Higher Degree by Research – Writing, Literature and Culture @Deakin

Higher Degree Research (HDR)

…students undertake a major research-based and/or creative project, guided by academic supervisors. Deakin has over 80 HDR students enrolled across Creative Writing and Literary Studies, and 25 experienced staff available to supervise a wide spectrum of creative and scholarly projects. HDR options within the SCCA include the Master of Arts and the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).

Advanced-level writers with a strong national or international reputation can apply for acceptance to Deakin’s innovative one-year PhD by Prior Publications in the Creative Arts. Our world-leading PhD Xtra program enables students in the Creative Writing and Literary Studies program to work in an exciting cross-disciplinary environment with colleagues in Media and Communications, Screen Studies, Art and Performance, and other fields across the Faculty of Arts and Education. One such PhD Xtra module relevant to WLC is Verandah Literary Journal: Digital Publication Risk and Return a 30-40 hour exploration and evaluation of stipulated aspects of the Verandah Literary and Art journal operations. This can be approved by the supervisor as part of the Independent Learning Plan set up to reflect PhD skills and knowledge acquisition – preparing for career demonstration of broad areas of academic development.

Meet some of our current postgrad students here. To learn about individual staff members’ areas of expertise, browse our Staff profiles. See the university’s main website for more information about studying at Deakin.

What we are looking for in a Higher Degree by Research Project?

Literature & Its Readers

Literature and its Readers focuses on the analysis of literary form and textuality, literary production, and reception studies. We are particularly interested in projects that focus on the following areas: children’s and young adult literature; Australian and New Zealand literature; diasporic literature; poetry and poetics; popular and genre fiction (especially fantasy, magical realism, romance and science fiction); fan culture; literatures of place and environment; narratives of extremism or activism; feminist and LGBTQIA+ literatures; literature and the body; literature and philosophy; Victorian literature; modernism; and literature and comedy. The research cluster is also interested in interdisciplinary approaches to literature that draws scholarship into fields such as print culture, book history, and the digital humanities. We are also interested in projects that include archival or quantitative research methods and projects that focus on intersectionality are particularly welcome. The project may be based at the Burwood, Waurn Ponds, or Warrnambool campus.

Writing and Community

Writing and Community researches the interpenetration between creative-writing practices and ideas of community, broadly conceived. This research cluster is concerned with the ways in which literary and extra-literary discourses—especially those concerned with community, identity, nationhood, regionalism, environment, and Country—are mutually informing. We are interested in projects that deal with the major literary forms (prose fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, script), as well as emergent and transmedial forms in both digital and analogue articulations. The cluster is interested in interdisciplinary practices that allow new articulations of community and identity. We are especially interested in projects that are concerned with pressing contemporary issues that have an impact on both local and transnational communities, such as climate change, human rights, and animal rights. We are also particularly interested in works that engage with the relationship between so-called creative and critical modes of understanding.

Gender and Sexuality Studies Research Network

This project will examine relationships between gender, sexuality and belonging through a study of how gender and sexual difference is archived and remembered. Focusing on relationships between the representation, documentation and interpretation of gender and sexual diversity within formal and informal contexts of archiving and memory work, this project will gather new data and develop new insights about how gender and sexual difference gets remembered. This project will engage with relevant stakeholders/beneficiaries (e.g. community archives, local councils and institutions like schools/universities) who have an investment in investigating new approaches to studying cultural histories of sexual and gender difference, and their relationships to belonging. Other potential outcomes include recommendations to stakeholder organisations on memory work in relation to sexual and gender difference. This research project will contribute to research regarding archives, memory, and cultural histories within the Gender and Sexuality Studies Research Network.

NOTE: Applicants need to submit an Expression of Interest by early October. Here is the current Expression of Interest form There is further detail on the process here also.