Postgraduate

Sociology
at Goldsmiths

Conduct your own

primary research,
generate data of your
own, and experience
what it means to be
a sociologist now
 Key features
We offer nine postgraduate
degrees covering a range of areas
from photography to digital sociology
Our staff are actively conducting
their own funded research
Our students can access resources
in the Centre for Urban & Community
Research, Centre for the Study of
Invention & Social Process, the
Unit of Global Justice and
the Unit of Play

Anna Blattner MA PUC

2 www.gold.ac.uk/sociology
 Sociology at Goldsmiths
Sociology at Goldsmiths is active, contemporary
and inventive. We are as interested in the global
issues of poverty and injustice as we are in the
micro issues of identity and presentation of self.

As a department we want to push the Why choose Sociology at Goldsmiths?

discipline forward. We are proud to be
the joint top university for sociology in Were welcoming. Come and let us
the country (latest Research Assessment know what you think and learn through a
Exercise, 2008) and we are known for combination of lectures, small group seminars,
pioneering Live Sociology focusing on practical workshops and field trips, and from
contemporary issues, using innovative an approachable team of expert staff, many
methods and celebrating the sociological of whom have won awards for their teaching.
imagination. It is an approach driven by our
international research, and it means that as a We are experimental. All of our staff teach
student here you can delve into a whole host their own specialisms, so youll find out about
of topics; many you will be familiar with from the latest research first. And as a student here
previous study class and stratification, race, you can test out your ideas and get involved
gender, power but much of which will be in the latest developments within the field.
new the digital, the body, culture and cities.
We are active. This means you wont be
We want you to graduate with a sociology synthesising existing information but you will
qualification that has weight in the real world be generating data of your own, conducting
so we make sure you learn how to apply your own primary research, and experiencing
sociologys core methods to particular areas what it means to be a sociologist now.
of life now. Our courses are hands-on giving
you the opportunity to research and record
an environment, create and analyse your
own data, and draw your own conclusions.
And you can apply the skills of sociological
study to many careers our graduates go
on to work in a whole range of settings from
research institutes to major record labels.

Visit www.gold.ac.uk/pg/sociology for full details of our degrees 3

 Watch our film at
vimeo.com/
goldsmiths/
sociology

Gill Golding MA PUC

4 www.gold.ac.uk/sociology
Our degrees
MA in Critical & Creative Analysis
1 year full-time or 2 years part-time
www.gold.ac.uk/pg/
ma-critical-creative-analysis
Cultural processes are creative and dynamic,
meaning that our analysis of them must be
too. How can cultural analysis engage with the
most significant challenges of the globalised
world, with all its inequities and all its
possibilities? Can the critical traditions of
sociological thought provide adequate
responses to todays world? This programme
emphasises the critical analysis of cultural
processes from both an advanced theoretical
perspective and a rigorous, empirical one. Our
most flexible MA, you are able to choose two
courses from across a range of participating
departments, allowing you to tailor the degree
to your individual interests. The MA attracts
students from across the world with
backgrounds in social science, humanities and
philosophy, as well as more creative pursuits.
MA/MSc in Digital Sociology
1 year full-time or 2 years part-time
www.gold.ac.uk/pg/
ma-msc-digital-sociology
Digital Sociology has been specifically
designed to equip you for critical and creative
engagement with digital social life. It offers
advanced training in the skills, arts, concepts,
methods and ethics of digital social research,
teaching you to combine empirical analysis
with critical thinking and technical practice.
This innovative Masters is a collaboration
across the Sociology and Computing
departments. It provides a comprehensive
introduction to recent developments in digital
social analysis, practice and theory, from the
rise of big data and social media analytics to
digital ethnography and real-time research.
You will be equipped to engage with these
developments by combining sociological
thinking about technology and social methods
with creative computing techniques.
Visit www.gold.ac.uk/pg/sociology for full details of our degrees 5
MA in Gender, Media & Culture
1 year full-time or 2 years part-time
www.gold.ac.uk/pg/
ma-gender-media-culture
This MA introduces you to recent debates on
gender in the disciplines of sociology and
media and communications studies, and to
the interdisciplinary domains of feminist social
and cultural theory. The programme develops
cutting-edge critical skills in relation to cultural
approaches to gender formation and gender
theory. As well as these theoretical and
analytical points of orientation, you will grasp
the importance of epistemology and
methodology for the evaluation of empirical
investigations of gender formations. The
programme therefore introduces you to, and
offers training in, the key socio-cultural
methods for the study of gender in the
contemporary world, including methods for
the study of visual culture; the body and
affect; and memory and autobiography.
MA in Human Rights, Culture & Social Justice
1 year full-time or 2 years part-time
www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-human-rights
Human rights mobilise millions of supporters
across borders, inspiring passion and hope.
They are constructed at different scales, from
the local, through the national to the global.
You will learn about contemporary political
campaigns against injustice. You will study the
possibilities of human rights, going beyond
legal formulations to look at the conditions in
which rights claims are made and the range
of actors involved in making them. You will
explore concepts through case studies; and
begin to practise some of the methodologies
and methods used in NGOs and grassroots
activist networks concerned with social
injustices. The MA includes a practice-based
research component with the opportunity
of a supervised work placement.
Our degrees continued
MA in Photography & Urban Cultures
1 year full-time or 2 years part-time
www.gold.ac.uk/pg/
ma-photography-urban-cultures

