Opportunities

Launched in 2023, HISS is a summer intensive in sexuality studies at the University of Sydney that is timed to coincide with Sydney Mardi Gras.

HISS brings together outstanding early career researchers from around the world to undertake workshops and work with international research leaders from across the full breadth of the humanities and social sciences. 

HISS is not like other expert masterclasses. HISS is a collective attempt to reimagine the classroom—and pedagogy—from a queer perspective. The emphasis is on creativity, collaboration and play, as well as the provision of real-world graduate training in an interdisciplinary environment in which queerness is assumed rather than included.

HISS was always conceived as a three-year experiment: next year will be its final iteration.

In 2025, HISS takes the theme Homecoming.

HISS is codirected by Professor Lee Wallace (Director of the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre, aka SSSHARC) and Dr Victoria Rawlings (Sydney School of Education and Social Work). The HISS 2025 teaching cohort includes:

·        Associate Professor Adam Greteman Art Education (School of the Art Institute of Chicago)

·        Dr Xavier Ho Interactive Design (Monash University)

·        Professor Yuko Itatsu Information Studies (University of Tokyo)

·        Professor Pamela Lannutti Human Sexuality Studies (Widener University)

·        Dr Kush Patel Art, Design, and Technology (Manipal Academy of Higher Education)

·        Dr Sam Stiegler Education (University of Melbourne)

·        Dr Indigo Willing Criminology and Criminal Justice (Griffith University)

·        Dr Jessica Wright Sociology (MacEwan University)

We invite applications from PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and early career faculty up to 5 years post PhD. Masters students in a research-track degree or those transitioning to a PhD program will also be considered. Participants will be selected for diversity, including diversity of discipline. There are no restrictions based on citizenship, residency status, or country of study/employment.

For HISS 2025 we also invite those who have attended HISS previously to apply to come back for HISS Homecoming. Please use the application form to tell us why you would like to come back and what you think you could contribute to HISS 2025 and the proposed drafting of a school charter.

Applications open: 14 August 2024 (8:00 AEDT)

Deadline: 9 September 2024 (23:59 AEDT)

Decisions announced: Early October 2024

Apply via the online portal here. Please see the HISS Guidelines for further information.

A world authority evaluates the full draft of a major research output (book, article, or NTRO) by a University of Sydney researcher and offers rigorous and constructive criticism to take the work from great to landmark.

Applicants must have a high-ranking publisher (or equivalent) in frame (ie: contracted or with an agreed deadline for submission) and a full draft of a manuscript (or equivalent) at the time of the review.

The UPR session has an invited audience of disciplinary peers, including postgraduate research students, who will also be given access to draft portions of the manuscript.

SSSHARC can provide funding to bring the expert reviewer to Sydney to allow for meaningful engagement around the manuscript and other research activities. UPR events may take place over Zoom by arrangement.

Review the Ultimate Peer Review guidelines (pdf, 107.5KB) and submit your expression of interest at any time.

• Associate Professor Dalia Nassar
  Reviewer: Professor Sebastian Gardner (UCL)
• Outcome: Book – Romantic Empiricism

Treacherous Play

• Dr Marcus Carter
  Reviewer: Professor Mia Consalvo (Concordia)
• Outcome: Book – Treacherous Play

A Victorian History of Modern Censorship

• Professor Chris Hilliard
  Reviewer: Professor Adrienne Stone (UMelb)
• Outcome: Book – A Matter of Obscenity

Stylistic Virtue and Victorian Fiction

• Dr Matthew Sussman
  Reviewer: Professor Helen Small (Oxford)
• Outcome: Book – Stylistic Virtue

• Associate Professor Charlotte Epstein
  Reviewer: Professor R.B.J (Rob) Walker (Victoria, CA)
• Outcome: Book – Birth of the State
  

All Marriage is Gay

• Associate Professor Lee Wallace
  Reviewer: Professor Robyn Wiegman (Duke)
• Outcome: Book - Reattachment Theory

A SSSHARC research huddle is a one-day collaboration intensive around an idea or question that is highly compelling but needs further articulation before it can be advance as a funded research program or other landmark outcome.

The aim of a huddle is not to present talks but to bring in an outside expert or experts who can critically guide the existing discussion towards a defined outcome, such as a joint grant application, a co-authored article, a book prospectus or a journal special issue proposal, a white paper or a high-profile opinion piece.

Review the research huddle guidelines (pdf, 106KB) and submit your expression of interest at any time.

Trauma-aware practices for children in out-of-home care

• Professor Amy Conley Wright
• External expert: Dr Mandi MacDonald (Queens, Belfast)
• Outcome: Trauma-informed family contact practice for children in out-of-home care, Collings, S., & Wright, A.C., McLean, L., & Buratti, S. (2021), The British Journal of Social Work, bcab147.

Boys: Towards an Affirmative Feminist Boys Studies 

• Professor Catherine Driscoll
• External expert: Professor Anoop Nayak (Newcastle, UK)
• Outcome: ARC Special Research Initiatives - Australian Boys: Beyond the Boy Problem

Working across difference and inequity in social work and policy studies

• Associate Professor Susan Goodwin and Professor Donna Baines 
• External experts: Dr Bindi Bennett (Sunshine Coast) and Dr Selma Macfarlane (Deakin)
• Outcome: Book - Working Across Difference

Community-led research methodologies: learning and knowledge building?

• Associate Professor Margot Rawsthorne and Professor Catherine Burgess
• External experts: Uncle Michael Welsh, Leslie Franks, Rob Roberts, Kerry Johnson, Julie Welsh, Blake Robinson, Uncle Kerry Mackenzie, Aunty Barbara McGrady
• Outcome: Book - Everyday Community Practice

A Pop-Up Research Lab is a three-week intensive program of activities specifically tailored to advance research that is already producing outstanding results and has the potential to be scale up into a landmark program attracting external support. 

Pop-Up Research Labs are usually planned in alignment with SSSHARC research nodes or in support of external grant ambitions, such as ARC Future Fellowships, Laureates and Centre of Excellence bids to be administered by the University of Sydney or projects aimed at international funding agencies. If you have an established program of research that fits this brief, please contact the SSSHARC Director to discuss possibilities. 

Sexual Violence in the Military

• Professor Megan McKenzie
• External expert: Dr Shannon Sampert (Winnipeg)
• Outcome: ARC- Future Fellowship ($1,052,328)

Brave New Law: Legal Personhood in the New Biosciences

• Associate Professor Sonja Van Wichelen
• External expert: Professor Thomas Lemke (Goethe University)
• Outcome: Personhood in the Age of Biolegality (Palgrave, 2020) ed. Marc de Leeuw and Sonja Van Wichelen

Critical research into death in contested circumstances

• Associate Professor Rebecca Scott Bray
• External expert: Professor Phil Scraton (Queen's University Belfast)
• Outcomes: Carpenter, B., Harris, M., Jowett, S., Tait, G., Scott Bray, R. (2021). Coronial Inquests, Indigenous Suicide and the Colonial Narrative. Critical Criminology, 29(3), 527-545. 
• Scott Bray, R. (2020). Contested Deaths and Coronial Justice in the Digital Age. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 9(4), 90-103.