidential election in Poland).This special issue invites authors to contribute to understanding elections that are taking place in an increasingly unstable political environment, characterized by hybrid media systems (Chadwick, 2017) and data driven communication (Kreiss and McGregor, 2018).

We invite papers that address mediatization of elections, relationship between journalism and politics, characteristics of media messages, frames and discourses, agenda-setting, characteristics of political campaign and communication strategies, the rise of new platforms (TikTok, Snapchat etc.), algorithmic selection and automatization, media effects, audiences and voters’ behavior. We encourage papers that derive from media sociology, critical paradigm and political economy of media and communication.

Call is also open to papers that are not necessarily related to elections but tackle some of the following topics:

• The rise of data driven communication
• “Social editors” and (dis)information on social media
• Artificially generated content and how it affects democracy
• Microtargeting and personalization of content in journalism and political communication
• AI and how it changes media industry.

There are no fees or any other payment for authors required in the publication process. All papers should be submitted through OJS https://hrcak.srce.hr/…ons.

For all other information please contact Dina Vozab (dina.vozab@fpzg.hr), Stela Lechpammer (stela.lechpammer@fpzg.hr) or Marijana Grbeša Zenzerović (ms@fpzg.hr).

For more information about journal and author guidelines please visit https://www.mediastudies.fpzg.hr/

University of Leeds

We are appointing a three-year, full-time postdoctoral research fellow to join us (Dr Giorgia Aiello, Professor Christopher Anderson & Professor Helen Kennedy) on Generic Visuals in the News: The Role of Stock Photos and Simple Data Visualizations in Assembling Publics, from 1st October 2020 until 30th September 2023.

Generic Visuals in the News, a research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, will explore how generic visuals assemble political publics. Do stock photographs and simple data visualizations - which are increasingly ubiquitous and understudied - bring groups of people together around shared interests and concerns? Do they activate citizens to care about particular issues and lead to specific forms of political engagement?

Generic Visuals in the News will use mixed methods, combining ethnographic fieldwork, focus groups, interviews, and social semiotic analysis. The successful candidate will be a key member of the research team, carrying out research in newsrooms, analysing generic visuals, and interviewing members of the public in order to explore how they respond to generic visuals in the news, amongst other duties.

Further information about applying can be found here: https://jobs.leeds.ac.uk/…047.

Closing date: August 17, 2020.

Papers on Language and Literature

Deadline: August 10, 2020

PLL (Papers on Language and Literature) invites reviews of current books on topics relevant to independent, avant-garde, experimental and art film for publication in PLL’s upcoming special issue (vol. 57) due in 2021.

Please send a review proposal and CV (including the list of publications) to the guest editor, Dr. Kornelia Boczkowska (kornelia.boczkowska@gmail.com) by August 10, 2020.

Authors of accepted proposals will be expected to write a book review (1,000 words) by September 10, 2020.

Papers on Language and Literature is published quarterly at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. It is indexed in Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, Periodicals Index Online, Art Abstracts, Art Source, Humanities Abstracts, Art Index, Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, DIALNET.

Suggested titles (but other proposals are more than welcome):

• Devereaux, Michelle. /The Stillness of Solitude: Romanticism and Contemporary American Independent Film/. Edinburgh University Press, 2019.
• Goldberg, Marcy and Ian Wooldrige. /Minor Cinema: Experimental Film in Switzerland/. JRP Ringier Kunstverlag AG, 2020.

• Heck, Kalling. /After Authority: Global Art Cinema and Political Transition/. Rutgers University Press, 2020.
• Hobbs, Simon. /Cultivating Extreme Art Cinema: Text, Paratext and Home Video Culture/. Edinburgh University Press, 2020.
• Howes, Seth. /Moving Images on the Margins: Experimental Film in Late Socialist East Germany/. Boydell & Brewer, 2019.
• Kiejziewicz, Agnieszka. /Japanese Avant-Garde and Experimental Film/. Peter Lang, 2019.
• King, Geoff. /Positioning Art Cinema: Film and Cultural Value/. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.
• Ma, Ran. /Independent Filmmaking Across Borders in Contemporary Asia/. Amsterdam University Press, 2019.
• Murphy, J. J. /Rewriting Indie Cinema: Improvisation, Psychodrama, and the Screenplay/. Columbia University Press, 2019.
• Rees, A.L. /Fields of View: Film, Art and Spectatorship/. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.
• Remes, Justin. /Absence in Cinema: The Art of Showing Nothing/. Columbia University Press, 2020.
• Sheehan, Rebecca A. /American Avant-Garde Cinema's Philosophy of the In-Between/. Oxford University Press, 2020.
• Sinwell, Sarah E.S. /Indie Cinema Online/. Rutgers University Press, 2020.
• Youngblood, Gene. /Expanded Cinema: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition/. Fordham University Press, 2020.
• Walley, Jonathan. /Cinema Expanded: Avant-garde Film in the Age of Intermedia/. Oxford University Press, 2020.
• Willis, Holly. /New Digital Cinema: Reinventing the Moving Image/. Columbia University Press, 2019.
• Zimmermann, Patricia R. /Documentary Across Platforms: Reverse Engineering Media, Place, and Politics/. Indiana University Press, 2019.

March 26, 2021

University of Pennsylvania (USA)

Deadline: September 1, 2020

As COVID-19 spreads across the globe and poses multiple crises to nations and humanity, our previous assumptions of community, mobility, personhood, and even society itself are called into question. Widespread border closure and travel disruptions have rendered conventional forms of sociality difficult. Lockdown, social distancing and work-from-home orders have affected different social groups in vastly different ways, with clear adverse impact on women, racial minorities, and the working poor. Pandemic narratives proliferate on social media and news networks.

