Postgraduate Prospectus

Art History | www.essex.ac.uk/arthistory
Staff and their research interests
Neil Cox, MA St Andrews, PhD Essex
(Professor)
Twentieth-century art; Picasso, Duchamp
and Surrealism; abstract expressionism;
art theory. Author of Cubism (Phaidon,
2000) and The Picasso Book (Tate,
2010), currently working on A Surrealist
History of Art
Michaela Giebelhausen, MA Frankfurt,
DPhil Oxford (Senior Lecturer)
Eighteenth- to twentieth-century art
and architecture; gallery studies.
Author of articles on museum and
prison architecture and Painting the
Bible: Representation and Belief in
Mid-Victorian England (Ashgate 2006).
Currently researching a book on cities
in ruins
Caspar Pearson, BA Birmingham, PhD
Essex (Lecturer)
Art, architecture and urbanism of the
Italian Renaissance; concepts of the
city in the writings of the scholar and
architect Leon Battista Alberti; the
painting of real life in the Renaissance;
representation of cities in the works
of Ghirlandaio and other fifteenth-century
artists. Before coming to Essex, lived and
worked in Italy for five years and was a
Fellow of the British School at Rome
Matthew Poole, BFA Oxford, MA
Northumbria (Lecturer)
Gallery studies; curating; contemporary
art. Freelance curator, co-founder and
director of PILOT – Artists’ and Curators’
forum: www.pilotlondon.org. Leader of the
Anti-Humanist Curating research project
Deborah Povey, BA MA PhD Essex
(Lecturer)
Art of the Low Countries from the
fifteenth- to seventeenth-centuries;
realism and symbolism; the artists Jan van
Eyck, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Brugel
the Elder and Jan Steen; Franco-Flemish
tapestries; art at the court of Burgundy;
ecclesiastical architecture of England and
France. Articles on Dutch landscape and
garden design, and Pieter Bruegel’s series
of the months. Co-author (with Neil Cox)
of A Picasso Bestiary (1995)
Natasha Ruiz-Gomez, PhD
Pennsylvania (Research Fellow)
French nineteenth-century art and
architecture, particularly Auguste
Rodin’s sculpture; architecture and
urban planning of Paris. Publications
include essays on Rodin’s sculpture,
collection of photographs and
contemporary architecture. Currently
researching a book-length study on
intersections of photography and
science in late nineteenth-century France
Lisa Wade, BA MA PhD Essex (Lecturer)
European art 1300-1800; images of
the Last Judgement and Hell in Italian
Renaissance art; visualised justice in the
netherworld in the light of contemporary
source material; representation of women
in religious art, particularly in the context
of contemporary theoretical debate;
iconography of saints and martyrs;
eighteenth-century theories of the sublime
Research study
We are extremely successful in securing
research funding for doctoral study, which
reflects not only our long-established
reputation as a destination for MPhil and
PhD study but also the close attention
we give to our individual students from
the point of first enquiry to completion.
At the centre of our research culture are
the research training modules, Researching
Art History I and II, which all our new
research students take. The first is intended
to give an insight into art historical research
through the presentation of live research
activity by members of our staff across the
range of our interests. In the second of
these, you present your work to your peers
and there is a formal presentation of a
64 | Postgraduate Prospectus 2012
response from our MA students. We have
found this innovative model very successful
in fostering a professional approach to the
development of research projects through
discussion and debate.
In addition, our weekly Work in Progress
seminar provides opportunities for you
to hear about current research in
presentations given by invited speakers
from across the globe.
About our research degrees
Our PhD is a structured three-year
programme of advanced study and
research, and we also offer a two-year
MPhil. Supervision is by regular individual
tutorials and the award of a research
degree depends solely on the merits of
your thesis. A thesis submitted for the
degree of MPhil must not exceed 50,000
words in length, for the PhD 80,000 words.
The development of your research project
is supported and monitored via our
supervisory boards, which happen twice a
year for our full-time students. Here your
supervisor, and two other members of staff,
discuss your research with you, so your
progress in assessed against milestones
and any training or other support needs are
identified. We aim to have all our full-time
PhD students submit within four years.
We regard the PhD as not only an
academic degree but also a professional
qualification. Where possible, we provide
opportunities to acquire experience in
undergraduate or postgraduate teaching,
in conference organising and in curating
exhibitions. We ensure our students receive