MEANWHILE: Publishing as Commons, Care and Curriculum

The School of Fine Art (SoFA) at The Glasgow School of Art invites proposals for PhD study with Dr Laura Haynes from researchers who are able to pursue self-funded doctoral study in Art Writing  focused on contemporary publishing and archiving as forms of epistemic infrastructure, care and meanwhile curriculum. 

Situated within Art Writing and Creative-Critical Practice, this PhD explores writing, editing, publishing and archiving as critical and material research practices. 

In this context, meanwhile refers to publishing and archival practices that unfold beyond formal recognition, operating through continuity, collectivity and care rather than visibility or authorisation. Such practices often remain peripheral—not because they are marginal in effect, but because they privilege process, maintenance and shared responsibility over discrete outcomes. 

Publishing is understood as a commons, and archiving as a form of reproductive care work: practices that sustain the conditions through which knowledge is produced, shared and reactivated over time. 

We welcome proposals from researcher-practitioners interested in examining these modes of knowledge production, particularly those adopting creative-critical, practice-informed orhybrid approaches to writing, publishing and archiving as sites of study, pedagogy and circulation. 

PhD researchers will work directly with The Yellow Paper Press, alongside a range of artist-led and institutional contexts, including: 

·       GoodPress Glasgow 

·       StrangeField Library & Archive 

·       Glasgow Women’s Library 

·       GSA Special Collections 

These contexts offerpoints of enquiry into: 

·       Artist-led and independent publishing networks 

·       Publishing as collective and commons-based infrastructure 

·       Para-academic and informal pedagogies 

·       Archival practices that collect and care for ephemeral materials 

·       Editorial, organisational and archival labour as epistemic work 

The project considers how publications create publics, how archives sustain fragile knowledge, and how curricula emerge through publishing and study beyond formal education. 

We welcome proposals engaging with one or more of the following: 

·       Experimental and independent publishing practices 

·       Publishing and archiving as labour and care 

·       The archive and the collection of the ephemeral 

·       Para-academic curriculum and informal pedagogy 

·       Publishing as infrastructure for social, political or cultural engagement 

·       The material, economic and ecological conditions of contemporary publishing 

Applicants are encouraged to develop their own research questions and methodologies. 

The PhD may be undertaken through critical, historical, theoretical or practice-informed approaches, including: 

·       Writing-led research 

·       Editorial or publishing practice 

·       Archival research 

·       Hybrid methodologies appropriate to Art Writing 

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