Dr Ross Truscott

Profile

I read for my doctorate at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. During this time I was also a visiting student at the London School of Economics and at the Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Global Change at  the University of Minnesota, and at all three institutions immersed myself in postcolonial, psychoanalytic and critical theory.  Since graduating in 2012, I have held fellowships in Interdisciplinary Feminist Studies at Duke University, at the Centre for Humanites Research at the University of the Western Cape, at the University of Minnesota (I returned years later to teach a course on Global Apartheid in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies), and at the Käte Hamburger Research Centre at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich. Before joining the School of Fine Art, History of Art, and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds in October 2023, I worked  for eight years as a Researcher (Senior Lecturer) at the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape, primarily involved with the work of the centre but also teaching in Historical Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies.

Responsibilities

• Interim Director of Research and Innovation

Research interests

My research draws on psychoanalytic, critical, postcolonial and feminist theory to reflect on “the psychic life of power” that institutional discourses entail. I have written about festivals, the post office, institutions of higher education, psychiatric institutions, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, but am in general interested in the ways institutions produce particular kinds of subjects. In thinking this through, I regularly draw upon art, in its various forms, as an accomplice. 

Qualifications

• PhD
• MPsych
• BA Hons
• BPsych

Professional memberships

• Association for Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society
• Association for Psychosocial Studies

Student education

I teach across undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the School, focussing primarily on Cultural Studies. Key themes in most courses on which I teach are: the legacies of colonial discourse; race, class, gender, and sexuality; aesthetics and politics; and subjectivity.