Research Methods for the Arts and Humanities – serie

This new textbook addresses the neglect of practical research methods in cultural studies. It provides students with clearly written overviews of research methods in cultural studies, along with guidelines on how to put these methods into operation. It advocates a multi-method approach, with students drawing from a pool of techniques and approaches suitable for their own topics of investigation. The book covers the following main areas:* Drawing on experience, and studying how narratives make sense of experience.* Investigating production processes in the cultural industries, and the consumption and assimilation of cultural products by audiences and fans.* Taking both quantitative and qualitative approaches to the study of cultural life.* Analysing visual images and both spoken and written forms of discourse.* Exploring cultural memory and historical representation.The contributors, along with Michael Pickering, are Martin Barker, Aeron Davis, David Deacon, Emily Keightley, Steph Lawler, Anneke Meyer, Virginia Nightingale, and Sarah Pink. The book is designed for use by students on upper-level undergraduate and taught Masters-level courses as well as postgraduate research students and cultural studies researchers more generally. It will be of enormous value across all fields of study involved in cultural enquiry and analysis.

This book addresses one of the most exciting and innovative developments within higher education: the rise in prominence of the creative arts and the accelerating recognition that creative practice is a form of research. The book considers how creative practice can lead to research insights through what is often known as practice-led research. But unlike other books on practice-led research, it balances this with discussion of how research can impact positively on creative practice through research-led practice. The editors posit an iterative and web-like relationship between practice and research. Essays within the book cover a wide range of disciplines including creative writing, dance, music, theatre, film and new media, and the contributors are from the UK, US, Canada and Australia. The subject is approached from numerous angles: the authors discuss methodologies of practice-led research and research-led practice, their own creative work as a form of research, research training for creative practitioners, and the politics and histories of practice-led research and research-led practice within the university. The book will be invaluable for creative practitioners, researchers, students in the creative arts and university leaders. Key Features*The first book to document, conceptualise and analyse practice-led research in the creative arts and to balance it with research-led practice*Written by highly qualified academics and practitioners across the creative arts and sciences *Brings together empirical, cultural and creative approaches*Presents illuminating case histories of creative work and practice-led research

How have theatre and performance research methods and methodologies engaged the expanding diversity of performing arts practices? How can students best combine performance/theatre research approaches in their projects? This book's 29 contributors provide hands-on answers to such questions. Challenging and debating received research wisdom and exploring innovative procedures for rigorous enquiry via archives, technology, practice-as-research, scenography, performer training, applied theatre/performance, body in performance and more, they create a focussed compendium of future research options. Key Features* Created in association with TaPRA, the leading UK Theatre and Performance Research organisation, with chapters produced by specialist groupings.* Provides many detailed project case studies and examples - including successful practice-based PhDs - plus analysis of dynamic couplings between methods, methodologies and skill-sets. * Introduction interrogates crucial qualities of performing arts research that constitute theatre and performance as, variously, single-, multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary.* Contributors include: Maggie B. Gale (Chair of Drama, University of Manchester); Steve Dixon (Professor of Digital Performance, Brunel University); Joanne 'Bob' Whalley and Lee Miller (University Lecturers and founders Fictional Dogshelf Theatre Company); Simon Ellis and Rosemary Lee (independent performance/dance makers); Roberta Mock (Professor of Performance, University of Plymouth).

Introduces readers to a wide range of research methods for use in English StudiesWith a revised Introduction and with all chapters revised to bring them completely up-to date, this new edition remains the leading guide to research methods for final-year undergraduates, postgraduates taking Masters degrees and PhDs students of 19th- and 20th-century Literary Studies.Written by a range of distinguished contributors, each chapter centres on one particular method, offering both concrete practical advice on how to utilise it and exploring some of the methodological issues that are involved in the use of the particular method. The chapters cover research methods familiar to English scholars such as textual analysis, as well as those less commonly explored such as visual and quantitative methods, which also contribute significantly to research in English Studies. Other approaches discussed include auto/biographical methods, discourse analysis, interviewing, archival methods, ethnographic methods, oral history, creative writing as a research method, and research using information and communication technologies (ICTS).Key Features:Focus on reaearch methodsChapters on innovative areas such as creative writing, ICT, ethnographic methodsIncludes practical advice as well as methodological discussionsOffers concrete examples of how methods might be used in English research