This MA has been developed by the Centre for

Urban & Community Research in response to
the increasing interest in urban theory and the
visual representation of urban cultures and
places. Designed to encourage creative
interplay between practice and theory, you
Student insight
will consider cutting-edge debates in cultural
Corin, MA World Cities & Urban Life
and social theory in a research setting that
Having spent a few years travelling,
actively encourages the development of
I became interested in the huge differences
photographic practice. The MA offers
in urban lifestyles across the globe. To this end,
photographers, visual artists and media
the MA has given me a solid theoretical
practitioners space to reflect critically on
grounding to back up my practical observations.
their practice, and those with a background
Whats more, since I started studying again,
in sociology, urban and cultural geography,
Ive found employment with a magazine
cultural studies or anthropology the
specialising in coverage of the built environment
opportunity to combine visual forms of
which is exactly what I was aiming for in
representation with standard forms of
choosing this course.
research techniques in investigating urban life.

MA in Social Research MA in Visual Sociology

1 year full-time or 2 years part-time 1 year full-time or 2 years part-time
www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-social-research www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-visual-sociology

This programme offers training for those who
need to conduct or evaluate sociological
research, and provides skills for academic and
non-academic researchers. It covers both
qualitative and quantitative methods and their
application in the study of substantive areas,
as well as the relationship of research studies
to sociological theory. Teaching is made up
of lectures and workshops during which you
are encouraged to try out, evaluate and
sometimes combine different approaches.
You will be introduced to a range of theoretical
perspectives, and will see how these may
be translated into a rigorous methodological
approach. The range of methods covered
include interviewing and observation, archival
research, visual methods, ethnographic work,
as well as statistical analysis of large-scale
quantitative data sets.
This programme is designed for those who
are interested in new ways of exploring and
understanding the social world through the
use of visual, sensory and other experimental
approaches. It allows you to study sociological
issues alongside innovative methods. The MA
will enable you to intervene in and represent
the social world by developing the ability to
undertake empirical research and present it
publicly in a variety of media and materials.
You will engage with sociology as an inventive
research practice, orientated towards the
creative deployment of research methods.
The MA combines lectures and seminars
with workshop-based projects in which you
develop a hands-on approach to research,
providing a skill base in methods that could
be used in public sector contexts, art/media
research, design or commercial application.

