DECOLONISATION AND HOPE: The Politics and Aesthetics of Black and Global Majority in Liverpool’s Art and Culture
*Project Overview*
The School of Creative and Performing Arts at Liverpool Hope University wishes to launch a research project to investigate the cultural transformation of Liverpool at the intersection of race, class, gender, and enduring transnational realities with a focus somewhere within the last 150 years.
The overarching aim is to consider how the creative and performing arts reflect on the ongoing and contested legacies of colonialisms, canons and/or the legitimacies of knowledge. How can they help acknowledge the transnational connections that have developed across unequal yet also profoundly connected artistic spheres and societies in the 20th and 21st centuries? How can university curricula give a new visibility to the forgotten figures of local art history, while also acknowledging wider and ongoing blind spots? And how can artists, researchers and educators work in synergy to help address and redress them? These are some of the questions that the project will examine with a view to develop geographically and culturally inclusive perspectives on art that do not erase, but critically re-evaluate them.
This future doctoral candidate at the School of Creative and Performing arts will explore themes such as identity, migration, community, equity and belonging via the expressions of local art and culture. For example, the influence of Black music – mainly from the USA – on Liverpool since the 1960s; the re-conceptualisation of figurative painting to reframe Black pride and identity; the influence of the dancer known as ‘Master Juba’, who invented tap dancing, on preserving authentic black vernaculars in public dance and entertainment; the interpretative spoken word and poetry giving voice to the Liverpool Slave Trade in general, detailing the wider context of the now well-known Zong Massacre. We invite applications from candidates from a variety of arts disciplines e.g., Fine Art, Art History, Drama, Performance, Film, Music etc.
The School of Creative and Performing Arts has a lively research culture in which practice-based and critical creativity inform each other. We foster an equitable and transdisciplinary approach to the study of performing arts, cultural politics, critical ethics and training methodologies through the development of theoretical perspectives and practice-as-research projects. Proposals with a distinctive social and political engagement with critical and embodied practices are particularly welcome.
*Supervision*
Dr Annalaura Alifuoco (alifuoa@hope.ac.uk)
Dr Kathrin Wagner
Plus, other supervisors depending on subject expertise needed
Application should be made through this link – https://www.hope.ac.uk/postgraduateresearch/feesandfunding/scholarships/vice-chancellorsphdscholarships/#d.en.37465.
At Liverpool Hope University, we are committed to broaden and diversify our practices and welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds. We particularly welcome applications from people with disabilities, LGBT+, Black and Global Majority backgrounds as they are currently underrepresented within the sector and within Liverpool Hope.
It is expected that this doctoral project will form part of a wider decolonising project encompassing three PhDs based in the School of Education, Humanities, and Creative and Performing Arts. The successful candidates will form an interdisciplinary cluster across the schools, thereby enhancing the Research Environment throughout Liverpool Hope University.