This third edition of Research Methods for Law offers students in a range of disciplines - law, sociology, psychology, criminology, forensic science, social-legal studies and social welfare - an advanced introduction to research methods in an accessible and grounded way. As well as covering theoretical, comparative and interdisciplinary methods, the book breaks new ground by offering a focus on topics of contemporary and developing concerns in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, BRICS, Continental Legal Systems, Islamic Law, Gender, Race and the 'Virtual World'. The expert contributors draw on their vast experience in teaching and research to encourage students and provide sure pathways for their own enterprises with technical competence and adherence to ethical standards.

This third edition of Research Methods for Law offers students in a range of disciplines - law, sociology, psychology, criminology, forensic science, social-legal studies and social welfare - an advanced introduction to research methods in an accessible and grounded way. As well as covering theoretical, comparative and interdisciplinary methods, the book breaks new ground by offering a focus on topics of contemporary and developing concerns in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, BRICS, Continental Legal Systems, Islamic Law, Gender, Race and the 'Virtual World'. The expert contributors draw on their vast experience in teaching and research to encourage students and provide sure pathways for their own enterprises with technical competence and adherence to ethical standards.

Historians have become increasingly sensitive to social and cultural theory since the 1980s, yet the actual methods by which research is carried out in History have been largely taken for granted. Research Methods for History encourages those researching the past to think creatively about the wide range of methods currently in use, to understand how these methods are used and what historical insights they can provide. This updated new edition has been expanded to cover not only sources and methods that are well-established in History, such as archival research, but also those that have developed recently, such as the impact of digital history research. The themes of the different chapters have been selected to reflect new trends in the subject, including landscape studies, material culture and ethics. Every chapter presents new insights and perspectives and will open researchers’ minds to the expanding possibilities of historical research.

The first volume to introduce the techniques and methods of reading digital material for researchDigital Humanities has become one of the new domains of academe at the interface of technological development, epistemological change, and methodological concerns. This volume explores how digital material might be read or utilized in research, whether that material is digitally born as fanfiction, for example, mostly is, or transposed from other sources. The volume asks questions such as what happens when text is transformed from printed into digital matter, and how that impacts on the methods we bring to bear on exploring that technologized matter, for example in the case of digital editions. Issues such as how to analyse visual material in digital archives or Twitter feeds, how to engage in data mining, what it means to undertake crowd-sourcing, big data, and what digital network analyses can tell us about online interactions are dealt with. This will give Humanities researchers ideas for doing digitally based research and also suggest ways of engaging with new digital research methods.Key featuresFirst volume centred on the navigation and interpretation of digital material as research methods in the HumanitiesUp-to-date analyses of issues and methods including big data, crowdsourcing, digital network analysis, working with digital additionsBased on actual research projects such as para-textual work with fanfiction, reading twitter, different kinds of distant and close readings

The first volume to focus on digitising and curating data online as research methods for Digital HumanitiesAs all scholars increasingly use digital tools to support their research, and every internet user becomes used to data being available, elucidating, and engaging, the creative aspects of Digital Humanities work are coming under increasing scrutiny. This volume explores the practice of making new tools, new images, new collections, and new artworks in an academic environment, detailing who needs to be involved and what their roles might be, and how they come together to produce knowledge as a collective. The chapters presented here demonstrate that creation is never neutral with political and theoretical concerns intentionally or unavoidably always being written into the fabric of what is being made, even if that’s the seeming neatness of computer code. In presenting their own creative research, the writers in this volume offer examples of practice that will be of use to anyone interested in learning more about contemporary Digital Humanities scholarship and its implications.Key features:First volume to explore digitisation practices as research methods for Humanities scholarsProvides a practical and critical approach to issues of digitisation Discusses actual digitisation projects on a ‘how-to’ basisAddresses issues such as digital photography, multi-spectral imaging, rekeying, metadata, online simulation, artistic practice online

The core mission of this textbook is to help and support both new and established scholars looking to expand their research in the Middle East and North Africa, navigating issues that relate to positionality, ethics and ethnocentric biases. 16 researchers share their invaluable first-hand experiences and examine the cultural, conceptual, methodological and practical challenges of working on and in MENA region.