Black Studies PhD

Research topics as they emerge from and influence the lives of black people.

Research overview

PhD Black Studies is a place for comparative study on issues as they emerge from and influence the lives of black people (variously defined) in the UK, the Americas, Europe, Africa and other global sites.

It is the only programme of its kind in Europe and is steeped in interdisciplinary methods and critical reflection.

Although housed in the Department of American and Canadian Studies, the Black Studies PhD programme is transnational in focus and intent.

We are also integrated with the Centre for Research in Race and Rights which enables us to engage on a national level with organisations, governmental bodies, charitable groups, communities and activists interested in investigating the roles, lives, cultures, politics, representations, activism, art, histories and movements of people of African descent.

The opportunity of undertaking PhD Black Studies comes at a crucial time within the UK, as students, communities and institutions of higher education increasingly begin to think through curriculum offerings and begin to re-centre the lives and voices of people around the globe within their research.

Research areas

By it's very nature the PhD can cover a wide range of topics.

This might include:

• racial systems
• class formation
• identity
• creative expression
• political futures
• class
• gender
• sexuality and sexual expression
• resistance
• power