Our research

Music

We investigate music in numerous contexts and musical styles. Our internationally renowned researchers consider the role of music – including recording practices, world music and more – within culture and society.

Research areas include:

• contemporary music industries
• creative communities
• ethnomusicology
• gesture studies
• improvisation and jazz
• music composition and creative process
• music software and technologies
• musical embodiment
• performative inquiry
• popular music studies
• sonic interaction design
• voice, singing and song.

Our research includes both traditional academic and creative practice outputs.

Performing arts and entertainment industries

Our academic and practice-based research investigates the impact of performing arts and entertainment on cultural and social life across diverse research areas including:

• arts for social change
• collaborative and participatory performance
• cross-disciplinary conditions of technologised performance
• identity, representation and marginalised performing bodies
• performance practices
• popular entertainment.

We work in a range of research contexts across theatre, dance, circus and performance studies.

Our research includes archaeological, linguistic and textual studies of a range of cultures from the ancient world to contemporary society, including:

• Ancient Egypt and the Near East
• Greece and Rome from the Archaic period to Late Antiquity and Byzantium
• Medieval, Renaissance and modern Europe
• Australian, Aboriginal and world history.

Archaeological projects

Our students have the opportunity to participate in field surveys and excavations overseas.

See our field projects.

Research centres

Through the study of text and language, material and digital culture, archaeological science, numismatics and papyrology, we research a wide range of topics, supported by four research centres:

• the Macquarie Centre for Ancient Cultural Heritage and the Environment (CACHE)
• the Australian Centre for Ancient Numismatic Studies
• the Centre for Applied History
• the Australian Centre for Egyptology.

Scholarships

We support postgraduate students with scholarships to facilitate travel to study overseas.

Learn about our scholarships.

Our research focuses on:

• creative practice
• English literary traditions and genres
• global written and visual cultures.

Our academics are at the forefront of cultural change, with a number of researchers in the department recognised as world leaders in their fields. This expertise informs our teaching and supervision from undergraduate level to higher degree research.

A distinctive strength of our research at Macquarie is a focus on human agency, mind and self. We have research strengths in:

• bioethics
• ethics
• European philosophy
• metaphysics
• moral cognition
• neuroethics
• philosophical psychology
• philosophy and ethics of AI
• philosophy of biology
• philosophy of mind and cognitive science
• philosophy of race
• political philosophy
• social philosophy
• technology and philosophy.

The school also houses the Macquarie University Ethics and Agency Research Centre.