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Dr Harold Moody Studentships

04 November 2022

Arts & Culture

The Harold Moody Scholarships, named after King’s alumnus and civil activist – Dr Harold Moody, provide full funding including tuition fees, a living allowance and research costs to support Black UK residents to be able to carry out a PhD at King’s. Find out how to apply and meet some of the past recipients.

Harold Moody campaigned for end to discrimination on racial grounds in all spheres of public life in the UK, and it is fitting that the scholarship in his name is contributing to this in the Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences at King's. The Harold Moody scholarships not only offer opportunities to students – building the pipeline of future Black scholars – but also contribute to levelling the uneven playing field in Higher Education.– Dr John Narayan, Department of European and International Studies

About the studentship

Launched in 2021, the Harold Moody Postgraduate Research Studentships scheme provides four years of full funding to PhD candidates in the Arts & Humanities and the Social Sciences.

Applicants must be UK-permanent residents who are liable for fees at the home rate and identify as one of the following ethnic groups:

Black British; Black or Black British African; Black or Black British Caribbean; Black or Black British other; or Mixed Black.

If you identify as belonging to any of the above groups, you are warmly invited to apply for one of these studentships.

Applications for 2023/24 entry are now open. The Faculty of Arts & Humanities (A&H) and the Faculty of Social Sciences and Public Policy (SSPP) are offering two studentships in each faculty. Each studentship covers:

tuition fees at home level
an annual stipend (living allowance) at the UKRI rate (for the year 2022/23, this was set at £19,688, pro-rata for part-time registration)
research costs: up to £1,000 per annum (pro-rata for part-time registration)

As Postgraduate Research students successful applicants will also have access to a wide range of training opportunities through King’s Centre for Doctoral Studies, the London Arts & Humanities Partnership (LAHP) (for A&H studentships) and the London Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (LISS-DTP) (for SSPP studentships).

Some of these opportunities include: training in research skills and methodologies, language courses, Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) and resilience training, networking and careers, Public Engagement and Impact and digital training.

Structural inequalities in education have resulted in the under-representation of Black and Global Majority doctoral students. The Harold Moody Studentships sit alongside other postgraduate scholarship programmes that dedicate a proportion of their funding to under-represented groups.

King’s belongs to the London Arts & Humanities Partnership (LAHP), an Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded Doctoral Training Partnership, that makes available funding for a minimum of five studentships to Home status Black and Global Majority students each year.

How to apply

The application deadline is 23 October 2023. For details about the eligibility criteria, how to apply and the selection process, please visit the Harold Moody PGR Studentships 2023/24 page.

Past studentships awardees

Esther Ezegbe

Esther completed her undergraduate degree in Philosophy at the University of Nottingham and pursued a MA in Philosophy at King's College London. Currently, she is collaborating with Professor Matthew Soteriou on the Philosophy of time, specifically exploring how diverse cultural perspectives on time can significantly influence decision-making processes. Her PhD, titled "Understanding Cultural Variations in Conceptions of Time and Their Impact on Decision-making," delves into this topic further.

Esther is an advocate for recognizing and accommodating these cultural differences when proposing new policies to address social injustice and racial inequality. She is deeply passionate about fostering the intellectual and social development of young individuals through Collaborative Philosophical Inquiry. Moreover, she actively strives to amplify the voices of underrepresented groups in Philosophy and actively promotes diversity within the field. As the founder of Roots2Philosophy, Esther is committed to advancing these causes and aims to make Philosophy more accessible, as she firmly believes that critical thinking is crucial for a better society. Esther is eager to connect with like-minded individuals who share these values on LinkedIn.

Project title: Investigating ways in which conceptions of time can vary across different cultures and how such variations can influence and affect evaluative perspectives and practical deliberation.

Esther’s project integrates work on conceptions of time in traditional African thought with recent research in the philosophy of mind to investigate ways in which variations in conceptions of time can influence and affect evaluative perspectives and practical deliberation. This will add an important new dimension to philosophical work on what is perspectival in temporal awareness and how this in turn can influence what matters most to us. I’m delighted that the Harold Moody Studentship scheme is funding this research and I’m excited to be working with Esther on this project.– Professor Matthew Soteriou, Department of Philosophy

Annabel Ali

Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures student, Annabel Ali, was awarded one of the first Harold Moody Studentships to support her PhD research at King's in October 2021. Annabel gained an undergraduate degree in English from Queen Mary, University of London, before pursuing a master’s degree in Critical Methodologies in the Department of French at King’s. Annabel is now working with Professor Patrick ffrench on the relationship between language and the Black body in 20th century literature – particularly in dramatic and performative spaces. Her PhD project, entitled ‘Language at its Edge’, builds on this and investigates issues of alienation, communication, identity, and experience, with relation to linguistic and non-linguistic forms of expression such as movement, rhythm, gesture, and voice. As part of this work, Annabel will be looking at works and concepts from a range of 20th century writers and theorists such as, but not limited to, Frantz Fanon, Jean-Paul Sartre, James Baldwin, and in particular, writers of the Négritude movement.

Project title: “Language At Its Edge”: an exploration into the relationship between language and the Black body in 20th-century literature and theory.

