Doctorate in the Arts
About the Doctorate in the Arts
LUCA - Faculty of the Arts strives to be a European and global centre of excellence in terms of artistic research. To this end, the research units focus on all areas of the arts practiced by students and teachers so that they develop into international artists and designers. By encouraging and developing PhDs in the arts, LUCA - Faculty of the Arts wants to attract young artistic researchers who help to reinforce and further develop its research and education.
Given the need to build and bundle disciplinary expertise in all its study areas (music and drama, audiovisual arts, visual arts and design) LUCA - Faculty of the Arts fulfils an important role in attracting researchers, teachers and students with considerable talent and ambition.
Doctoral committee
The members of the doctoral committee in the Arts are: Leen Engelen, Lut Pil, Jeroen D’hoe, Steven Devleminck, Jos De Backer, Bart Geerts, Anneleen Masschelein, Nel Janssens, Eva Cardon (PhD student) and Veerle Van der Sluys (chairman).
contact: research@luca-arts.be
Application procedure
The deadline for submitting new PhD applications is May 18 2020.
Eligible candidates will be invited to discuss their project at the next meeting of the doctoral committee in the arts on June 10 2020.
Interested in doing a doctorate in the arts at LUCA Faculty of the Arts? The first step is that you need to find a supervisor who is willing to support your research project. You must have contacted your future supervisor before you can start applying for admission (see list of possible supervisors below).
Once you have found a supervisor, please follow this procedure to gain admission to enroll as a doctoral student:
STEP 1 - STARTING UP THE ONLINE REQUEST
- The supervisor fills out this online form: https://www.arts.kuleuven.be/personeel/onderzoek/doctoraat/aanvraag-tot-doctoreren-kunsten
- You then receive an invitation to fill out additional information and upload certain documents in the online application tool
- A scan of your master's degree(s)
- A research proposal using the template below
- A letter of advice of the head of your research unit
- A letter of advice of your supervisor
- Your CV
- Your portfolio (if relevant)
The uploaded documents must be in pdf format (max. 20MB). Please use links in your portfolio to refer to larger files (eg. videos).
- The supervisor then receives an invitation to give their academic approval or disapproval in the online application tool.
- The next step depends on your nationality (EER/non-EER) and master's degree (Flemish/non-Flemish) (see step 2).
STEP 2 - CANDIDATES WITH AN EER-NATIONALITY AND A FLEMISH MASTER DEGREE
- The supervisor's academic advice (approval/disapproval) is sent to the Faculty's doctoral administration.
- The doctoral committee of LUCA School of Arts evaluates the proposal and invites you to the next meeting of the doctoral committee to discuss the research project.
- If the application is approved by the doctoral committee, you will be invited to enroll as a doctoral student at the Registrar's Office (University Hall, Naamsestraat 22, 3000 Leuven).
STEP 2 - CANDIDATES WITH A NON-EER-NATIONALITY AND/OR WITHOUT A FLEMISH MASTER DEGREE
- All information and uploaded documents from the online application tool are sent to International Admissions.
- International Admissions prepares an advice about the quality of your track record (diplomas, grades).
- This advice and the supervisor's academic advice is sent to the Faculty's doctoral administration.
- The doctoral committee of LUCA School of Arts evaluates the proposal and invites you to the next meeting of the doctoral committee to discuss the research project.
- If the application is approved by the doctoral committee, you will be invited to enroll as a doctoral student at the Registrar's Office (University Hall, Naamsestraat 22, 3000 Leuven).
If you have any questions regarding the application procedure please contact research@luca-arts.be.
The regulation for the PhD in the Arts can be found here.
Doctoral programme
LUCA - Faculteit Kunsten organiseert geregeld onderzoeksseminaries voor onderzoekers, doctorandi en kandidaten voor het doctoraat. Ook onderzoekers van andere faculteiten en disciplines kunnen deelnemen aan het programma om kennis te maken met ondermeer methoden en aanpakvormen uit het onderzoek in de kunsten. Elke onderzoekseenheid van LUCA - Faculteit Kunsten is verantwoordelijk voor de organisatie van één seminarie, workshop of summer school. Bovendien wordt er een seminarie in samenwerking met de Faculteit Architectuur georganiseerd. U kan een attest tot deelname aan een seminarie opvragen bij monia.kennes@luca-arts.be.
