PhD Studentship in the History of Medicine
PhD Studentship in the History of Medicine, University of Warwick
The Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick invites applications for a PhD studentship commencing in Autumn 2010. This studentship is part of our on-going Wellcome-funded Strategic Award, ‘Situating Medicine: New Directions in the History of Medicine’. The successful candidate will work with Dr Roberta Bivins (who will supervise) and other Centre members to explore the impact and experiences of South Asia’s medical diaspora – doctors, nurses, researchers, medical students and allied health professionals -- in Britain, and particularly in the West Midlands during the post-war period. He or she will register for a PhD research degree in the History of Medicine; the research project may be tailored to particular ethnic or professional subgroups, but must address therapeutic cultures in both domestic and clinical settings. This studentship offers its holder a unique opportunity to work with experts in the history of medicine, and simultaneously to develop expertise and a professional profile in the fields of global and social history and ethnicity studies.
The Centre:
The Centre for the History of Medicine (CHM) at the University of Warwick is an established centre of academic excellence within a thriving History department (ranked joint second in History in the latest UK-wide Research Assessment Exercise). The CHM has a strong track record of innovative research across the early modern and modern periods, with particular expertise in the history of medicine in the UK (Roberta Bivins, Hilarly Marland, and Mathew Thomson), Europe (Hilary Marland and Claudia Stein) and South Asia (David Arnold, David Hardiman and Sarah Hodges). More about the Centre, its staff and their research areas may be found here: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/chm
The Award:
The studentship is funded full-time for 3 years. The award covers Home/EU postgraduate fees (currently £3,390 per annum), and includes a stipend of £13,650 per annum (tax free, and rising in annual increments to £14,400 in 2012/13).
Informal inquiries about the project may be directed to Dr Roberta Bivins, at R.Bivins@warwick.ac.uk
Any other queries may be directed to the Centre Administrator, Ms Siobhan Watts, at S.Watts@warwick.ac.uk
The deadline for applications is 15th March 2010
Interviews will be held in March/April 2010.
PhD Studentship in the History of Medicine, University of Warwick
Eligibility criteria
- Open to the following nationalities
- All nationalities
- Applicable subjects
- Medicine and health related studies
- History
- Anthropology of medicine
- Sociology of medicine
Application details
Applications may be submitted
from 10-Feb-2009 until 15-March-2010
Information about the funding
The Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick invites applications for a PhD studentship commencing in Autumn 2010. This studentship is part of our on-going ‘Situating Medicine: New Directions in the History of Medicine’ Strategic Award, funded by the Wellcome Trust. The successful candidate will work with Dr Roberta Bivins (who will supervise) and other Centre members to explore the impact and experiences of South Asia’s medical diaspora -- doctors, nurses, researchers, medical students and allied health professionals -- in Britain, and particularly in the West Midlands in the post-war period. He or she will register for a PhD research degree in the History of Medicine; the research project may be tailored to particular ethnic or professional subgroups, but must address therapeutic cultures in both domestic and clinical settings.
The Centre:
The Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick is an established centre of academic excellence within a thriving History department (ranked joint second in History in the latest Research Assessment Exercise). With seven full-time permanent members of staff, and a lively postgraduate and postdoctoral community. the CHM has a strong track record of innovative research across the early modern and modern periods. We have particular expertise in the history of medicine in the UK (Hilary Marland, Mathew Thomson and Roberta Bivins), Europe (Hilary Marland and Claudia Stein) and South Asia (David Arnold, David Hardiman and Sarah Hodges). We are also developing close ties with the Warwick University Medical School, and to the Centre for Evidence in Ethnicity Health and Diversity. More about the Centre, its staff and their research areas may be found here: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/chm
The Award:
The studentship is funded full-time for 3 years The award covers Home/EU postgraduate fees (currently £3,390 per annum), and includes a stipend of £13,650 per annum (tax free, and rising in annual increments to £14,400 in 2012/13).
The ‘Situating Medicine’ research project to which the studentship is attached seeks to address the questions and challenges posed by medicine in the twenty-first century, including the rapidly shifting frontiers of medical research; the efficacy and limits of evidence-based medicine; the relationship of lifestyle to health; and the globalisation of medical knowledge. ‘Situating Medicine’ enables staff and students in the Centre to engage with current medical, socio-cultural, political, and economic developments as intellectual springboards for historical investigation. Building on our strengths in British, European and South Asian history, we examine and compare how medicine is changed in theory and in practice as it moves from one environment to another, between institutional sites, and in global, national and local contexts.
The holder of this studentship will focus his or her doctoral research on two of the four themes or contexts which we consider to be crucial to the history of medicine in its next phase. The first theme, ‘New Medical Contexts,’ entails historicizing new developments in medicine, with particular focus on mental health, health and ethnicity, and health, diet and lifestyle. The second, ‘Global Contexts,’ locates the history of medicine in the context of globalisation, especially with respect to disease transmission, the cross cultural transmission of medical knowledge and intercultural medical services. This studentship offers its holder a unique opportunity to work with experts in the history of medicine, and simultaneously to develop expertise and a professional profile in the fields of global and social history, community health and ethnicity studies.
