History News

 
The University of Warwick and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London invite applications for one fully funded PhD studentship. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, this three year PhD research programme will be supervised jointly by Warwick and the V&A. The successful studentship will commence in autumn 2015.

Deadline for applications extended to Monday 11 May 2015.

The Research

The selected student will investigate the products, skills and networks of the embroiderers of 18th-century France. Embroidery was not only a polite accomplishment but also a well-established trade by the 18th-century, subject to the fluctuations of fashions in secular and ecclesiastical clothing and furnishings. Embroidery also provides a useful case study of a sector that did not require sophisticated machinery or large capital investment, and was not involved in major technological change during the century.

This PhD will make a significant contribution to the history of fashion, as well as to other disciplines such as art, design and textile history, social and economic history, urban and gender history. It addresses in particular the following research questions:

• What qualities – technical and aesthetic – identify embroidery as distinctively French?
• What design sources were used, where did they come from, and how were they adapted?
• How did techniques change over time (e.g. introduction of tambouring)?
• How did the embroidery trade function in different cities (regulated or not by guild statutes), and where did it sit in the hierarchy of the urban trades?
• How did embroiderers train; what were their working practices and ‘careers’?
• What were their familial and professional networks?
• What was the nature of their client base? Was it local, national, international?

The student will consider these questions through examining collections of embroidery, designs and prints in museums and sacristies in selected cities; analysis of guides to trades (Livre commode), commercial press (Affiches), and published treatises; and the exploration of archival sources, in particular, royal accounts, notarial and parish records, bankruptcy and legal proceedings. The sampling will cover two cities: Paris (capital; both guild and non-regulated), and Lyon (textile-manufacturing city; no guild).

Supervision

The PhD will be jointly supervised by Professor Giorgio Riello (Department of History, University of Warwick) and Professor Lesley Miller, Senior Curator of Textiles and Fashion at the V&A).

Funding

Applications are welcome from Students from the UK and the EU.

The studentship will cover home fees (full time) and a stipend for UK students or EU students who have lived in the UK for three years prior to the award. Overseas students may also be eligible if they fulfil a range of residency requirements stipulated on the AHRC guidelines.

EU students who have not lived in the UK for three years prior to the award are currently only eligible for full EU fees at RCUK rates, and no maintenance grant. International fee status students are not eligible for this award.

Successful applicants normally will have achieved at least a 2:i or equivalent in an undergraduate degree and will be working towards or have completed a master’s qualification (or similar postgraduate qualification) with Distinction.

The maintenance rates for 2015/16 have not yet been announced by the AHRC, but for comparison, for 2014/15 maintenance for full time students is £15,863 (see here). The student will also be eligible for an extra £550 per year CDP allowance, in addition to (up to) £2,000 per year from the V&A and the University of Warwick to cover research and travel costs.

How to apply

To apply, please send your CV, a sample of writing and cover letter outlining your suitability for the project and detailing the ways in which you plan to address the themes above: to Giorgio Riello g.riello@warwick.ac.uk. Your application should be accompanied by an email from your MA supervisor or other academic acquainted with your university career to be sent to the same address. The deadline for applications is Monday 11 May 2015.

Informal inquiries should be made to: Professor Giorgio Riello (g.riello@warwick.ac.uk) or Professor Lesley Miller (le.miller@vam.ac.uk)

Second-year History and Politics undergraduate student Anna Wilson has her article Sainsbury’s Christmas ad not as Great as First Thought published in the Warwick University student-run newspaper The Boar.

 
We are delighted to announce the publication of Healing with Water: English Spas and the Water Cure 1840-1960 (Manchester University Press 2015) by Dr Jane Adams. This is a major research output from the project ‘Healing Cultures, Medicine and the Therapeutic Uses of Water in the English Midlands, 1840-1948’, led by Professor Hilary Marland at the Centre for the History of Medicine and funded by the Wellcome Trust.

The study provides a medical and social history of English spas and hydropathic centres from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. It argues that demand for healing rather than leisure drove the growth of a number of inland resorts which became renowned for expertise and treatment facilities, aspects that were actively marketed to patients and doctors. The book explores ideas about water’s healing potential and the varied ways it was used to maintain good health and treat a variety of illnesses. Water cures were endorsed by both orthodox and unorthodox practitioners and attracted growing numbers of patients into the twentieth century. The book assesses the influence of spas and hydropathic centres on broader patterns of resort development, leisure and sociability in Britain and considers why support for spa treatment from the National Health Service declined from the 1960s.
 