Naast deze seminaries kunnen doctorandi bovendien gebruik maken van het aanbod van de Doctoral School for the Humanities & Social Sciences. Meer info hierover vind je hier: http://ghum.kuleuven.be/phd
Alle doctorandi waarvan de doctorale periode van start ging tijdens of na het academiejaar 2014-2015 zijn verplicht om ook het opleidingsonderdeel ‘Scientific integrity for starting PhDs’ tijdens het eerste jaar van de doctoraatsopleiding te volgen. Inschrijven kan via: https://www.kuleuven.be/english/research/integrity/training/phdlecture.
Supervisors
De promotor van een doctoraat in de kunsten is docent aan LUCA School of Arts en heeft ofwel het statuut “bijzonder gastdocent in de kunsten” ofwel een ZAP-statuut aan de KU Leuven. Docenten van LUCA zonder dit statuut kunnen steeds copromotor zijn van een doctoraat in de kunsten. Hieronder vindt u een lijst van de mogelijke promotoren voor een doctoraat in de kunsten aan LUCA School of Arts.
- Research topics: Eighteenth-century and early-nineteenth century music, Technologically Inspired Performance (TIP), Historically Informed Performance (HIP), Beethoven’s rhetoric, pianism, and pianos
- Research Group: Performance Practice & Composition (Music & Drama)
- PhD in Music Therapy
- Research topics: psychosis, personality disorders, music therapy, musical processes, clinical improvisation, proto-symbolisation, non-verbal therapy
- Research group: Music Education & Therapy (Music & Drama)
- PhD in Art Sciences
- Research topics: photography, theory of photography, contemporary art, conceptual art, art in Belgium, humor
- Research group: Photography Expanded (Intermedia)
- PhD in Philosophy
- Research topics: art history, aesthetics, art education, political theory, painting, drama, hermeneutics, classical culture, phenomenology
- Research group: Art & Argument (Image)
- PhD in the Arts
- Research topics: digital media and art, cartography, artistic mapping, information design
- Research group: Mediated Environments (Intermedia)
- PhD in Social Sciences (Communication Studies)
- Research topics: film, visual culture, cultural heritage, First World War, history of art en culture in Belgium, archive, historical approaches, ephemeral arts, memory and remembrance, landscape, panorama paintings
- Research Group: Re-Visionary (Inter-Actions)
- PhD in the Arts
- Research topics: contemporary painting, medium specificity, spatiality, (re)presentation models, artists’ archive, rhetorics of artistic research
- Research group: Art & Argument (Image)
- PhD in Philosophy
- Research topics: philosophy of technology, aesthetics, ethics, digitalization, medialization, globalization, social engagement, post-art or “art after the end of art”, contemporary culture, imagination 2.0
- Research group: Art & Argument (Image)
- PhD in the Arts
- Research topics: animation, constructions of Whiteness, letters in contemporary art writing, walking in artistic practice, marginalized histories, broken world botany and migration histories
- Research group: Narrative Arts (Intermedia)
- PhD in Art Studies
- Research topics: contemporary art, art of the 19th century, design, textile, clay and ceramics, glass, landscape photography
- Research group: Matter & Image (Image)
- PhD in History of Architecture and Art Sciences
- Research topics: contemporary art, visual culture and media studies, with a focus on iconoclasm in contemporary culture
- Research Group: Mediated Environments (Intermedia)
- PhD in the Arts
- Research topics: composition, piano, polyphony, orchestration, analysis, harmony
- Research group: Performance Practice & Composition (Music & Drama)
- PhD in Exact Sciences (Physics)
- Research topics: technology, sciences, social media, playful design, prototyping, serious games
- Research group: Play & Game (Inter-Actions)
- PhD in Political and Social Sciences (Communication Sciences)
- Research topics: cinema, painting, audiovisual art, modernism, contemporary art, auteur theory, genre
- Research group: Art, Space & Context (Image)
- PhD in Language and Literature (German languages)
- Research topics: literary studies, hermeneutics, phenomenology, esthetical experience, word-image interaction, art criticism, affect, corporeality, essay writing, popular culture
- Research group: Art & Argument (Image)
- PhD in Communication Studies
- Research topics: cinema, media history, film & television studies, cultural heritage, arts in wartime
- Research group: Narrative Arts (Intermedia)
- Research Topic: education
- Research Group: Art, Practices & Education (Image)
- PhD in the Arts
- Research group: Art, Space & Context (Image)