CONDITIONS OF THE AWARD:
The holder of the studentship will be expected to:
- Prepare and submit a doctoral dissertation in a timely fashion
- Prepare papers for submission to peer-reviewed journals
- Participate in and contribute to the research activities of the Centre
Information about the application
Although the award only covers Home/EU fees, applicants from outside the UK/EU are also invited to apply for the studentship on the understanding that the difference in cost of tuition fee is payable by the candidate. The fee for full-time Overseas research postgraduates is currently £10,900 per year.
Value of award
Covers Home/EU postgraduate fees (currently £3,390 per annum), and includes a stipend of £13,650 per annum (tax free, and rising in annual increments to £14,400 in 2012/13).
Specified use
The studentship is funded full-time for 3 years. The award covers Home/EU postgraduate fees, and includes a stipend of £13,650 per annum (tax free, and rising in annual increments to £14,400 in 2012/13).
Application procedure Contact Details
All applicants for the studentship must supply the following information by the deadline of 15th March 2010.
1. A current CV which should include:
- your full name with title;
- education: degrees (subject, class, institution, date of award);
- other academic/professional qualifications (subject, level, institution, date of award;
- employment history, where relevant.
2. A research proposal (of no more than 2500 words) indicating the principal sources, themes and research questions the candidate wishes to examine
3. Two academic references. References should be sent directly by email to Ms. Siobhan Watts at the address below.
Contact Details
Informal inquiries about the project should be directed to Dr. Roberta Bivins at r.bivins@warwick.ac.uk
All other inquiries should be referred to Ms. Siobhan Watts (S.Watts@warwick.ac.uk), Centre Administrator, Centre for the History of Medicine, Department of History, Humanities Building, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL United Kingdom
Interviews will be held March/April 2010.
Further particulars
1. The APPLICANT: PERSON SPECIFICATION
2. The CENTRE
3. The Department
4. The University
1. The Applicant
The qualities we expect candidates to demonstrate are outlined in the following Person Specification.
Essential |
Preferred |
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Qualifications |
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Undergraduate degree in a relevant area |
Masters degree in a relevant area |
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Knowledge and skills |
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The candidate will register for a Ph.D. research degree in History.
The holder of the studentship will be expected to:
§ Prepare and submit doctoral dissertation in a timely fashion
§ Prepare papers for submission to peer-reviewed journals
§ Participate in and contribute to the research activities of the Centre
§ Contribute to public engagement activities
2. The Centre:
Established in 1999, the Centre for the History of Medicine brings together activities in medical history from across the University. A lively, interdisciplinary community, the Centre runs a programme of workshops, seminars and conferences, many of which are open to the public. The Centre also coordinates the activities of the MA in the History of Medicine, and a large cohort of postgraduate students.
We are pleased to have been awarded a second Wellcome Trust Strategic Award (£812k over five years) to undertake a programme of research on the theme ‘Situating Medicine: New Directions in the History of Medicine.’ ‘Situating Medicine’ seeks to address the questions and challenges posed by medicine in the twenty-first century, including the rapidly shifting frontiers of medical research; the efficacy and limits of evidence-based medicine; the relationship of lifestyle to health; and the globalisation of medical knowledge. ‘Situating Medicine’ will enable staff in the Centre to engage with current medical, socio-cultural, political, and economic developments as intellectual springboards for historical investigation. With strengths in British, European and South Asian history, we will be able to examine and compare how medicine is changed in theory and in practice as it moves from one environment to another, between institutional sites, and in global, national and local contexts. ‘Situating Medicine’ will also enable a critical reflection on the rapid rise of the history of medicine as an academic discipline, and question its relationship to other disciplines.
Core staff of the Centre include Professor David Arnold, Dr Roberta Bivins, Professor David Hardiman, Dr Sarah Hodges, Professor Hilary Marland, Dr Claudia Stein, and Dr Mathew Thomson. Honorary Fellows include Professor Jan Goldstein (University of Chicago) and Dr David Wright (McMaster University). The graduate students also make a vigorous contribution to the activities of the centre.
The History of Medicine community at Warwick also reaches out to many other departments in the humanities, science, and social science faculties. We are strongly committed to interdisciplinary activity, and enjoy particularly good links with Warwick Medical School, Classics, Sociology, Biological Sciences, Women and Gender, Philosophy, English, and the Institute of Health.
3. The History Department
Overview
The Department of History at Warwick University is one of the largest history departments in the UK, with a strong international reputation and high rankings in university guides and surveys. It was rated second-equal nationally in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and was rated Excellent in the most recent Teaching Quality Assessment. Warwick History attracts staff and students of high calibre from both the UK and overseas.