Individuals in different world regions articulate different if not conflictual meanings of self, community, justice, and the nation in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Political elites in some nations propagate narratives of virus nationalism and populism and violently exclude and stigmatize certain social groups.

In a world troubled by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative for researchers to rework our theoretical assumptions and frameworks as we embark on new empirical and theoretical inquiries. The Center on Digital Culture and Society at the University of Pennsylvania seeks to bring together a group of scholars for an interdisciplinary workshop to examine these important issues and explore new research agendas. We particularly welcome empirical research which takes historical, critical, cultural, and political-economic approaches to the study of the following topics:

-New and radical practices and visions of technologies in the COVID-19 pandemic

-Changing narratives of borders, communities, and mobility

-The resurgence of racism and right-wing nationalism

-Gender and the crisis of social reproduction

-Evolving patterns of media/tech activism and surveillance, and their implications for future social movements

-Narratives of identity, solidarity, emotions, personhood, social justice, and nationalism

-Artificial intelligence, automation, and other technologies in economic, political and social processes

-Comparative studies of risks, vulnerabilities, and pandemic narratives across time and space

Please submit extended paper abstracts of 500-800 words in English to cdcs@asc.upenn.edu before September 1, 2020 with “COVID Workshop” in the subject line. The authors of accepted proposals will be invited to present the full paper at a workshop on March 26, 2021 hosted by the Center on Digital Culture and Society. Depending on the pandemic situation, the workshop may be virtual or in-person. If in-person, the workshop will be held at the University of Pennsylvania and organizers will cover the invited authors’ travel and accommodation. If the workshop is held virtually, organizers will pay an honorarium to invited speakers. Presented papers will be published in a special journal issue and/or as an edited book. The workshop will be co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Open University - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Qualification Type: PhD

Location: Milton Keynes

Funding for: UK Students

Funding amount: See advert text.

Hours: Full Time

Placed On: 24th July 2020

Closes: 7th September 2020

Reference: 13238

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has available one full-time PhD studentship funded by the Research and Evaluation budget allocated as part of The Open University’s Access and Participation Plan (APP) approved by the Office for Students (OfS) in April 2020. It is a collaborative award with Access, Participation and Success on ‘Critically examining race, racism and decolonisation at The Open University.’

The numbers of Black, people of colour, Asian and minority ethnic or ‘BAME’ students entering higher education have increased in the UK. However, persistent disparities in the attainment, experience and progression of these students compared to white students have been identified. Student-led anti-racist campaigns, such as Why is my Curriculum White (UCL) and Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford, have led some Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to prioritise work to remove inequalities in outcomes for ‘BAME’ students and ‘decolonise the curriculum’.

All HEIs that charge above basic fee levels in England are required to have an approved APP as a condition of registration, setting out how they intend to spend a proportion of fee income over the basic £6,000 fee (£4,500 for part-time students) to deliver initiatives that support students who face the most challenges to enter higher education and achieve equitable outcomes. In the latest submission ambitious targets to close the awarding gap for ‘BAME’ students have been set and a significant amount of activity is underway to transform The Open University.

This doctoral thesis will aim to identify social, structural and institutional barriers that enable racial disparities in student experience and critically examine ‘anti-racist’ and/or ‘counter-racist’ initiatives and attempts to ‘decolonise’ The Open University. The studentship is a unique opportunity to critically theorise what it means to ‘decolonise’ the UK’s largest academic institution and distance learning provider. We aim to provide a broad mandate to the candidate, so that they can have scope for exploring avenues of research that interest them in relation to the project.

Awards for UK residents cover all tuition fees and provide a maintenance grant at the standard RCUK rate (£15,285 p.a. in 2020/21) and a £1,000 Research Training Support Grant. Non-UK citizens may be eligible to apply.

The Open University is internationally recognized for innovative research across the Arts and Social Sciences. We host a number of major AHRC- and ESRC-funded research projects. We have a strong commitment to cross-disciplinary work, to national and international public engagement, and to creative partnerships with a range of non-university partners.

The Access, Participation and Success (APS) Strategy provides a strategic framework for the delivery of The Open University’s agreements on access and widening participation across the four nations of the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). These agreements commit the University to successfully deliver initiatives that support students who face the most challenges in entering and succeeding in higher education. The APS team will bring considerable experience, from working with colleagues across The Open University and wider higher education sector, to inform this doctoral studentship.

We invite candidates from all backgrounds and ethnicities and particularly, although not exclusively, Black, people of colour and minoritised candidates. Applicants should have an undergraduate degree (or an equivalent) in an arts or social sciences subject. A masters' degree or equivalent training in social research methods is preferred but not essential. We encourage candidates who will take an open and fresh approach to this exciting and highly relevant project at a moment when dismantling racism within higher education is at the top of the agenda.

The successful applicant would be expected to begin their studies in February 2021.

How to apply

Anyone interested in applying should follow the link to The Open University job website where full details of the opportunity are provided: http://www.open.ac.uk/about/employment/vacancies

For general enquiries about this studentship please contact Julia Downes, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Academic Lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: julia.downes@open.ac.uk

For general enquires about postgraduate study in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences please contact Sara Haslam, Director of Research Degrees: sara.haslam@open.ac.uk

Application forms and details on how to complete your research proposal are available from http://www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/research-degrees/how-to-apply

Completed application forms, together with a research proposal and a covering letter should be sent to FASS-PhD-Applications@open.ac.uk

Closing date: noon Monday 7 September 2020

Equal opportunity is University Policy.