Find out more about the Arts and Humanities Research Groups and Centres, Graduate School Support Funding and Library Services and Staff. You’ll also find links to useful information such as the PAHC FAQs, the official MMU student handbook, using Special Collections and links to the Graduate School website.
USEFUL INFO & LINKS
MMU & HARTS ONLINE RESOURCES FOR POSTGRADUATES
RESEARCH DEGREES HANDBOOK
The Research Degrees Handbook provides detailed, practical guidance for staff and students about research degrees.
Other important documents are available as PDF via the Graduate School's Regulations, Handbook and key documents page.
GRADUATE SCHOOL
Manchester Metropolitan Graduate School's community encompasses all postgraduate research (PGR) students, their supervisors and all the internal and external people involved in the PGR student journey. Our focus is to support in the delivery of a high quality study experience in a collegial, supportive world of research excellence.
LIBRARY RESOURCES & SERVICES
The Library Resources and Services can be accessed to explore a wide range of books and journals to aid with studies. The Library also offers a number of workshops to help students with academic writing and research.
RAH! RESEARCH IN ARTS AND HUMANITIES AT MANCHESTER MET
RAH! (Research in Arts and Humanities) is the public engagement programme of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Manchester Met. Launching in 2017/18, RAH! built on the enormous success of our ‘Humanities in Public’ (HiP) Festival, which has run since 2013/14. RAH! will present a rolling programme of events throughout the academic year.
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Special Collections are central to the artistic culture and teaching of the faculty and have been since its foundation as the Manchester School of Art in 1853. The collections include Artists' books, children's book illustration and exhibitions. This reading room and gallery holds The Manchester School of Art Collection including fine and decorative art and the work of past and present students and staff.
MANCHESTER WRITING SCHOOL
The Manchester Writing School at Manchester Met is one of the most successful literary centres running in the UK today, and home to the country’s largest postgraduate English and Creative Writing community.
EXTERNAL OPPORTUNITIES & CALLS
We also collate latest Calls for Papers, conferences, events, news and opportunities aimed at postgraduates and staff in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities on HARTS Online - external to the Faculty but within MMU and beyond. Updated regularly, they cover everything from university events to international conferences.
HARTS ONLINE FAQS
A listing of Frequently Asked Questions particularly useful for new starters in the Postgraduate Arts and Humanities Centre (PAHC).
LATEST USEFUL INFO & LINKS POSTS
Roll over and left-click on the tabs below to browse each section…
LIBRARY SERVICES
- Library website http://www.library.mmu.ac.uk/
- Subject Librarians can help you make the most effective use of the library and library resources including eBooks, journals, and databases and tracking down primary sources. You can arrange to meet your Subject Librarian for a 1-2-1 tutorial at a mutually convenient time. Find their contact details on the relevant subject guide
- New to the library? guide – an overview of MMU library services for new users
- Library Guide for Distance Learners – http://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/usrdistance
- Finding resources – http://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/usrdistance
- Using other libraries – http://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/otherlibraries
- Library videos – https://www.youtube.com/user/MMULibraryServices
- Endnote and Endnote Web guide – http://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/endnote
- Information about InfoSkills at MMU Library – http://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/infoskills – includes a list of forthcoming workshops
- MMU Special Collections – http://www.specialcollections.mmu.ac.uk/
- The Archive for the ‘Calls for Papers’ Category – on the MMU Library’s ‘Researchers’ Weekly Bulletin: the Blog’ includes calls for papers.
- The Library Workshops site – The Library runs workshops throughout the year covering a variety of topics including referencing, information searching and Endnote.
FACULTY RESEARCH CENTRES
PLEASE NOTE: Research within the Manchester School of Art has recently been restructured. Information about the new research centres and groups will be updated in due course.
The Humanities Research Centre (HRC) brings together over 90 researchers from the Departments of English, History, Politics and Philosophy, and Languages and Linguistics. The centre works in partnership with many cultural institutions, from theatre companies, museums to libraries, archives and galleries and places great emphasis on communicating research beyond the University to local, regional and international audiences.
The Research Centre in Applied Social Sciences (RCASS) has been established to produce critically-engaged, high quality research that challenges common-sense ways about how we think about the world and our place in it. The Centre aims to provide an inter-disciplinary home for critical research that contributes to policy-making debates and decision-making, while genuinely impacting upon the work and strategies of local organisations and communities.
