Scholarship: PhD Programme in the Arts, Mozarteum Salzburg: Deadline: 28.03.2025
The doctoral programme invites students to engage in academic discourse on the further development of the practice of artistic research as well as contribute to shaping the theory of both artistic research and the advancement and appreciation of the arts. Students can expect a diversity of methods, contextualisation and knowledge acquisition. The PhD in the Arts is inter- and transdisciplinary.
Course
The artistic doctoral programme at the Mozarteum University sees itself as an international course of study and offers artists and researchers from various fields such as music, visual arts, theatre, dance, film, media and design an opportunity to further develop independent artistic research practice. The doctoral programme focuses on the potential of artistic processes to articulate themselves as research, highlighting their capacity for creative and critical reflection. In this context, artistic practice serves as both the subject of investigation and the primary method through which research is conducted.
The PhD in the Arts provides a structured framework for the development of individual projects, encompassing a wide spectrum of formats including one-to-one tuition, seminars, workshops, lectures, excursions and a student-led “open space”. The programme is set within a collaborative research environment that fosters artistic and scholarly exchange and collaboration. It is supported by extensive infrastructure including specialised spaces, equipment, instruments and library resources.
The programme is designed for a minimum of 3 years and conducted in English. All courses take place in monthly gatherings. Residence in Austria is not required, but participants are requested to take part in activities in Salzburg.
The programme works with the concept of transversality as an operative principle that opposes both a vertical and a horizontal understanding of art. Examples of transversal practices that the programme welcomes include but are not limited to:
Practices that engage post-anthropocentric modes of creativity (e.g., reflections on human and other-than-human interaction, environmental awareness, historical and new materialisms, speculative realism, post-human discourses, etc.).
Practices that develop divergent and creative approaches to history and cultural heritage (e.g., archival practices, reflections of temporal linearity and anachronism, experimental modes of music performance, montages of found footage etc.).
Practices that challenge hierarchical social and political structures (e.g., centered on feminist, queer, Marxist, decolonial and postcolonial discourses, etc.), as well as traditional divisions of labor in the art market (composer/performer/improviser, artist/spectator, art/society, etc.).
Practices that engage with the imaginary and spiritual not as marginal nonrealities, but as means to change epistemologies and to reinvent ontologies.
Applications outside this thematic focus are also encouraged.
Department of Studies & Examinations
+43 676 88122 492
studienabteilung[at]moz[dot]ac[dot]at
Length of course: 6 semesters / 180 ECTS credits
Language: English
Downloads: Curriculum
Application period: 1.2.-28.3.2025
Entrance examination: 10.-12.6.2025
Further information can be found on the website of Mozarteum University.