Theology and Religious Studies - PhD

Program Overview

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Overview

A PhD, also known as a doctorate, is a requirement for a career as an academic or researcher. In addition, it has become a qualification valued by many employers who recognise the skills and commitment a PhD requires. Employers also recognise that a PhD indicates excellent research capabilities, discipline and communication skills.

Over the duration of the PhD, you produce an original piece of research of up to 100,000 words. Recent and ongoing research theses include: ‘A Theology of Interconnectivity: Buber, Dialogue and Cyberspace’, ‘Ghosts in the Machine: Reassessing the Evolution of the Science/Religion Phenomena - Alternative Perspectives’, ‘Heart of the Flame: Rethinking Religion and the Theatre Work of Jerzy Grotowski’, ‘The Politics of Opposites and Same-Sex Union: A Foucaultian reading of the Hermetic Hermaphrodite’ and ‘Sacred Entanglements: Studying Interactions between Visitors, Objects and Religion in the Museum’.

The Department of Religious Studies offers supervision from world-class academics with expertise in a wide range of disciplines, able to support and guide you through your research. Your progress is carefully monitored to ensure that you are on track to produce a thesis valued by the academic community. Throughout your programme, you are able to attend and contribute to research seminars, workshops, and research and transferable skills training courses.

You may be eligible for a fully-funded PhD scholarship to support your studies with us. The PhD in Theology and Religious studies at Kent can be funded through the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-East England (CHASE) collaborative doctoral partnerships. Please indicate in your application if you want to be considered, and explain your eligibility for the scheme. For the full list of scholarships available within the School, please see our postgraduate funding page.

Program Outline

Course structure

Duration:

3 to 4 years full-time, 5 to 6 years part-time

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Teaching

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Teaching and assessment

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Study support

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About the Department of Religious Studies

The Department of Religious Studies at the University of Kent provides the highest standards of graduate training in the UK. It is the only department in its subject area to have received two national grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to support specialist training for doctoral students.

Collectively the staff at Kent cover all the current methodologies and theoretical approaches from empirical research to psychology of religion to continental philosophy and history of ideas. As well as offering expertise in all the major ‘world religions’, we are widely recognised for groundbreaking work at the edges of the category of religion as well as for work on the invention of the category of ‘religion’. Among the many combined subject areas covered in the department are religion and media, religion and politics, religion and comparative literatures, religion and society. See the 'Staff research' tab for more details.

The Department strongly supports cross-disciplinary work and students are encouraged to take advantage of the wide range of postgraduate classes and seminars available both within the School of European Culture and Languages (SECL) and across the University as a whole.

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Postgraduate resources

The Templeman Library has strong electronic and print collections in religious studies, and a wide range of related disciplines including anthropology, cultural and critical theory, history, literature, philosophy, politics and sociology. Doctoral students are offered research support funds to enable them to attend academic conferences or to meet other costs associated with their research.

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Training

Postgraduate students in Religious Studies are expected to play an active role in the training and research culture of the Department as a whole. This includes the Department’s regular research seminar, the advanced theory reading group and other training workshops offered through the year involving internationally recognised researchers. Postgraduate students have the opportunity to take the Department’s week-long training course in methodological approaches to the study of religion in the spring term, which is also taken by doctoral students from around the UK. Doctoral students are supported with undertaking wider professional development activities, including teaching and writing for publication, that would prepare them for future academic work. Broader training support is also available through the University’s Graduate School.

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Dynamic publishing culture

All staff are involved in writing research monographs and articles, as well as a range of research networking and editing activities. Where appropriate, postgraduate students are helped to publish their own work, either as sole-authored pieces with feedback and guidance from staff, or as co-authored projects written with a staff member. The

Journal of Hindu Studies

, published by Oxford University Press, is edited from the Department. Details of recently published books can be found within our staff research interests.

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Researcher Development Programme

Kent's Graduate School co-ordinates the Researcher Development Programme for research students, which includes workshops focused on research, specialist and transferable skills. The programme is mapped to the national Researcher Development Framework and covers a diverse range of topics, including subject-specific research skills, research management, personal effectiveness, communication skills, networking and teamworking, and career management skills.