PhD Cohort 2019
Funding: AHRC DTP
Project Title: We make spaces and spaces make us: An exploration through creative writing of the relationship between literature and carceral spaces
Supervisors: Dr Zoë Strachan, School of Critical Studies, Prof Johhny Rodger, Glasgow School of Art, and Prof Fergus McNeill, School of Social & Political Sciences
What was your research about?
Power in space, hierarchies in the built environment, creative practice, prisons, architecture and time.
What made you apply for the SGSAH AHRC DTP?
I thought I’d enjoy it. A potentially flexible job market. In the arts, you take what you get.
Which aspects of your PhD did you enjoy the most?
All of it. The interaction with experts and other students, researchers. The work and the outcome. The generosity of my supervisors and peers.
How has your PhD helped you to decide on a career path?
I now work full-time in academia, in a job I would not have had if not for the PhD, and hope to remain doing so.
And now?
Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, Director of Studies for my department, three novels at various levels of completion, a major funding proposal in the further future, the work (ongoing and submitted) of 100+ students etc. I have also published the books A Circular Argument: A Creative Exploration of Power and Space (Emerald Publishing Limited, 2021) and Light and Other Observations (Lulu Press, 2018).
One piece of advice you would give an incoming PhD researcher?
Remember to enjoy it, it is a privilege.
Where can people find you?
Staff profile at Malmö University: https://mau.se/en/persons/martin.cathcart-froden/