Postgraduate Students
Warwick History has a population of over a hundred MA and PhD students. The Department offers both a broad-based MA in History and several thematic MA degrees. These include MAs in Modern History, Eighteenth-Century Studies, Global History, History of Medicine, Race in the Americas and Religious & Social History 1500-1700. An MA by Research is also available. PhD students in History choose from approximately 40 doctoral supervisors and explore topics that range from colonial Latin American history to, for example, early modern English social history, the history of medicine in South Asia, eighteenth-century consumer society and 20th-century welfare systems. The diversity of research can be seen in the postgraduate students' e-portfolios. A lively research culture including seminar series, workshops and training sessions promotes postgraduate research activity.
Research
Staff Research Interests: Of the full-time permanent staff in the Department, roughly one-third research the Renaissance/early modern era and two-thirds are historians of the modern period. Geographically, research in History at Warwick covers African History, Comparative American History (the Caribbean, Latin America and North America), British History from the early modern period to the present, Continental European History from the Renaissance to the present, and Asian History from the Ming Dynasty to the present (with a particular emphasis on South Asia and China). Thematically, scholars in the Department are clustered in fields that include race, ethnicity and slavery; popular and political protest; the history of religion; gender and family history; eighteenth-century studies; the history of technology; cultures and practices of health; global history; visual and material culture; and the interface between history and literature.
Research Centres: Warwick History also includes four research centres. The Eighteenth Century Centre has fostered many research programmes relating to consumer culture and has collaborated with staff at institutions such as Waddesdon Manor, a major collection of eighteenth-century furnishings, ornaments and printed materials. The Global History and Culture Centre provides a focus for the interdisciplinary study of global history and culture at an international level through symposia, conferences, day schools and seminar series, honorary visiting fellowships, postgraduate exchanges and postdoctoral fellowships. The Department's Wellcome Trust funded Centre for the History of Medicine recently launched its second 5-year Wellcome Trust Strategic Award, focused around an ambitious programme entitled 'Situating Medicine: New Directions in the History of Medicine'. The Department also hosts the Centre for the History of Innovation and Creativity (CHIC) based in Venice. The research centres attract (and welcome) both postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Current postdoctoral fellows are funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, the Marie Curie fellowship scheme and the Wellcome Trust.
HEA History Subject Centre
The Department also hosts the History Subject Centre, funded by the Higher Education Academy, which works towards the development of teaching and learning of History in Higher Education.
4. The University
The establishment of the University of Warwick was given approval by the government in 1961 and received its Royal Charter of Incorporation in 1965. It is situated on a large 700 acre campus which straddles the boundary between the City of Coventry and the County of Warwickshire. The University initially admitted a small intake of graduate students in 1964 and took its first 450 undergraduates in October 1965. In October 2007, the student population was over 16,646 of which 7009 are postgraduates. 20% of the student body comes from overseas and over 125 countries are represented on the campus. The University has 29 academic departments and over 50 research centres and institutes, in four Faculties: Arts, Medicine, Science and Social Sciences. The University hosts two HEFCE Centres for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CETLs): CAPITAL and Reinvention.
From its beginnings, the University has sought to be excellent in both teaching and research. It has now secured its place as one of the UK's leading research universities, confirmed by the results of the government's Research Assessment Exercises of 1986, 1989, 1992, 1996 and 2001. In all of these, Warwick has been placed in the top half dozen or so of universities for the quality of its research. Most recently, in the results of the 2001 exercise announced in December 2001, Warwick was placed fifth with over 90% of its staff working in departments rated 5 or 5*, the top two grades.
Warwick has always taken the view that good research informs and strengthens the quality of education that it is able to offer its students. Since the early 1990s, when there has been external assessment of the quality of individual subjects in higher education in the UK, Warwick has done consistently well. The first subject was assessed in 1993 and the last, in the current round, in December 2001. The results show that the University has scored a rating of >21 points out of the maximum 24 (or the earlier equivalent of an "excellent" grade) on 22 occasions out of the 24 subjects assessed. These include 7 maximum scores of 24 and 5 "excellents".
The University of Warwick campus was recently voted the best campus in the UK. It’s a lively, cosmopolitan place with its own shops, banks, bars and restaurants - an exciting place to live and work with everything you could need close at hand. There is a great sense of community at Warwick: The campus is home to students and staff from over 120 different countries and from all backgrounds, and is a great resource for the local community with excellent facilities such as Warwick Arts Centre (the second largest arts complex in Britain) and the University Sports Centre.
The campus occupies 290 hectares on three adjacent sites: Central campus, Gibbet Hill campus, Westwood campus. There are lakes and woods, trees and landscaped gardens but whilst the campus has many green open spaces, inside the buildings ground-breaking research is taking place and academics and students are sharing their knowledge and experience.