Sociology and Criminology at Manchester Metropolitan University is home to a vibrant group of academic researchers whose work helped Sociology researchers achieve outstanding results in REF2014. In the Sociology submission more than 2/3 of research was ranked either internationally leading or world-leading (3* and 4*) while Sociology is ranked in the top 10 of Sociology submissions for Impact. Meanwhile, in the Social Policy and Social Work submission 60% of research was also ranked of 3* or 4* star quality. Areas of particular research expertise include Youth, Urban Cultures, Sexualities, Quantitative Methods and Big Data, and Criminal Justice and Policy Innovation. The department is also home to The Policy Evaluation Research Unit (PERU), The Manchester Centre for Youth Studies (MCYS). Postgraduate Research opportunities (for the degree of PhD) are available across the discipline of Sociology, reflecting the strength and diversity of academic research within the Department. We are also very keen to encourage research that is inter-disciplinary in its approach.
In the Research Excellence Framework 2014, the English subject group at MMU was ranked 30th out of 89 departments in the UK with 78% of our research activities and outputs judged to be world leading (4*) and internationally excellent (3*). The social and cultural impact of our research was rated 8th in the UK, with 100% of our activities in this area judged to be 4* (63.3%) and 3* (36.7%). English is engaged in a dynamic expansion of its postgraduate programmes. On registration all new research students in English become affiliate members of The Centre for research in English, Languages and Linguistics (CELL), which was established in 2014 as part of the Faculty’s new Humanities Research Centre (HRC). CELL currently comprises 35 research-active staff and over 25 research students across two sites working in the areas of literary studies, creative writing, film studies and aspects of cultural theory. The department has an impressive publication record, including not only critical studies but also novels, plays and volumes of poetry. We have a vibrant, rapidly-expanding postgraduate student culture, which is fully integrated in the Institute’s research environment. Staff offer supervision in the following closely interrelated areas of expertise, including: fiction from C17 to the present, poetry in theory and practice, especially twentieth-century and contemporary, literature and science/medicine/theology, Gothic studies, British, German, Japanese and US cinema, LGBT / Queer film & culture , horror film, gender theory and sexuality, feminism and queer theory, masculinity studies and Deleuze studies.
History, Politics, Philosophy: The History section has a strong record of research and publication which encompasses a broad range of areas of expertise: Ancient History, Medieval History, Early Modern History, American History post-1860, Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century British History, Community History, Public History and Heritage. We house the Manchester Centre for Regional History, which gives our students the advantage of our strong links with historians and archives that extend beyond the University, and work in partnership with an array of public cultural institutions; museums, libraries archives and galleries. Staff have expertise in a broad range of geographic areas comprising British, Local and Regional, Western and Eastern European, Russian and Asian History. The Politics section comprises staff who conduct research in the fields of Politics, International Relations and Public Administration. Staff publish in a range of areas including US foreign policy toward the Middle East, European energy policy, football and communities, early twentieth century British political history, intentional communities, socialist thought, the governance of urban and rural regeneration and UK devolution. There is an extensive programme of postgraduate student seminars, and three series of departmental research seminars with contributions from distinguished political scientists, philosophers and historians from outside the University. The section hosts the very successful `Workshops in Political Theory’ and the `Alternative Futures and Popular Protest’ conferences on an annual basis. The Philosophy section is a centre of excellence, with advanced research in a number of areas including the history of philosophy, transcendental philosophy, and phenomenology. In the last UK research assessment (REF 2014) over 75% of our outputs were deemed to be of international or world leading significance. The social and cultural impact of our research was rated 30th in the UK, with 50% of our activities in this area were deemed to be internationally excellent. Our most recent doctoral defences were theses by Dr Dominic Kelly (on Heidegger), Dr Nicholas Aldridge (on Jean-Luc Nancy), Dr Nicola Crosby (on Kant), and Dr Shandon Guthrie (on the Metaphysics of Demonology). Students are currently writing doctorates on the work of Hegel, on the work of Jean Luc Nancy, and on the work of Foucault. There are weekly meetings of the Human Sciences Seminar (HSS) in the autumn and spring terms, and a seminar for graduate students to present their work in the summer term.
- Research in History, Politics, Philosophy
- History Research Degrees
- Philosophy Research Degrees
- Politics Research Degrees
- Postgraduate courses
The Department of Languages, Information and Communications is made up of a vibrant community of researchers, representative of six key areas: Cultural Studies, Information Communications, Journalism, Languages, Linguistics and Media Studies. Particular research strengths within these areas include:
- Gender and race studies; youth culture.
