Support for critical and cultural studies postgrad students

Dr Anthony Lambert

If you are looking to undertake postgraduate study in the areas of writing, performance, critical theory or cultural studies, there are a range of support schemes within the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies to help you in your study.

Areas such as performance studies, cyberculture and multimedia, Australian culture, gender and queer theory, corporeality, postcolonialism, and migration and ethnicity studies are where the Department’s major strengths lie. Students are able to complete either an MA (Hons) or PhD in Cultural Studies.

The Department boasts a wide variety of research projects at present which include:

Being-fat-in-the-world: theorising the fat female body; Cannibalism - the ideology of savagery; Catholic martyrdom; Cults, coalitions and communities; Punishment without crime - legal mistreatment of refugees; Cultural studies tourism; and Mike Moore and post September 11 culture.

As part of their first year of postgraduate study, Critical and Cultural Studies students are required to participate in an online research seminar unit – CUL 894. This unit has been designed with a variety of goals and objectives. The most important aspect is that it aims to provide postgraduate students with a regular forum to discuss issues that arise from their research work. These issues are often practical concerns related to research and thesis writing, critical theories and methodologies, and professional development. The unit also offers students a space in which to participate in exchanges with fellow students on the real issues that impact on postgraduate life.

“With the largest postgraduate community in the Division of Society, Culture, Media, and Philosophy, the Department has been working to develop a range of support schemes and initiatives for postgraduates,” says Postgraduate Convenor, Dr Anthony Lambert. “Every year the Department hosts an internal postgraduate conference which enables students to share drafted and polished papers, theories, general ideas and performance work with their peers and academics.”

In the past 12 months a substantial number of postgraduate students from the Department have presented papers at conferences locally and internationally on a range of topics. These have included aesthetics, critical legal studies, conceptions of ‘the divine’, the body, racial performance and well as investigations into the work of prominent theorists.

Students are encouraged to publish their work, and recent publications from students can be found in journals such as Signs, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies and SCAN among others.

“Postgraduate study in Cultural Studies focuses on building a professional collegial culture and environment which is mutually supportive and allows for different needs and styles of work,” says Lambert.

For further information on postgraduate study with the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies visit their website: http://www.ccs.mq.edu.au or contact the Convenor of Postgraduate Studies, Dr Anthony Lambert, directly via e-mail on: alambert@scmp.mq.edu.au.

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