6 www.gold.ac.uk/sociology
MA in World Cities & Urban Life
1 year full-time or 2 years part-time
www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-world-cities-urban-life
Increasingly, no matter how we live, we live
at the level of the world simultaneously
within and beyond neighbourhoods, cultures,
identities and institutions. We know this
world primarily through the experience of
living within and between cities. How do
we understand this experience; what do we
do with it in terms of making new forms of
social life and new ways of living with others?
Particularly, how do we draw upon the
experience of urban residents from across the
world to rethink the conditions for effective
urban lives. This programme emphasises how
to bring together social analysis, design,
activism, and inventive methods for engaging
various dimensions of urban work from
planning, policy making, research, cultural
intervention, to the management of social
programmes and institutions.
MPhil & PhD in Visual Sociology
3-4 years full-time or 4-6 years part-time
www.gold.ac.uk/pg/
mphil-phd-visual-sociology
The MPhil/PhD in Visual Sociology offers
you the opportunity to combine written
sociological argument with film, sound, or
photographic representation. It will allow
new researchers to re-think both the conduct
of social research and the forms that social
research writing takes in the 21st century.
The PhD will allow you to re-think the
gathering, analysis and presentation of
research data and consider the future of
sociological representation. Those registered
on this degree will complete all of the same
research training courses and seminars as
those on the MPhil/PhD in Sociology.
Please get in touch to find out more about
our research degrees, including which
bursaries and studentships may be available.

MPhil & PhD in Sociology

3-4 years full-time or 4-6 years part-time
www.gold.ac.uk/pg/mphil-phd-sociology

Goldsmiths research in sociology covers a

range of areas, including: art and literature;
deviance; education; theories of industrial
society; health, illness and psychiatry; politics;
race and ethnicity; class; religion; values in
society; childhood and youth culture; the body
and society; the expansion of capitalism on
a world scale; urban studies; gender and the
sexual division of labour; and culture and
communications. Research can be an isolating
process, so we give you the opportunity to
participate in departmental research seminars
and programmes of taught options, which
enable you to meet other research students.
We emphasise the importance of the
relationship between you and your supervisor,
matching you with a supervisor whose current
active research interests and expertise are
Tom Bright MA PUC
compatible with your chosen topic of research.

Visit www.gold.ac.uk/pg/sociology for full details of our degrees 7

Our research
Sociology at Goldsmiths is celebrating its 50th
anniversary in 2014. Our research has long been
recognised as vital in defining the shifting boundaries
of the discipline, and we have been an important point
of entry for numerous methodological, philosophical
and theoretical innovations that have enlivened the
sociological imagination in the UK and beyond.
Sociology at Goldsmiths has prospered
because of its unique intellectual culture that
manages to combine radical, cosmopolitan,
interdisciplinary, creative and inventive
approaches to research and teaching across
the social sciences, arts, humanities and
creative technologies.
Members of the Department of Sociology
have played a key role in the development
of the discipline, contributing to the
development of social research methods,
setting agendas in social and cultural theory,
working in interdisciplinary fields, and linking
theory to practice. The Department is
forward-looking, global in orientation, and
reaches out to a wide variety of audiences and
users of sociological research. We describe
our approach as live sociology.
The intellectual culture of Goldsmiths provides
a unique context for creative developments in
sociology. We have a track record in:
international research that is global in scope;
 interdisciplinary research across the social
and natural sciences, computing, arts and
humanities;
collaboration of international significance,
both with other universities and with major
partners in industry, government and the
creative sector;
exploration of the interface between theory
and practice, whether in the social, creative,
scientific or professional spheres.
8 www.gold.ac.uk/sociology
World class and international
Goldsmiths is internationally recognised
as world leading in its main research areas.
The Department of Sociology is committed
to developing a global sociological
imagination that is in tune with the scale of
todays social relations in a global society.
Interdisciplinary and imaginative
Drawing on the creative mix of disciplines
across the College, we have expertise in
building a reflexive interdisciplinarity into
Sociology, taking interdisciplinarity as both
topic and resource in conferences and
research projects, as well as developing
interdisciplinary methods.
Collaboration and engagement
Partnership and engagement with a wide
range of research partners and users is a
vital part of our research activity. This
collaboration connects us to a range of
stakeholders, research partners and user
communities in our locality, nationally and
internationally.
Practice-informed research and creative
We have expertise in the development of
models of practice-led research in social
science, exploring the intersections between
traditional academic modes of knowledge
production and the practices of designers,
engineers, architects and artists, legal and
NGO practitioners, whether in universities,
industry, or the field.
 Our six research centres

Centre for the Study of Invention & Social

Process: CSISP supports work in the broad
area of science, technology, society and
the environment. It hosts events, research,
and projects that examine the role of
invention in social and public life.

