The MPhil research programme is designed for postgraduates wishing to take their research in performance and cultural industries beyond an MA. Studying for an MPhil enables you to pursue advanced, independent research under the guidance of one or two specialist supervisors. For assessment, you'll be expected to produce a thesis which demonstrates a significant contribution to knowledge and scholarship in your chosen discipline. At the end of the course, candidates must present a thesis of 60,000 words maximum on their subject. You can choose to work towards your MPhil either full-time (2 years as standard) or part-time (4 years as standard).<br><br>The Bodies and Performance research group seeks to explore the way bodies are performed in their cultural, biological, philosophical, aesthetic and mediated contexts and manifestations. The group's mission is to understand contemporary performance and theory which articulate, aestheticize and politicize the desires and demands of the lived body. The lived body is intersectional, experiential, embodied and digitalised. Contemporary practice and discourse is moving us beyond fixed cultural and social binaries and categories into a more ‘trans' relationship with the body. The body is embedded and extended in its political, virtual social and historical environment but it is also driven by its own internal workings – its personal demands, needs and desires. The Bodies and Performance research group would like to consider the pleasure, joy, pain and everyday experiences of the lived body – gender, love, fear, sex, sexuality, motherhood, pregnancy, parenthood, cooking and eating, domestic work, hormonal shifts, ageing and illness, as well as technologies that enhance and shape the body as lived. Central to our concerns is how those bodily experiences are articulated and represented in and through performance. The group also seeks to understand the way in which these new configurations of the lived body impacts on the political as a critical dialogue.