- Information and knowledge management; information behaviour; internet politics; digital libraries; language processing and search technologies; technology-enhanced learning; user experience (HCI).
- (Alternative) political communication; computational journalism; digital creativity; importance of media in user engagement; interactive media; media law; public affairs; social media and protest, sports journalism.
- French; German; Hispanic; Italian; interpreting and translation.
- Applied linguistics; corpus linguistics; (critical) discourse analysis; forensic linguistics; intercultural communication; pragmatics; sociolinguistics; stylistics; syntax studies.
- Digital anthropology; ethnography; film/media pedagogy; languages, film studies and media; sociology of digital technology; social media.
- Research in Languages, Information and Communications
- Information & Communications Research Degrees
- Languages Research Degrees
- Information and Communications Postgraduate courses
- Languages Postgraduate courses
RESEARCH SUPPORT FUNDING
PAHC Research Degree Fund
Arts and humanities research degree students (MA by Research and PhD) can apply for help with research costs to the PAHC Research Degree Fund. This is a small fund and is restricted to activities directly related to the development of your research.
Eligible costs are:
- Research costs e.g. visiting archives; exhibition materials
- Conference attendance (fee, travel, accommodation).
- Attendance at courses, workshops, residencies etc.
Contact Myna Trustram (m.trustram@mmu.ac.uk) for details on how to apply.
The Graduate School Research Support Award
The Graduate School also provides funding to support research students with the costs of research and research-related activities. For details of their Research Support Award contact: research.students@mmu.ac.uk.
Faculty Librarians
Fiona Hughes
Library Services Manager - responsible for services to the Arts & Humanities Faculty and for Special Collections0161 247 6737 / f.hughes@mmu.ac.uk
I am Library Services Manager, responsible for services to the Arts & Humanities Faculty and for Special Collections. Special Collections is the University’s Museum, we have two exhibitions a year in our gallery on the 3rd floor of the All Saints Library and there is a reading room with our specialist book collections. In addition we hold many objects and archives. The Book Design, Artists' Books and Children's Book collections can be accessed without an appointment and can be searched on the Library catalogue. The Manchester School of Art collection, the Archive collections, the Schmoller Collection of Decorated Papers and the Poster collections can be searched on the Special Collections catalogue.
Please contact us to make an appointment to view material from these collections. When not at work my husband, Huw, and I spend most of our spare time playing in various orchestras in the North West, Huw is a bassoonist and also works in the library. I play horn, you can see some photos of me with my fellow horn players on the Wilmslow Symphony Orchestra Website. After all that blowing we get very thirsty and can usually be found enjoying a pint of real ale in a nearby hostelry!
Amy Ward
Manchester Fashion Institute Subject Librarian0161 247 6117 / a.ward@mmu.ac.uk
Fashion and textiles:
https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/subapp
My name is Amy Ward and I studied Librarianship at postgraduate level. I offer advice and support to the Manchester Fashion Institute students in how to find and use library resources and services. You’ll find lots of helpful links in our Fashion and Textiles Subject Guide. In my spare time I enjoy cooking, going to the cinema, reading, playing board games and adding to my tattoo collection.
Nic Ward
History Subject Librarian0161 247 6607 / n.ward@mmu.ac.uk
History:
https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/subhistory
Hello, I’m Nic, and I’m the subject librarian for History, which I’ve done for 10 years – so I obviously enjoy it! In my other life I love reading, gin, drinking builder’s tea, buffets, girlie spa weekends, geekily researching my family tree and cycling and playing with (drowning in?) Lego with my two boys and other half, Dom. The History subject guide is the second most used one in the university, so I hope you find it useful! If you need any help with any of our resources or in tracking down material for your research, do get in touch!
Elaine Cooke
Manchester School of Architecture Subject Librarian0161 247 6116 / e.cooke@mmu.ac.uk
Architecture:
https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/subarchitecture
Interior design:
https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/subinteriordesign
Landscape architecture:
https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/sublandscape
Hi, I’m Elaine, the Librarian for the Manchester School of Architecture. I enjoy meeting the lovely students and the best thing is some of the weird and wonderful questions we get asked (I recently got asked to help decode a 12th century script found in a barn in Rochdale!). So really, you can ask us anything! Also getting to see students’ work at the Summer shows is amazing! Do get in touch if you need any help - you can arrange a one-to one with us at a time to suit. And watch out for us at our ‘Library in the Café’ slot in the Art School every Thursday 2 till 3pm – do call by and have a chat. Hope to see you soon.