Methods Lab: the Lab is intended to

stimulate creative debate about the ways
in which sociology is changing, what social
Research in the Department falls under
research should look like today, and how
five broad thematic headings:
sociology can best respond to the
demands of users of social research.
D igital Sociology, Live and
Inventive Methods
Centre for Urban & Community
Politics, Rights and Justice
Research: core expertise ranging
Science and Technology Studies
from visual sociology to digital geo-
Theory, Culture and Society
demography, the CUCR remains central
Urban Sociology
to debates about community, ecology,
governance, multiculture, citizenship,
All staff undertake research under at least one
arts and media in contemporary cities.
of these themes, the majority working under
two or three of them, and a small number
Unit for Global Justice: studies the legal
work across four. Each has a programme of
and ethical implications of contemporary
funded research and organises conferences,
global social change. It aims to bring
seminars, and other research-related activities.
together those concerned with changing
Many are associated with a Masters
social and technical forms and their
programme, enabling teaching and research
implications for how we understand justice,
to enrich each other or are associated with a
ethics, and law in the new global world.
research centre, unit or initiative that provides
an infrastructure for research activities.
Centre for the Study of Global Media
& Democracy: set up in September
Goldsmiths continues to be inherently
2007 with the Department for
interdisciplinary and committed to highly
Media and Communications to
engaged collaboration with a wide range of
address the connections between
colleagues and organisations, especially other
politics, sociology and media.
universities and partners in design, industry,
government, the arts and the creative sector.
Unit of Play: the core impetus for the
We are committed to a forward-looking,
unit comes from objects within the HIV
wide-ranging and risk-taking research culture
epidemic mostly new diagnostics, forms
that recognises that if any coming crisis for
of virus and bodies the relational and
the discipline is to be avoided then the fullest
emergent way in which these come to
engagement possible with the affordances
have affect is anticipated to map to other
that new technologies digital media in
fields of inquiry biomedical and others.
particular present is absolutely essential.