 
In the cover story for the March 2015 edition of History Today, Warwick University History Department PhD student Serena Dyer finds surprising parallels between shopping in the Georgian period and modern consumerism.

For more details, please see http://www.historytoday.com/magazine.

Dr Roberta Bivins and Dr Mathew Thomson have secured Senior Investigator Awards and over £1m of funding from the Wellcome Trust to support a five-year programme of research on the cultural history of the National Health Service.

Based in Warwick History Department’s Centre for the History of Medicine, ‘The Cultural History of the NHS’ (http://warwick.ac.uk/nhshistory) will investigate the changing meaning of the NHS for the British people since its opening in 1948. Conservative politician Nigel Lawson famously remarked in the 1980s that the NHS was the closest thing the English people now had to a religion, and assumptions about the meaning of the NHS remain hugely influential in public debate. In a climate in which the future of the NHS is a matter of daily speculation and as we approach a natural point of reflection with the 70^th anniversary in 2018, the research will provide us with the first major study of how our beliefs about the NHS really did evolve over this period.

The research will analyse public opinion, cultural representation in literature, film and television, and the role of the NHS itself and those who worked within it in the construction of meaning. We will also ask whether and how the NHS operated as a cultural force in Britain, for instance by encouraging or discouraging the integration of various populations – the elderly, the disabled, migrants – into wider cultures of community health. A further key element of the project will be working with communities and individuals to uncover a hidden history of belief, meaning, and feeling, and in retrieving artefacts and stories to bring this story to life in a web-based ‘people’s history of the NHS’.

For more information on the Cultural History of the NHS project or to express interest in being involved, please contact the Senior Investigators: R.Bivins@warwick.ac.uk or M.Thomson@warwick.ac.uk.
 

In association with the University of Warwick, the University of Nottingham, and the Society for Caribbean Studies, 

The “Postgraduate Caribbean Network” presents

A Postgraduate Caribbean Studies Conference

3 June 2015

The University of Warwick 

 
We welcome abstracts from postgraduates whose research concerns any aspect of the Caribbean and its diasporas, at various stages of their research for this one-day interdisciplinary conference to be held at the University of Warwick. We intend this to be an opportunity for delegates to share and receive feedback on their work in a friendly and informal setting. We will frame and arrange panels once we receive abstracts.

In addition to paper panel discussions, the conference intends to offer:

• A keynote address on recent trends in Caribbean Studies (TBA)
• A welcome address from the Society of Caribbean Studies’ chair Pat Noxolo
• A workshop addressing key issues encountered in Caribbean research
• Refreshments, a lunch and a drinks reception to round off the day

This event is in the spirit of previous “Postgraduate Caribbean Network” events and it is free to attend. As Caribbean postgraduates are often dispersed across departments and universities, this event hopes to offer delegates an opportunity to meet with others who share their interests and discuss their work, fostering ties that will endure throughout their studies.

For further information on previous conferences undertaken by the Network, click on the following link:

http://community-languages.org.uk/caribbean/

Please send abstracts of 200-300 words to k.e.thomas@warwick.ac.uk for papers of 10-15 minutes duration by 29^th March 2015 with the subject heading "Caribbean Studies Conference". Please include your university affiliation, your preferred email address and a short bio of up to 150 words.

We look forward to hearing from you,

Kimberley Thomas (PhD candidate of Warwick University) and Dana Selassie (PhD candidate Nottingham University)
Postgraduate Representatives of the Society for Caribbean Studies

Congratulations are due to PhD student John Morgan, who has been awarded the Marion Madison Young Scholar's Prize for an essay on 'counterfeit Egyptians' he wrote whilst studying for his MA.

Dr J E Smyth joins former newspaper editor and writer Eve Pollard in telling Matthew Parris on Radio 4 why Nora Ephron, the screenwriter of hit films such as 'When Harry Met Sally', 'Heartburn', and 'Sleepless in Seattle', is a Great Life.

The episode is currently available to listen to online.