Northern Bridge Consortium Collaborative Doctoral Award
Fully-funded PhD opportunities
Partner Organisation: Laing Art Gallery (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) / Shipley Art Gallery (Gateshead)
Lead Supervisor: Dr. Claudine van Hensbergen (Northumbria University)
Co-Supervisors: Julie Milne (Chief Curator of Art Galleries, TWAM) & Anne Fountain (Learning Officer, Laing & Shipley)
We are looking for outstanding candidates interested in undertaking a fully-funded doctoral project in collaboration with The Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, and/or The Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead.
The Laing and Shipley are part of Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums (TWAM) a publicly-funded major regional service that manages a collection of nine museums and galleries across Tyneside, and the Archives for Tyne and Wear. TWAM is a National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) funded by Arts Council England, and it is one of ten ‘Bridge’ organisations across the UK awarded funding from Arts Council to use their experience and expertise to connect children and young people with art and culture. TWAM also delivers the Museum Development Programme for the North East, a comprehensive, effective and collaborative response to the needs of 55 museums in the NE and the communities they serve.
The Laing and Shipley are run collaboratively and offer exciting opportunities for doctoral applicants to build projects that work across the collections and concerns of both sites, or to focus on one site in particular. The Laing and Shipley hold extensive collections of artwork and wider material culture, as well as prints, catalogues and manuscripts. A publicly-accessible catalogue is online here.
We are seeking candidates who will engage with the Laing / Shipley’s collections, drawing on this material to produce a PhD thesis that extends current knowledge of either/both of these collections. Projects should focus on ‘hidden’ narratives found in, or represented by, the collections. This might take the form of research into ways in which the collections engage with the following areas:
The applicant’s research will help to inform current understanding of both / either gallery’s history, current practice and wider agendas. It is anticipated that the PhD project should pose questions and engage with debates that relate to the broader field (both national / international) of museum and cultural studies. Applicants may have a background in museum studies and/or History of Art, but we also welcome applicants with a background in related subject areas where this is relevant to the concerns of the project undertaken.
Project proposals should describe how the applicant plans to draw on the Laing and / or Shipley collections to explore a particular aspect of either / both gallery’s ‘hidden (hi)stories’. Applicants should demonstrate knowledge of the broader critical / theoretical / practical frameworks in which their project is situated. They may wish to reflect on the foundation history of either / both galleries and their respective collections.
Applicants should also indicate a willingness to engage with these galleries in a personal and practical way, be it through research undertaken on site, proposed collaborative activities or by working with particular teams within the gallery. Projects should have the promise and ability to inform the agenda of these galleries, and the broader practices, approaches and activities of the Curatorial and Learning Teams.
Dr. van Hensbergen will act as lead supervisor for the project, with Julie Milne and Anne Fountain acting as co-supervisors. For initial queries, please contact Dr. van Hensbergen (details below) and she will be happy to act as a liaison for the supervisory team.
Dr. Claudine van Hensbergen: Claudine is collaborating with the Laing’s Learning Team in an ongoing project that explores how the gallery collections can be used to engage with new audiences, specifically KS4 & KS5 English students. Her current research explores the relationship between Art and Literature at the turn of the eighteenth century. She has postdoctoral experience of working on a major AHRC-funded project between the University of York and Tate Britain, where she was based in the pre-1800 curatorial team.
To take advantage of this opportunity you will:
Potential applicants should contact Dr. van Hensbergen by Friday 14th December for an initial discussion of their approach to the project. Candidates whose projects are approved to progress, should then apply via the Northumbria University online application form by 17:00 on Wednesday 9th January 2019. Applicants should outline their proposed research, representing it as a CDA project, and quote NBC19 in the ‘Project/Student Reference Number’ field.
For further information on how to apply, click here.