Sarah Webb
Politics, Public Services & Philosophy Subject Librarian0161 247 5867 / s.webb@mmu.ac.uk
I offer advice and support to Politics, Public services and Philosophy students in how to find and use library resources and services. Details can be found within the Politics, Public services and Philosophy Subject Guides. I also offer support and guidance to Manchester School of Theatre, Filmmaking and Animation students in how to find and use library resources and services. Details can be found within the Manchester School of Theatre and Film, TV and Media Subject Guides.
I completed my first degree in History and English before a Masters in Librarianship. I’m particularly interested in, and write about library history and I’m very lucky to be a trustee of a fabulous museum the Tabley House Collection.
Rachel Fell
English & Creative Writing Subject Librarian0161 247 6607 / r.fell@mmu.ac.uk
English and Creative Writing:
https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/subenglish
I’m Rachel and I’m the English Librarian. I offer advice and support to English students in how to find and use library resources and services. In my spare time I enjoy walking and cycling with my husband and two daughters. You can follow me on Twitter @rachelfell, please get in touch if you need any help.
Sarah Shenton
Departments of Art and Design Subject Librarian0161 247 6116 / s.shenton@mmu.ac.uk
Art and design:
https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/subartdes
Hi, my name is Sarah and I am one of the subject librarian for the Department of Art and the Department of Design. I have been in my current role for nine years and enjoy the mix of working with students from different programmes. These include subjects ranging from art history, fine art, photography to the applied design of ceramics, jewellery and textiles. In my spare time, I enjoy swimming and like most typical librarians reading. Please get in touch with me if you need help finding library resources. I am also available in the Art School café every Thursday between 2-3pm for ‘Library in the Café’ so feel free to drop in with your questions.
Sheila Candeland
Departments of Sociology and Languages, Information & Communication Subject Librarian0161 247 6607 / s.candeland@mmu.ac.uk
Criminology:
https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/subcriminology
Digital media and communications:
https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/subdigitalmedia
Journalism/multimedia journalism: https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/submultimediajournalism
Languages: https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/sublanguages
Library, information and data management:
https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/sublim
Linguistics:
https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/sublinguistics
Sociology:
https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/subsociology
TESOL:
https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/subtesol
Hi, I’m Sheila, and I’m the librarian for the Department of Sociology and the Department of Languages, Information and Communication and all the PG programmes that covers. I guess that makes me a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none, but I like to think (hope!) that after 30 years working at Man Met, I have a lot of experience to draw on. Away from work, I enjoy going on long walks with my husband and Tom, our black Labrador, and I also like cooking and trying new recipes (my spice collection is growing, and I now think nothing of having several tins of coconut milk taking pride of place in my cupboard!). I have recently taken to Twitter – still a novice, but finding it all rather addictive - so please take a look @SheilaCandeland and get in touch if you like.
Special Collections Staff
Steph Boydell
CuratorSteph looks after the Manchester School of Art Collection (historical, modern and contemporary art, craft and design), twentieth century poster collections, the Schmoller Collection of Decorated Papers, Victorian and Edwardian greeting cards and the Malcom Garrett Collection (punk, popular culture and related costume). She is also responsible for the exhibitions programme. Please contact Steph for information about and access to the collections, or for advice on exhibitions and loans.
Louise Clennell
Education and Outreach OfficerLouise facilitates access to the collections and archives for groups within and external to the university, including HE and FE providers, schools, community groups and special interest groups. She also develops projects and events to extend the reach of the museum beyond the campus. Please contact Louise for advice and information about formal and informal museum learning, lifelong learning, access and interpretation, and community engagement.
Jeremy Parrett
ArchivistJeremy is responsible for the management of the archival material held with Special Collections. This includes the archive of the Manchester School of Art, the papers of artists and companies involved in the book arts and book production, and archives relating to the practice and teaching of architecture in the Greater Manchester region. Please contact Jeremy for information about and access to the archives, or for advice about working with archives.
Jane Pendlebury
Senior Library AssistantJane works primarily with the book collections and helps to staff the Enquiry Desk in the Reading Room. Please contact Jane for support and advice in the use of collections, particularly Artists’ Books, the Book Design Collection, the Children’s Collection and the zine collection.