Translating European Histories

PhD studentship at Royal Holloway

The Department of Media Arts, at Royal Holloway, University of London, is seeking a suitably qualified candidate for one college awarded Ph.D. scholarship. This is a Crosslands Scholarship (value 5,000 GBP plus home/EU fee waiver per year). Awards are held for three years of full time study.

Enquiries and initial outlines of proposed fields of study should be sent in the first instance to Prof. Christopher Townsend, Director of Graduate Studies: c.townsend@rhul.ac.uk. Please see our department website http://www.rhul.ac.uk/mediaarts/aboutus/home.aspx for details of staff research interests and the principal thematic concerns of scholarship in the department.

The deadline for the award is open, but the award will go to the first suitably qualified applicant with a research proposal suited to the department's research profile. Candidates must be available for interview at Egham, Surrey or in central London at two weeks notice.

My week...

Starting an occasional series by members of staff in English and American Studies, Howard Booth writes about his week.

Friday 23 March. ‘Have a nice holiday’ said one kind student yesterday. Answering with ‘Actually, I’ll be working throughout’ would have sounded churlish, though it would have been true. That will also be the case for many students who are writing their Long Essays and revising for their examinations this Easter. I spend the day at home trying to put the term to bed – flurries of emails about study abroad and about the teaching timetable for next year require attention. The main task for the day is peer-reviewing an article – that is, writing a report for the journal editor on whether it is of a sufficient standard to be included in an academic literary studies journal.

Saturday 24 March. Thoughts start to turn to the paper I’m giving at the departmental seminar at Portsmouth University on John Addington Symonds on Tuesday. Just as speakers come from outside to talk to us at our departmental seminar series - all staff and students are always welcome to attend these events! – so Manchester staff go off and give papers elsewhere. It is all part of what keeps the discipline alive, and without such ongoing research activity the content of all courses would soon degenerate. (Also the research of members of the department is measured periodically to determine our share of the government’s research money pot - so without research the departmental budget would be smaller, and we’d have fewer staff.) I haven’t looked at the paper for a while, so I need to get back into it and make final revisions. There is also a new introductory section to write. The paper will last between 50 minutes to an hour, so that means I need about 6500 words in total.

Sunday 25. If my day were a Sunday tabloid headline it would be ‘My Powerpoint Hell’. Actually it is more time-consuming than anything – lots of images to re-size.

Monday 26. Off to Portsmouth, reading Lawrence’s Twilight in Italy on the train. It is more than six hours door-to-door. I’m staying with an old friend who teaches there - it is great to catch up. The warm and beautiful weather continues.

Tuesday 27. I get a couple of hours to walk around Portsmouth after checking into the hotel that Portsmouth have arranged for me. Walking up the naval dockyards I see HMS Victory, currently without masts and rigging due to restoration work. 



New naval ships, looking as if they are made of papier-mâché, are in the distance. Then it is back to the hotel for a final read though of the paper before I walk the short distance to the university. The paper goes down well – I think – and the question session at the end is very useful. (That is the bit you really have to work up to.) It is always a rather nerve-wracking business, so it is good to go off to dinner in the evening with Portsmouth and Chichester colleagues, a number of whom I know from Manchester – Rosie Paice did her PhD and had her first job at Manchester – or from when I was at Kent.

Wednesday 28. Get up early to clear the backlog of emails before heading back home to Derbyshire.

Thursday 29. At the university. Appointments, some by phone, with third year Long Essay students, a meeting with an MA supervisee and a longer meeting with a PhD student to discuss the draft introduction of his PhD. It’s a very full day. In the evening thoughts start to turn to the next paper I need to write – for a conference on D.H. Lawrence and the First World War in Arras the week after next. I’ve also got to mark twenty-five essays from my Lawrence course and to prepare for teaching. Varied and interesting, certainly – but no sign of a holiday!

Phd Studentship at de Montfort

PhD Studentship

Lives, Letters and Life Writing: Correspondence and Biography in the Nineteenth Century

Department of English and Creative Writing, Faculty of Art, Design & Humanities, De Montfort University, Leicester

STARTING OCTOBER 2012

Applications are invited for a PhD research studentship in any aspect of the study of literary correspondence, biography or autobiography during the nineteenth century (considered broadly as encompassing the period 1780-1910). Possible topics might include an edition of the correspondence of a significant literary figure, the Victorian ‘Lives and Letters’ genre, changing conventions of life-writing in the nineteenth century, archival research and theory as it relates to nineteenth-century collections, and the relation between biographical research and scholarly editing. The successful candidate will work with Professor Tim Fulford, co-general editor of The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, and Dr Joseph Phelan, one of the editors of the Longman Annotated English Poets Poems of Robert Browning.

For more information about this position, please contact Dr Joseph Phelan (JPhelan@dmu.ac.uk).

This research opportunity builds on our excellent achievements in the past and looking forward to REF2014 and beyond. It will develop the university’s research capacity into new and evolving areas of study, enhancing DMU’s national and international research partnerships.

Applications are invited from UK or EU students with a good first degree (First, 2:1 or equivalent) in a relevant subject.  Doctoral scholarships are available for up to three years full-time study starting October 2012 and provide a bursary of £13,770pa in addition to university tuition fees.

To receive an application pack, please contact the Graduate School Office via email at researchstudents@dmu.ac.uk.  Completed applications should be returned together with a full CV and two supporting references.

Please quote ref:  DMU Research Scholarships 2012

CLOSING DATE:  Friday 18 May 2012