Postgraduate Research students
Our doctoral and postgraduate research students are an integral part of our research culture and environment.
The department has a large dedicated Postgraduate Research office, a department library and a common room. All our postgraduate researchers belong to one of our four department Research Groups, through which they can participate in a variety of research activities, from reading groups to exhibitions to conferences.
Thursday afternoons are our department research afternoons, in which all the postgraduates and faculty participate. Our postgraduates can also attend research and professional skills training, Insights workshops with visiting speakers, and Stapledon Lectures. Our Work in Progress seminars are organised and chaired by the PhD students, who are also encouraged to present their research at these meetings.
Additionally, School of the Arts runs an ambitious postgraduate research programme, dedicated to equipping postgraduate researchers with skills for careers inside and beyond academia. The School delivers our In Focus workshop series, designed specifically for arts and humanities postgraduates.
Many of our students have been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council awards. There are also internal funding opportunities, such as the Liverpool School of the Arts Doctoral Awards. Visit the Postgraduate Research in School of the Arts page for more information, or contact us. Many of our past PGRs have gone on to secure post-doctoral funding, academic posts or professional roles associated with their research. Find out about some of them below.
Get in touch
If you think you would be a good fit for our department, we’d love to hear from you. Take a look at the staff, and research pages of our website, or contact Professor Simon Hailwood or Dr Rachael Wiseman (Directors of Post-Graduate Recruitment) to find out about possible supervisory teams.
Meet our Postgraduate Research students
| Daniel Baldwin | Dying for life: an exploration of identity, society, and the duty to die |
| Meg Beech | Shame and women's bodily autonomy |
| Michalina Bevoor | Unravelling Death (working title) |
| Georgina Brighouse | Investigating aphantasia and how capacities for visual imagery can affect individuals in a mental health setting |
| Miles Cheshire |
The Morally Confrontational Now Belief: Solving Problems in the Law of Criminal Attempts |
| Faisal Chuhan | In search for an innovative Ethical Self: Nietzsche's 'biological imperative', Ibn Arabi's 'original health' and the ‘Paradox of Vulnerability’. |
| Gary Jones | Elizabeth Anscombe on Causality |
| Stephen Kearns | The moral status of synthetic organisms: grounding enactive biocentrism in a Kantian framework |
| Xiaoran Lu | Informed consent issues of data acquisition for developing medical AI |
| Hannah Moss | Fleshing it Out: A Feminist Analysis of Somatosensory Perception and Enactive Cognition |
| Megan Rawson | Understanding Maternal-Foetal Identity and Pregnancy Rights |
| Liam Shore | Radical Life Extension: A Critical Examination of its Rationale & Existentialist Dimensions |
| Stella Sideli | Site-specificity as a response to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Curatorial Practices |
| Dan Sim | An evaluation of contemporary philosophy of consciousness employing the methodological approaches of Ordinary Language Philosophy |
| Paul Taylor | All Theists Should be Divine-Command Theorists |
| Graham Veale | Moral Arguments for Theism |
| Rossella Vingelli | Extended organicity in cyborg: bridging the gap between the natural and the artificial |
| Neil Williams | The Existential Virtues - Flourishing in the Abyss |
| Jeanna Witton | How commercial surrogacy can be mutually beneficial for surrogates and intended parents from a lense of intersectional feminism. |
| Huitong Zhou | Towards A New Philosophy of Life: Hans Jonas’ Phenomenon of Life as a Monistic Attempt to Overcome Modern Nihilism |
Past PGRs
Here are some of the students who have recently completed their PhD with us.
2024
Lauren Stephens, ‘A Sartrean Look at Art and Museum Ethics’ (Supervised by Dr Simoniti)
Sam Cooper, ‘A New Approach to the Reality of Iris Murdoch’s Good’ (supervised by Dr Wiseman) -
Tom Brown, ‘Linguistic Idealism and the Disjunctive Approach to the Problem of False Propositions’ (supervised by Professor Gaskin)
Andrew Holland, ‘Virtue Ethics, Psychology and the Environmental Crisis’ (supervised by Professor Hailwood)
Harry Drumond, ‘Understanding Others, Understanding Art: A 4E Approach to Intersubjectivity in Aesthetics’ (supervised by Dr Vid Simoniti)
2023
Ian Dunbar, ‘Fregean Unsaturation’ (supervised by Dr McLeod)
Zishan Khawaja, ‘Madhyamaka: A Metaphysical Interpretation' (supervised by Dr Bartley)
Sam Cloake, ‘Naturalism in the Philosophy of Richard Rorty’ (supervised by Professor Gaskin)
Tom Swaine-Jameson, ‘The Epistemology of Intrinsic Value’ (supervised by Professor Schramme)
2022
Jack Symes, ‘The Evil God Challenge’ (supervised by Dr Hill)
2021
Ruthie Miller, ‘A Process Approach to Presentism: A Route towards Compatibility with Physical Theory’ (supervised by Dr McLeod)
2020
Xiaoyan Hu, ‘The Relation between Art and Nature: The Notion of ‘Qi Yun’ (‘Spirit Resonance’) in Chinese Art in Comparison with Western Ideas’ (supervised by Professor Hailwood)
Rachel Handley, ‘A Defence of Simon Blackburn’s Quasi-Realism’ (supervised by Professor Schramme)
2019
Matt Hart, ‘Theological Determinism and the Goodness of God’ (supervised by Dr Hill)
Gregory Miller, ‘Panpsychism and Phenomenal Relations: a Novel Solution to the Combination Problem’ (supervised by Professor Dainton)
Gary Donnelly, ‘Against a Mahāyāna Absolute: Why Absolutism Need Not Be a Conclusion of Mahāyāna Philosophy’ (supervised by Dr Bartley)
2018
Oliver Downing, ‘Towards a Dialectical Materialist Philosophy of Love’ (supervised by Professor Hailwood)
Rob Booth, ‘Environmental Crises and Eco-Phenomenological Praxis’ (supervised by Professor Hailwood)
Seyed Ashrafi, ‘Ethical Principles for Hospital Design’ (supervised by Professor Hailwood)
2017
Thom Atkinson, ‘Human organisms and the survival of death: A systematic evaluation of the possibility of life after death given animalism’ (supervised by Dr Hill)