The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts is a major collection of new writings on research in the creative and performing arts by leading authorities from around the world. It provides theoretical and practical approaches to identifying, structuring and resolving some of the key issues in the debate about the nature of research in the arts which have surfaced during the establishment of this subject over the last decade.

Contributions are located in the contemporary intellectual environment of research in the arts, and more widely in the universities, in the strategic and political environment of national research funding, and in the international environment of trans-national cooperation and communication. The book is divided into three principal sections - Foundations, Voices and Contexts - each with an introduction from the editors highlighting the main issues, agreements and debates in each section.

The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts addresses a wide variety of concepts and issues, including:

• the diversity of views on what constitutes arts-based research and scholarship, what it should be, and its potential contribution
• the trans-national communication difficulties arising from terminological and ontological differences in arts-based research
• traditional and non-traditional concepts of knowledge, their relationship to professional practice, and their outcomes and audiences
• a consideration of the role of written, spoken and artefact-based languages in the formation and communication of understandings.

This comprehensive collection makes an original and significant contribution to the field of arts-based research by setting down a framework for addressing these, and other, topical issues. It will be essential reading for research managers and policy-makers in research councils and universities, as well as individual researchers, research supervisors and doctoral candidates.

About the Author

Michael Biggs is Professor of Aesthetics and former Associate Dean Research at the University of Hertfordshire, UK and Visiting Professor in Arts-based Research in Architecture at the University of Lund, Sweden. He coordinates a network of excellence in the field, and has published widely on research theory in the creative and performing arts.

Henrik Karlsson is Assistant Professor in musicology, former research secretary at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and consultant to Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. He headed the assessment of the Swedish Research Council's grants to artistic research (Context-Quality-Continuity, 2007) and has edited a great number of anthologies in music and cultural sciences.

Reviews

'In view of the quality of the chapters as well as the overall diversity and content of the book, it is difficult to find some weak spots.' - Johan Verbeke, vice-dean FAK

'This book is a wonderful volume of high quality contributions which make this obligatory reading for all researchers and PhD supervisors active in the domain of artistic research and research through design(ing). The book also nicely shows that artistic research merits now its own place in academia and should be given the necessary funds to develop its own discourse and methods.' - Johan Verbeke, vice-dean FAK

'The practice-led PhD, which began in the U.K., is now ubiquitous in several parts of the world. As the doctorate becomes more settled in university life, it becomes increasingly important to reach a balanced understanding of its basic concepts, methods, and outcomes. What is artistic research? How does art create new knowledge? How can a PhD-level art exhibition be assessed for quality? This book is the first comprehensive look at concepts such as research, knowledge, creativity, the visual, experiment, quality, and assessment, as they are used in practice-based programmes influenced by the U.K. and E.U. models of higher education. Now that art is being taught in universities at the doctoral level, it may spur a fundamental rethinking of the university's basic concepts of professionalism, community, and purpose. For that reason this book is also an irreplaceable resource for those interested in the coherence and idea of the university as a whole.' - James Elkins, The Art Institute of Chicago

'This book is the first comprehensive look at concepts such as research, knowledge, creativity, the visual, experiment, quality, and assessment, as they are used in practice-based programmes influenced by the U.K. and E.U. models of higher education.' - James Elkins, The Art Institute of Chicago

'this book is a wonderful volume of high quality contributions which make this obligatory reading for all researchers and PhD supervisors active in the domain of artistic research and research through design(ing).' - Johan Verbeke, vice-dean FAK

'The Routledge Companion is a rich resource for those engaged in research as academic practitioners, and those teaching masters or supervising doctoral students. In these latter contexts it is useful to those engaged in the discussion of research methods in the arts and provides students with an important sense of context in which their research outputs might find their voice. For academic practitioners, the essays provide a way to consider how practice might be articulated as research, and evidence of a shared research environment in which they can approach this with some authenticity. Each essay is packed with references to what is now becoming a rich literature on arts research and a useful resource through which to explore the complexity and diversity of approaches in the field.' - Dr Tracy Piper-Wright, Glyndwr University, UK

Book Information
ISBN 9780415697941
Author Michael Biggs
Format Paperback
Page Count 488
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 861g