You are here: University of Sydney / Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences / Research / Research Centres and Groups

Research Groups

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is a lively and diverse research community within which are the following research centres and groups.

Research Centres

Research Groups

Collaborative Research Scheme Projects

In 2010 the Faculty introduced the Faculty of Arts Collaborative Research Scheme (FACRS) grants. This scheme was initiated in order to promote new collaborative research projects that would encourage colleagues across Schools (and indeed Faculties) to work together in new and emergent areas and build research capacity in a range of different ways. The scheme is supported by the Faculty and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research.

The Research Committee awarded grants to 7 new collaborative research groups naming 57 separate researchers spread across all 4 schools in the Faculty and including researchers from Education and Social Work, Law and the Museums.

The Environmental Humanities Group

Led by Iain McCalman (History) with colleagues from Archaeology, English, Gender and Cultural Studies, History, Government and IR, Macleay Museum, Sociology and Social Policy. This is a collaboration of seventeen Faculty of Arts scholars, from three Schools and six departments, who are currently researching environmental dimensions of cultural and urban history, English literature, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, politics, gender and women’s studies. They propose to focus this diffuse work into an integrated, interdisciplinary and socially relevant new field of ‘environmental humanities’.

The Gender and Modernity Research Group

Led by Meaghen Morris (Gender and Cultural Studies), with colleagues from Art History and Film Studies, English, Gender and Cultural Studies, History, Philosophy and Sociology and Social Policy. This group brings together researchers in the humanities and social sciences who work on the intersections of gender and modernity across a range of periods and contexts and draw on a range of disciplines and methods. It aims to promote the importance of , and build capacity for, feminist research into the ways modernity produces ideas and experiences of gender and the ways gender shapes experiences of modernity, including degrees of access to the narratives of progress and self-determination that characterize the idea of modernity.

The Inspired Voices Research Cluster

Led by Rick Benitez (Philosophy) with colleagues from Classics and Ancient History, English, Performance Studies and Philosophy. The IVRC will investigate the cultural significance of oracular, mythic and poetic inspiration, as found in historical, philosophical and poetic productions of 5th-4th C. Athens. The group combines expertise in ancient history, philosophy, classics and performance studies.

The International Society Research Cluster

Led by Glenda Sluga (History), including colleagues from Government and IR, History, Museum Studies, Sociology and Social Policy. International society is a concept coined in the twentieth century in the context of the rise of international organizations, networks, and ideologies. While international society supposed a world of states, it has come to suggest a more transformative conception of the international, as a sphere in which transnational networks, practices, and institutions are fundamentally altering the ways in which global politics might work. For social scientists and historians, international society encompasses a range of intellectual and scholarly research questions pertinent to the contemporary world, including the past, present and future of global civil society, the international public sphere, international institutions, globalism, and internationalism.

The Language and Identity Research Group

Led by Antonia Rubino (Italian Studies) with colleagues from Chinese Studies, French Studies, Indonesian, Italian Studies, Japanese Studies, Linguistics and the Faculty of Education and Social Work.

This group brings together a range of key researchers with shared interests in aspects of linguistics and identity, working across the School of Languages and Cultures, the School of Letters, Arts and Media and the Faculty of Education and Social Work. The network formalises and extends existing collaborative projects, grant applications and HDR supervision. Although the researchers work from different research traditions they form an emerging research strength in the areas of language and identity.

The Surveillance and Everyday Life Research Group

Led by Gavin Smith (Sociology and Social Policy), with colleagues from Digital Cultures, English, Gender and Cultural Studies, Government and IR, History, Sociology and Social Policy and the Faculty of Law. This group brings together a number of early career, mid career and distinguished scholars across the Faculty of Arts – and wider university community – to critically and collaboratively examine the everyday production and experience of surveillance, an issue of rapidly increasing social, historical, political, economic and local-global significance.

Humanities Salon event - The Politics of Surveillance Narratives: From Creative Visions to Experiential Reflections

10 May, 2011
Dr Peter Marks, Department of English, and Dr Gavin Smith Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney

Click here for full details

Treaty Implementation and the creation of domestic political venues research project

Led by Betsi Beem (Government and International Relations) with colleagues from Government and International Relations, Sociology and Social Policy and the Faculty of Law. This research group includes four full time staff from three Departments across two faculties varying in levels of appointment and experience. This project will analyse the implementation patterns of three international treaties: the World Heritage Convention (environmental), the UN Refugee Convention (human rights), and UN Convention Against Corruption (governance); in Australia, Canada, and the United States.