Northern Bridge Consortium Collaborative Doctoral Award
Fully-funded PhD opportunities
Partner Organisation: National Union of Students (International Director, Edinburgh Office)
Lead supervisor: Dr Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University)
We are looking for outstanding candidates interested in undertaking a fully-funded doctoral project in collaboration with the National Union of Students (NUS).
From its very foundation in 1922, the NUS expressed a strong commitment to international cooperation. In its early years, it developed links with national unions of students and organised international exchanges. In subsequent decades, both anti-fascist activism and growing Cold War tensions shaped debates within the organisation. And, especially from the 1970s onwards, solidarity campaigns were a prominent feature of NUS action, as reflected in support for the anti-Apartheid movement and for the victims of Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile.
We are seeking candidates who will examine the ways in which the NUS acted both internationally and transnationally – responding to events abroad and forging ties with student activists in other countries.
The doctoral project may focus on one specific strand of action or aim for a wider-ranging study. Project proposals should specify the kinds of international campaigns or transnational activities that the candidate intends to focus on. The proposal should also indicate the candidate’s willingness to work with the NUS itself in the reassessment and dissemination of its history.
Dr Daniel Laqua will act as lead supervisor for the project and is the point of contact for all initial queries. Mike Day, the NUS’s International Director, will serve as second supervisor. The doctoral candidate will spend time at the Edinburgh office of the NUS, where Day is based. The candidate will thus be able to contribute to the organisation’s current international work (e.g. involvement in the European Students’ Union) and to the preparations for the centenary of its foundation. In addition, the candidate will benefit from access to existing research networks and centres that cover aspects of twentieth-century student activism.
Dr Daniel Laqua is Associate Professor of European History at Northumbria University. He has published widely on international movements, campaigns and organisations in 19th/20th-century Europe. He is currently investigating different facets of student internationalism, especially with regard to the period from the 1920s to the 1950s. Dr Laqua’s research on the International Confederation of Students – a body that brought together representatives of national unions of students – recently appeared in The English Historical Review. Together with Georgina Brewis (UCL Institute of Education), he is leading a series of interrelated projects dealing with student life, grant provision and the legacies of the Great War at British universities.
To take advantage of this opportunity you will:
Potential applicants should contact Dr Laqua by Friday 14th December for an initial discussion of their approach to the project. Candidates whose projects are approved to progress should then apply via the Northumbria University online application form by 17:00 on Wednesday 9th January 2019. Applicants should outline their proposed research, representing it as a CDA project, and quote NBC19 in the ‘Project/Student Reference Number’ field.
For further information on how to apply, click here.
Northern Bridge Consortium Collaborative Doctoral Award
Fully-funded PhD opportunities
Partner Organisation: New Writing North
Lead supervisor: Professor Katy Shaw (Northumbria University)
We are looking for outstanding candidates interested in undertaking either of two fully-funded doctoral projects in collaboration with Northumbria University and New Writing North.
New Writing North is the biggest writing development agency in the UK. It supports writing and reading, commissions new work, creates development opportunities, and nurtures writing talent in the North of England.
We would be interested in working with a researcher to explore the profile of working class writers in UK publishing and literature and to investigate the barriers to accessing the industry that writers from working class backgrounds experience. Are working class writers and books well represented in UK publishing? If not, what are the barriers, commercial considerations and access issues that make this so?
New Writing North is involved in a number of initiatives in this area that present opportunities for original research to be generated. The publication of the anthology Common People edited by Kit de Waal in May 2019 will raise a debate around class diversity in publishing. The anthology includes commissioned work by 17 well-known writers and 17 new writers who have been identified by the seven regional writing agencies in England. The new writers participating in the book will all take part in a yearlong professional development programme produced by the UK writing agencies.
The researcher will work alongside the team delivering the project to undertake evaluation and to generate original knowledge based on the experience of the writers as they enter the professional writing industry. Alongside this project New Writing North is also supporting the development of a Working Class Writers' Collective and is engaged in national debate around this issue.
