The School of English at the University of Sheffield is pleased to advertise three funded PhD projects supported by the Champernowne Trust and a bequest from theatre director Geoffrey Ost. Each studentship includes a 3.5-year tuition fee waiver for home students and an additional £5,000 in research expenses, with research anchored in the Irene Champernowne Archive held in Special Collections.
The three projects are structured around distinctive themes within cultural and historical inquiry:
- Therapeutic Communities: an investigation of historical and conceptual models of therapeutic communities, drawing on the life and work of Irene Champernowne and related case studies to consider how practices of therapy have been materially and socially articulated over time.
- The Aesthetics, Theory and Practice of Multispecies Art-Therapeutic Imaginaries: an interdisciplinary study situating Champernowne’s archive in dialogue with contemporary human-animal relations and environmental humanities, exploring the roles of animals and artistic practice in therapeutic imaginaries.
- ‘Mother and Healer’: Irene Champernowne, Rudolf Laban and the Development of Art Therapy in Britain: research that examines Champernowne’s relationship with movement theorist Rudolf Laban and the early development of art and movement therapy in Britain, combining archival work with broader historical contexts.
Each project will commence in September 2026 and is supervised by academic experts associated with the School and, in one case, the School of Education.
Full details of the projects, eligibility criteria and application process are available here.