Applications are invited for a full-time scholarship available in the School of Art, design and performance. The scholarship is tenable for up to 3 years for a PhD (via MPhil route) [subject to satisfactory progress] and is open to international applicants only. UK/EU applicants are not eligible to apply. The scholarship will provide £15000 towards the cost of the International tuition fee over 3 years.
In recent years a new field has begun to emerge in Shakespeare studies, as scholars have attempted to discover how the theory and practice of theatrical gesture may have impacted upon the performance of his writing – as witnessed in the Globe Theatre Education Department’s first gesture Lab in October 2010. However, while much of this scholarly work necessarily remains speculative, any attempt to make a conceptual map of Shakespearean ‘embodied writing’ must eventually ask: how did the early modern actor move?
This project seeks to address this question by engaging with a cultural history of early modern embodiment through experiments using motion capture technology. Drawing upon a range of visual and literary reference materials including art works, anatomical manuals, rhetorical treatises on gesture, and texts both by and about Shakespearean performance, the project seeks to uncover how early modern performance in England was marked by (and perhaps influenced) changing discourses of the body-in-motion. Applicants should have, or expect to receive a qualification equivalent to a high class UK honours degree.

Scholarship Application Deadline: 13 May 2011

Further Scholarship Information and Application