Visit www.gold.ac.uk/pg/sociology for full details of our degrees 9

 Staff and their research interests
Dr Brian Alleyne
Activism and social movements; globalisation;
information technologies; ethnicity; biography
and other forms of narrative in social research.
Professor Les Back
Race and racism; multiculturalism; urban life;
social exclusion; popular culture and music;
sport sociology; postcolonial theory; youth
and gender; work and institutional racism;
visual sociology; health and illness.
Professor Vikki Bell
Ethics, socio-cultural aspects of transitional
justice, aesthetics and the politics of art; social
theory; feminist and continental philosophy;
theories of performativity, subjectivity and
the politics of race, gender and sexuality.
Dr Michaela Benson
Rural and urban sociology, social class,
lifestyle migration, production and
consumption of space and place, migration
and tourism, ethnographic methods.
Professor Roger Burrows
Urban sociology; social media; the social
life of methods and the public life of data.
Dr Kirsten Campbell
Feminist and post-structuralist social theory,
psychoanalytic theory and socio-legal studies.
Dr Rebecca Coleman
Images and visual/sensory culture; bodies
and materiality; surfaces; temporality and
the future; affect; inventive methodologies;
feminist, cultural and social theory.
Professor Mike Featherstone
Social theory, consumer culture, the body,
ageing and the life course, global culture
and globalisation processes.
Dr Jennifer Gabrys
Science and technology studies, digital media,
materiality, environments, urbanism, creative
practice, participation, inventive methods.
10 www.gold.ac.uk/sociology
Dr Monica Greco
Concepts of health, illness, therapeutics and/
or healing; concepts of life and vitalism; the
body and the organism; psy disciplines;
emotions, subjectivity/selfhood and mental
health; historical theory.
Dr Michael Guggenheim
Science and technology; visual sociology;
architecture and the city; disasters.
Dr Yasmin Gunaratnam
Corporeal vulnerability; care; and social
research methodologies.
Dr Sara Farris
Political sociology; international migration;
nationalism and racism; political economy;
Marxist theory.
Paul Halliday
Photographer and film-maker interested in
theoretical and practice-led visual ethnography.
Dr David Hirsh
Nationalism; cosmopolitanism; international
law; socio-legal studies; war on terror; crimes
against humanity; genocide; Israel/Palestine;
holocaust; fundamentalism; human rights.
Dr Anja Kanngieser
Language and social reproduction; voice;
contemporary social and political theory;
labour organisation; surveillance and
governance; geo-economics and geo-politics;
logistics and supply chains; social movements;
radio; sonic methods.
Aidan Kelly
Quantitative methodologies; sociological
public policy research.
Professor Caroline Knowles
Race and ethnicity; migrational space
and urban life; madness; visual studies
and biographical methods.
Dr Monika Krause
Political sociology; sociology of culture;
organisations; humanitarian relief.
Dr Noortje Marres
Science and technology studies; digital social
research; participation; actor-network theory;
environmental sociology; political theory;
controversy analysis; and issue mapping.
Dr Mariam Motamedi-Fraser
Words; facts and fictions; storying; archives;
experience; methods; science and literature.
Dr Dhiraj Murthy
Social media; new media; organisations;
quantitative sociology; virtual teams;
Big Data and digital methods.
Professor Kate Nash
Sociology of human rights; cultural politics;
political sociology; citizenship; social
movements; equality and diversity.
Professor Daniel Neyland
Governance, accountability, ethics; ethnography;
ethnomethodology, science and technology
studies; markets, surveillance, security.
Dr Pam Odih
Gendered subjectivity, consumption,
advertising, organisational analysis and
educational policy.
Professor David Oswell (Head of Department)
Cultural studies; science and technology;
childhood and social theory.
Dr Nirmal Puwar
Space, race, gender and politics. Co-organiser
of the Methods Lab, developing creative
critical methodologies beyond academia.
Dr Alex Rhys-Taylor
Cities; globalisation; multiculture; class; race;
racism; food; smell; sensory methods;
ethnography; and historical sociology.
Visit www.gold.ac.uk/pg/sociology for full details of our degrees 11
Dr Alison Rooke
Issues of class, gender and sexualities in
urban contexts.
Dr Marsha Rosengarten
Biomedicine and biotechnology inclusive of
feminist poststructual critiques of matter; HIV/
AIDS, blood, organ and xenotransplantation;
sexuality and theories of the body.
Dr Evelyn Ruppert
Sociologies of data and governing; Big Data;
social science methods; science and
technology studies; population censuses;
open government data; city objects.
Dr Monica Sassatelli
Cultural identity; European cultural policies
(and cultural politics); the city; leisure,
landscape and place; experience; aesthetics;
art worlds; festivals; culture industries;
museums and other memory institutions.
Professor Bev Skeggs
Class; cultural formations; feminist and
poststructuralist theory; Pierre Bourdieu
and Karl Marx; sexuality, space and violence.
Dr Brett St Louis
Conceptual and practical status of race,
politics and ethics; black/postcolonial radical
intellectualism; sport; culture and aesthetics.
Dr Tomoko Tamari
Japanese culture and society; consumer
culture; women, department store and
aestheticisation; visual sociology; the body.
Dr Alberto Toscano
Contemporary social and political theory;
Marxism; philosophy; political economy;
history of ideas; art and aesthetics.
Dr Nina Wakeford
Technology; design and the social sciences;
visual research methodologies; interdisciplinary
studies between sociology and art/design.
Contact us
See www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ To find out more about us,
sociology for full details of go to www.gold.ac.uk/
our degrees. If you need more sociolology or email
information, please email sociology@gold.ac.uk
course-info@gold.ac.uk.

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Graduate insight
Angelo, PhD Sociology
Im really pleased I decided to study at
Goldsmiths. The combination of supportive
staff, weekly workshops/seminars and being
2013. Printed on 100% recycled paper

in a lively and friendly environment makes

Goldsmiths an ideal place to learn and develop.
On a personal level, the diversity that exists
inside Goldsmiths has given me the
opportunity to mix with different people.
This has allowed me to learn more
about different cultures within
everyday practice.