The School of Visual Culture is an interdisciplinary centre for teaching and research in humanities and social science disciplines with particular focus and expertise across the history, theory and criticism of art, design and visual culture.
The School creates a community that fosters lively exchange, scholarly discussion and critical debate. The mix of disciplines in the School enables ambitious enquiries into all aspects of art and design, representation, cultural production, cultural consumption, material culture, visual and spatial culture and cultural politics. Themes are explored through a variety of methodologies and with reference to many art and design practices and mass cultural forms. A programme of visiting lecturers further contributes to the dynamic culture of debate among researchers.
Recent and current doctoral research projects at the School include:
• Urban renewal, representation and spatial culture
• Public monuments, spatial culture and the construction of urban identity
• Public Art as Cipher of Forgetting: Memory and Meaning in Public Art
• The sculptor Seamus Murphy, his work and context
• Transmedial Signification and Vast Narratives
• Transcultural curating and documentary strategies
• Costume for Ballet
• Institutional History of Conceptual Art
• Art Collecting and Contemporary Society
• Remix and Tactical Media
• Ethics and Aesthetics
• Performance Art in Ireland
• Materialising Modernity
• Aesthetics and Politics
• Art and Ecology.
PhD study normally requires a minimum of three years full-time study (but may require longer, given the high level of achievement required). The PhD thesis is typically 80,000 to 100,000 words in length.
The PhD programme at NCAD is a structured programme involving significant interdisciplinary and discipline specific input in the early stages of the research project, and active engagement with a community of researchers within and beyond NCAD.
The NCAD's training, supervision and support processes for PhD candidates include:
• Regular, dynamic student-led interdisciplinary PhD research seminars
• Access to international PhD networks and exchange programmes
• Supervised access to internal and external experts in the relevant field
• Annual national PhD conferences in art and design
• Public symposia and conferences in PhD research areas
• Cross-institutional collaboration involving multidisciplinary research teams
• Training in appropriate research methods.
Applicants for a PhD through Visual Culture are encouraged to identify members of college staff they would wish to work with as supervisor(s) to offer guidance in developing their research proposal.