It is anticipated that the PhD project should pose questions and engage with debates that relate to the broader field (both national/international) of working class writing. Applicants may have a background in writing development/literary studies, but we also welcome applicants with a background in related subject areas where this is relevant to the concerns of the project.
Project proposals should describe how the applicant plans to draw on their access to leading writers and to publishers via the project to generate new research that will impact on and support both public and charitable funders of the arts and commercial publishers so as to support work in this area in a deeper and more nuanced way. They should also indicate a willingness to engage with New Writing North and project-associated writers and publishers, be it through research undertaken on site, proposed collaborative activities or by working with particular teams. Project proposals should have the potential to enhance critical understanding of the impact of strategic interventions to promote the inclusion of working class writers in contemporary literary and publishing industries.
In 2000, New Writing North established the Northern Writers' Awards. This major programme has supported over 220 writers since it began and generates a wide variety of impacts for the writers involved, including access to publication and professional networks and personal support to develop creative and business opportunities. Since 2010, Northumbria University has been the headline sponsor of the Northern Writers’ Awards.
We would like to work with a researcher to undertake a longitudinal study of a number of our winners to establish a broad understanding of how the awards support writers and to understand the longer-term impacts of winning an award (creative, financial, sustainability).
In 2018 we will publish a short research report that has looked at some of these issues. This report has concluded that further in-depth research is needed and that there is an opportunity to better understand how and why the awards engender such strong results and what the long-term impact on the UK's creative industries is of the work that we are supporting.
The researcher will have access to the awards archive, will help to develop the archive's collection strategy, and have access to key staff working on the project. They will undertake original research alongside contextualising the awards in the wider environment of UK awards and prizes and the public and private funding of books and writers.
We are seeking candidates who will engage with the Northern Writers’ Awards and the database of information on past winners held by New Writing North to produce a PhD thesis that extends current knowledge on the impact of the awards on the professional writing practice and professional writing career destinations of winning authors, and on the economic impact of the awards on the creative economy of Northern England. It is anticipated that the PhD project should pose questions and engage with debates that relate to the broader field (both national/international) of literary awards and regional writing. Applicants may have a background in writing development/literary studies, but we also welcome applicants with a background in related subject areas where this is relevant to the concerns of the project.
Project proposals should describe how the applicant plans to draw on the history of the Northern Writers’ Awards to date, and generate new data regarding impact. They should also indicate a willingness to engage with New Writing North, the Northern Writers’ Awards and its winners, be it through research undertaken on site, proposed collaborative activities or by working with particular teams. Projects should have the potential to inform the future strategic agenda of New Writing North, and enhance critical understanding of the impact of regional literary awards.
Professor Katy Shaw will act as lead supervisor for both projects, with a member of New Writing North’s executive leadership team acting as second-supervisor. For initial queries, please contact Professor Katy Shaw who will act as a liaison between candidates and New Writing North for all enquiries relating to the project.
Professor Katy Shaw is academic lead for the Northumbria University/New Writing North partnership. As Professor of Contemporary Writings, she has published widely on social class in contemporary literature, from 1945 to the present day. Among her many publications is Crunch Lit (Bloomsbury, 2015). She is also editor-in-chief of C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-century Writings.
More information about New Writing North can be found here.
To take advantage of this opportunity you will:
Potential applicants should contact Professor Katy Shaw by Friday 14th December 2018 for an initial discussion of their approach to the project. Candidates whose projects are approved to progress, should then apply via the Northumbria University online application form by 17:00 on Wednesday 9th January 2019. Applicants should outline their proposed research, representing it as a CDA project, and quote NBC19 in the ‘Project/Student Reference Number’ field.
For further information on how to apply, click here.
