Applications now open for DHeritage, the Professional Doctorate in Heritage!

Applications are now invited for prospective students to join DHeritage, the world's only Professional Doctorate in Heritage. DHeritage offers an opportunity to reflect on and explore in-depth an issue arising from your professional work in a way that creates an original contribution to the global heritage community.

This broad-based, flexible qualification was developed in association with experts from across the heritage sector and is aimed at professionals who work in, or desire to work in, the heritage field broadly defined, whether in the public or private sectors. It interests those who are employed in tourism, planning, museums, archives, community history, archaeology, social and cultural sustainability and any area of work which engages heritage. DHeritage appeals to practitioners who want to reflect on and contribute to the latest thinking in what is a dynamic and ever-changing sector crucial to many economies and to local and national identities.

DHeritage is part of the School of Humanities and draws on expertise from across the University

Students follow the programme as part of a cohort, supported by a series of regular bespoke training workshops, generic research training and supervision shaped to their particular needs from across the disciplines of History, Education, Digital Humanities, Creative Writing, Creative Arts, Law, Business, and Tourism, and beyond. The programme integrates scholarship on a range of interdisciplinary themes, including professional ethics, sustainability, cultural memory and heritage policy. Students select their topic and training according to individual needs and interests, and current developments in the field. On admission, successful candidates are allocated a Principal and one or two Co-Supervisors based on the research area they have set out in their research proposal and at interview.

DHeritage is offered part-time only, as typically our students work full- or part-time in the heritage sector. The degree usually takes 6 years to complete, but it is possible to complete it in 4-6 years depending on successfully passing the phased assessments. The programme is available through a campus registration or as a distance-learning route - in either case campus-based workshops are supported with online equivalent workshops using Canvas Studynet, our web-based managed learning environment. Fees for part-time home and EU students were £2,300 per annum in 2018/19 (different rates apply for overseas distance-learning students).

Senior Visiting Fellow Judy Faraday with Dean of Humanities Prof Anne Murphy and DHeritage student Helen Casey

You can find about more about DHeritage on our website https://www.herts.ac.uk/courses/doctorate-in-heritage or via the University's world class Heritage Hub (or by clicking the DHeritage tag on this blog).

Apply by sending a completed application form (available here), research proposal and supporting documents (qualifications, certificates etc.) via our Doctoral College doctoralcollegeadmissions@herts.ac.uk by 10th May 2019. A guide sheet to help you prepare a research proposal is available from Prof Dr Grace Lees-Maffei, Professor of Design History and Programme Director for DHeritage. If you have any questions about the programme or want to discuss it further, please contact Prof Lees-Maffei or the Doctoral College. We look forward to hearing from you!

The De Havilland Aircraft Company is an important part of the University's Heritage

Zoë Hendon 'Working at the Intersection of Archives and Practice’

Next week TVAD is hosting a TVAD Talk research seminar by external speaker Zoë Hendon, Head of Collections and Associate Professor, Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture (MoDA), Middlesex University. Her TVAD Talk, entitled ‘Working at the Intersection of Archives and Practice’ will showcase her doctoral research in the context of her professional work at MoDA. Zoë’s talk will examine her approach to both:

the museum's collections from a design-historical perspective, and on the ways in which these collections inspire creative practice in the present. 

In this talk she will refer to various projects she has worked on in recent years, and reflect on where these different strands of thought are currently taking her. Zoë’s PhD ‘Looking Back and Looking Forward, the The Silver Studio Collection as heritage asset and educational resource, 1968-2018’ is registered with Middlesex University and is due for completion by end of 2019. The Silver Studio Collection

was a commercial design practice, which between 1880 and 1963 completed more than 20,000 schemes for items such as furnishing fabrics, wallpapers, tablecovers, rugs and carpets. The Studio answered the needs of its customers, who were retailers and manufacturers at all levels of the market. Many of its clients were mass producers and Silver Studio designs therefore found their way into numerous British homes.

Zoë’s recent publications arising from this project include:

• ‘The Silver Studio art reference collection’ Decorative Arts Society Journal 36 (2012): 65–81;
• The Silver Studio and the Art of Japan, Middlesex University: Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture (2014);
• ‘Behind the Scenes at the Silver Studio : Rex Silver and the Hidden Mechanisms of Interwar Textile Design’ Architecture and Culture 6, 1 (2018): 61–80;
• and, with Dr Linda Sandino ‘Inspiration Examined:Towards a methodology’ Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education 17, 2 (2018): 135–50.
  
  
  
  
  
  The talk will be filmed by Mikayla Laird and will be published on the University of Hertfordshire’s YouTube channel in due course. Further TVAD Talks are listed on the TVAD Talks webpage and on the TVAD blog.