It is fantastic to see funding opportunities like the Harold Moody PGR studentships supporting Black British PhD students in the Arts and Humanities to conceive, develop and realise an ambitious research project leading to the PhD, particularly since the four years of funding allows for a longer period of support than other funding bodies. I have especially enjoyed working with Annabel and witnessing the development of her project and her broader research profile.– Professor Patrick Ffrench, Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Malick Doucouré

Malick grew up in Britain and Senegal, where his parents are from. He studied International Relations and then Geopolitics & Grand Strategy for undergraduate postgraduate. He is really interested in postcolonial and decolonial studies, and is grateful to be able to pursue this research interest through the Harold Moody PGR Studentship. In his spare time, he creates anti-(/neo)-colonial content on social media. He is always interested in connecting with people so feel free to contact him.

Project title: Grounding the Intellectual: Black Marxism, Anti-Colonial Struggle, and Cultural Resistance in West Africa.

Malick is drawing on the Black radical tradition to challenge canonical understandings of who is an intellectual and who are the grassroots agents of anticolonial history. Through archival work, Malick's research will bring to light underexplored genealogies of radical thought and radical action in twentieth century Ghana, thus expanding our understanding of Black Marxism and the importance of its anticolonial political project for the present. I am based in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and Malick's other supervisor, Dr John Narayan, is based in the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy. This interdisciplinary co-supervision has been productive in guiding Malick through the disciplines that underpin his doctoral work: critical and social theory, intellectual history and the history of political thought, and the scholarship on imperialism and racial capitalism.– Dr Sara Marzagora, Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Jo Hamya

Jo is the author of Three Rooms (Jonathan Cape, 2021). She has written for the New York Times, The Financial Times, and LitHub among others. As of 2021, she has worked for the Booker Prize Foundation as its digital archivist and writer, building an online library of behind-the-scenes literary resources for the Booker pantheon in collaboration with authors such as Thomas Keneally, Sarah Waters, and Mohsin Hamid. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Language from King’s College London in 2018, she completed a Mst. in English (1900-Present) from Oxford University. Her research interests are geared towards twentieth century cultural sociology and literary theory, the relationship between twenty-first century literary production and media, and afterlives and reinterpretations of Virginia Woolf’s work. She has a soft spot for modernist and contemporary poetry.

Project title: Digital Witnesses: On the Internet in 21st century literary production.

The Harold Moody Scholarships foster the flourishing of brilliant Black British PhD students engaging in vital research. My two students supported by the scholarship are both doing theoretically-informed empirical research that centres Black British experiences in urgent domains of health and justice: Annabel Sowemimo on reproductive justice, and Emediong Jumbo on experiences of disability. It is exciting to be involved in supporting this growing community of scholars.– Professor Anne Pollock, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine

Anni Domingo

Anni was born in London but grew up in Freetown, Sierra Leone. She is an Actress, Director and Author working extensively in Radio, TV, Films and Theatre, having trained at Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama. Later she gained a BA First (Hons) in English Literature, BA First (Hons) in History before going on to gaining a MA in Creative Writing at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. She has performed in America, Europe, Africa and in many theatres around UK, including The National Theatre. She currently lectures in Drama and Directing at St. Mary’s University in Twickenham, Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, Central College of Speech and Drama and at RADA.

Some of Anni’s plays have been produced in the UK and several of her workbooks on Shakespeare used in many schools. Anni’s poems and short stories are published in various anthologies. ‘Empty Cradle’ is published in the anthology Secret and Silent Tears and three of her poems are in another anthology Wild Imperfections, published in November 2021. Her short story ‘Empire Girl’ was published in Words and Women Anthology One. An extract from her novel Breaking the Maafa Chain won the Myriad Editions First Novel competition in 2018 and is featured in the New Daughters of Africa (2019) anthology edited by Margaret Busby. Her first screenplay, ‘Blessed Assurance’ has just been filmed and will be out later in 2022. Her debut novel, Breaking the Maafa Chain, was published in UK September 2021 by Jacaranda and by Pegasus in the USA February 2022.

Project title: Investigation into how black Victorians have been portrayed in literature based on the media 1850–1880.

The Harold Moody studentships are the most brilliant thing – fully funded PhD places for Black British people to pursue their projects at King’s College London. Projects can be anything within the broad remit of the Arts and Humanities. One Harold Moody scholar, Anni Domingo – actress, director, novelist – has come to King’s to work on Black Victorians and writing the Black gaze into literature, and we could not be more thrilled to welcome her. – Dr Hannah Dawson, Department of History

Annabel Sowemimo

Dr Annabel Sowemimo is a first year PhD candidate at the School of Global Health and Social Medicine, her thesis focuses on the experiences of Black British women with fertility control methods. She is a community sexual and reproductive health doctor, academic, activist, and writer. As well as being a Sexual & Reproductive Health Registrar in the NHS, she is co-director and founder of charity the Reproductive Justice Initiative (RJI) (formerly Decolonising Contraception), which aims to address health inequalities and racial disparities. They have been shortlisted for numerous awards, winning grassroots organisation of the year at the 2020 Sexual Health Awards and a National LGBTQ Health Advisor award in 2022.

Her first book Divided: Racism, Medicine and Decolonising Healthcare was published by Profile Books/Wellcome Collection in April 2023.

About Harold Moody

The Harold Moody Scholarships are dedicated to the memory of the civil rights campaigner and King’s alumnus, Dr Harold Arundel Moody (1882–1947). Harold Moody was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and travelled to England in 1904 to study medicine at King’s. Following his graduation in 1910, he faced racial prejudice whilst searching for employment and so started his own medical practice in Peckham, South London.

As a political activist, Harold Moody led campaigns for racial justice and, in 1931, he established the League of Coloured Peoples, a civil rights organisation committed to working for racial equality around the world.