Northern Bridge Consortium Collaborative Doctoral Award
Fully-funded PhD opportunities
Partner Organisation: Seaton Delaval Hall / The National Trust
Lead supervisor: Dr. Helen Williams (Northumbria University)
Partner supervisor: Emma Thomas (National Trust)
The National Trust at Seaton Delaval Hall and the Northern Bridge Consortium are inviting applications from qualified candidates interested in developing doctoral projects that will use and shed light on collections relating to the property. If successful, the candidate will undertake a fully-funded studentship which will include a placement of up to six months at Seaton Delaval Hall. The two potential projects outlined below focus on key collections in the North-East of England and will be supervised jointly by academics and heritage professionals.
Seaton Delaval Hall is a National Trust property designed by Restoration playwright and architect Sir John Vanbrugh. Its main narrative concerns the eighteenth-century generation of the Delaval family, especially John Hussey and his brother Francis Blake, and their respective families. The Delavals were aspiring actors, playwrights, and artists, and their works were well received in the period. The family archive, part housed at the Hall and at Northumberland Archives, provides a rare and remarkable insight into domestic life and hospitality at a major country seat. Seaton Delaval Hall is currently undergoing significant capital works and investment in innovative modes of heritage education and interpretation. This is an exciting opportunity for re-framing the public narratives about the Delaval family and their cultural contexts. Potential applicants are encouraged to consider one of the following projects:
This research project has two strands. The first is archival, and considers the house collection in conjunction with the family papers at Northumberland Archive, in order to piece together the Delavals’ contribution to the arts and culture of the eighteenth century. It will engage with the many surviving paintings, drawings, inventories and letters, and some surviving playscripts which are currently housed in Northumberland Archives and have not been brought to public attention. Such a reading of these collections will enable research to be undertaken exploring some of the following themes:
The second strand of the project involves reporting on current representations of eighteenth-century arts and patronage in the heritage sector and recommendations for best practice. This will ensure that new narratives developed as a result of the archival research can be developed into heritage interpretation opportunities at Seaton Delaval Hall, ripe for its reopening to the public.
There may also be opportunities to develop community outreach and education activities, and a placement of up to six months’ duration may focus on this, and/or a curatorial project.
The eighteenth-century home theatre has made and unmade the reputations of many a literary family. It helped establish Elizabeth Inchbald’s successful literary career and led to the scandalous elopement of Lady Charlotte Spencer with amateur actor, Edward Nares. But how has theatrical space shaped these histories? Scholarship on ‘private theatricals’ fails to discriminate between theatrical spaces at home (like the theatre at Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland, home of the notorious Delaval family) and in the public domain (like the Delavals’ invitation-only performance of Othello at Drury-Lane). Historic houses today rarely engage with their theatrical heritage and, as ephemeral structures, home theatres are often left uninterpreted. Heritage policy only began to address theatres in 1995, with A Guide to Theatre Conservation from English Heritage, which entirely omits home theatres. This project, a collaboration with the National Trust, draws from literary and architectural history whilst engaging with current heritage policy in order to begin the recovery, conservation and interpretation of eighteenth-century home theatres. Research questions considered may include:
In exploring how landed families creatively engaged with both their literary and architectural heritage in order to present themselves as having fashionable literary sensibilities, whilst documenting existing tangible heritage and examining heritage policy safeguarding historic houses today, this project would aim to help inform interpretation and conservation of the eighteenth century’s unique built heritage.
There may also be opportunities to develop community outreach and education activities, and a placement of up to six months’ duration may focus on this, and/or a curatorial project.
Dr Helen Williams: Helen’s PhD was one of the earliest Collaborative Doctoral Awards funded by the AHRC. She has since gone on to be Senior Lecturer at Northumbria University and has experience researching and teaching across the two areas of literary and heritage studies. She has worked on a range of arts and heritage projects with partners such as the Laurence Sterne Trust at Shandy Hall, Northern Print, and community theatre companies, for which she has been awarded funding from the Heritage Lottery, the British Academy and the AHRC, and Government Northern Ireland.
To take advantage of these opportunities you will:
Potential applicants should contact Dr Helen Williams by Friday 14th December for a preliminary discussion of their approach to the project. Candidates whose projects are approved to progress, should then apply via the Northumbria University online application form by 17:00 on Wednesday 9th January 2019. Applicants should outline their proposed research, representing it as a CDA project, and quote NBC19 in the ‘Project/Student Reference Number’ field.
For further information on how to apply, click here.
For further information about Seaton Delaval Hall, click here.
Northern Bridge Consortium Collaborative Doctoral Award
Fully-funded PhD opportunities
Partner Organisation: Museum of London
Lead supervisor: Dr Leigh Wetherall Dickson (Northumbria University)
We are looking for outstanding candidates interested in undertaking a fully-funded doctoral project in collaboration with the Museum of London.
The Museum of London is an award-winning, charitable institution funded by a variety of organisations including the City of London Corporation and the Greater London Authority. The remit of the Museum of London and the Museum of London Docklands is to connect a diverse range of audiences with the lived experience of London and to capture the capital’s complexity and contrasts through its collections that date from prehistory right up to the present moment. The Museum of London boasts visitor numbers in excess of a million a year and is recognised as a centre of excellence with regards to its digital innovations and programme of events. The Museum of London is also a key partner in the ‘Culture Mile’, alongside the City of London Corporation, the Barbican Centre, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the London Symphony Orchestra. Culture Mile is an innovative union of the arts between cultural, educational and heritage organisations within the Square Mile that marks the boundaries of the City of London.
We are seeking candidates who will engage with the Museum of London’s extensive ceramics collection which contains transfer-printed commemorative vessels (of special note being those produced for coronations and funerals), porcelain figures of notable celebrities, souvenir dishes and similar ephemera. The students will draw on this material to open lines of enquiry into the material culture of fame, commemoration and/or memorialisation in relation to literary engagement with, and cultural debates about, the meaning of fame in the Romantic period. It is anticipated that the PhD project should pose questions and engage with debates relating to the overlap between the study of literature and the material culture of commemoration. Applicants will have an academic background in the relevant subject areas and period, but we also welcome applications from candidates with equivalent professional experience.
Project proposals should describe how the applicant plans to draw on the collection of the Museum of London in relation to the literature of the period in order to interrogate the cultural practice of commemoration and memorialisation. They should also indicate a willingness to engage with the museum in a personal and practical way, be it through research undertaken on site, proposed collaborative activities or by working with particular teams within the museum. Projects should have the promise and ability to inform the agenda of the Museum of London, and the broader activities of the curatorial and learning teams.
Dr Wetherall Dickson will act as lead supervisor for the project, in conjunction with Dr Danielle Thom, the Curator of Making from the Museum of London. The selection of second supervisor will depend on the nature of the proposed doctoral project. For initial queries, please contact Dr Wetherall Dickson and she will be happy to act as a liaison with the Museum of London.
The applicant’s project proposal may draw on any aspect of the study of the literary and material culture of fame in the Romantic period. The following areas may provide especially rich avenues for exploration as they relate to shared interests of the supervisor and the Museum of London collection:
Dr Leigh Wetherall Dickson: Leigh’s current research interrogates the point of intersection between fame, fashion and illness in relation to broader debates about aristocratic reform in the Regency period. She also acts as a consultant for the Churches Conservation Trust, for whom she worked for many years. She was co-director of a three-year research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust entitled Fashionable Diseases: Medicine, Literature and Culture 1660-1832 and, as part of that same team, has just been awarded another three-year grant from the Leverhulme Trust for Writing Doctors.
To take advantage of this opportunity you will:
Potential applicants should contact Dr Wetherall Dickson by Friday 14th December for an initial discussion of their approach to the project. Candidates whose projects are approved to progress, should then apply via the Northumbria University online application form by 17:00 on Wednesday 9th January 2019. Applicants should outline their proposed research, representing it as a CDA project, and quote NBC19 in the ‘Project/Student Reference Number’ field.
For further information on how to apply, click here.
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