University College Dublin PhD opportunity

The College of Arts and Humanities, University College Dublin, Ireland, is pleased to announce a generously funded Ph.D. studentship specialising in Early medieval political and/or intellectual culture (c.500-c.1000 CE) which will be supervised by Dr Megan Welton, Assistant Professor in Medieval History and recently appointed Ad Astra Fellow at the School of History (https://people.ucd.ie/megan.welton).

Deadline: 4 November 2024 by email to megan.welton@ucd.ie.

The studentships are open to EU and non-EU candidates and are for a maximum of four years, renewable each year, subject to satisfactory progress. The award includes full tuition fee waiver, a PhD stipend of €25,000 per annum, and €4,000 per annum towards research costs of the Ph.D.  We anticipate that the successful candidate will start in January 2025.

Please submit the following application materials by email:

  • Personal statement and CV as one document
  • Writing sample (e.g. an essay or section of MA dissertation)
  • Two academic references
  • A proposal (1000-1500 words plus indicative bibliography).

The Selection Panel will shortlist candidates for interview, likely to take place in the last week of November. Successful applicants will be informed by email.

For the application procedure please see the relevant school guidelines below. The outcome of this competition will be communicated directly to all applicants.

Specialisation: Early medieval political and/or intellectual culture (c.500-c.1000 CE)

Proposals for a Ph.D. project in the history of early medieval politics and intellectual thought are welcomed, specialising in one or more post-Roman kingdoms, including (but not limited to) east and west Francia, early English kingdoms, and northern Italy. Proposals that incorporate a comparative approach are encouraged.

In addition to a competitive stipend, the successful candidate also will have access to an annual research budget of €4,000 for archival research in relevant collections abroad or related research expenses.

The UCD School of History stands as one of Europe’s premier centers for historical research, offering a vibrant research community. The School of History is well-connected through its active engagement with international partners and a broad array of UCD research centres and institutes. The successful candidate will join a robust graduate community of early career medieval scholars, from MA students in Medieval Studies in the School of History, to postgraduates and postdoctoral fellows in connected schools in Art History, Archaeology, and Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore.

As such, interdisciplinary work is welcomed, and candidates from all relevant areas of medieval studies are encouraged to apply.

OMS Small Grants Now Open!

The TORCH Oxford Medieval Studies Programme invites applications for small grants to support conferences, workshops, and other forms of collaborative research activity organised by researchers at postgraduate (whether MSt or DPhil) or early-career level from across the Humanities Division at the University of Oxford.

The scheme has a rolling deadline. Closing date for applications: Friday of Week 4 each term for activities taking place during that or the following term. An additional deadline for summer activities and Michaelmas Term is last Friday of July.

Grants are normally in the region of £100–250 and can either be for expenses or for administrative and organisational support such as publicity, filming or zoom hosting. They can also be used to support staging a play for the Medieval Mystery Cycle, e.g. for buying props or material for costumes. Recipients will be required to supply a report after the event for the Oxford Medieval Studies blog and will be invited to present on their award at an OMS event.

Applicants will be responsible for all administrative aspects of the activity, including formulating the theme and intellectual rationale, devising the format, and, depending on the type of event, inviting speakers and/or issuing a Call for Papers, organising the schedule, and managing the budget, promotion and advertising.

Applications should be submitted to Prof. Lesley Smith  using either the word grant application form or fill out the online form. Informal enquiries may also be directed to Lesley. The Oxford Medieval Studies Programme money is administered by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and the money will be paid out via their expenses system.

OMS Small Grants TT 2023      

The TORCH Oxford Medieval Studies Programme invites applications for small grants to support conferences, workshops, and other forms of collaborative research activity organised by researchers at postgraduate (whether MSt or DPhil) or early-career level from across the Humanities Division at the University of Oxford.

The activity should take place between the beginning of Trinity term 2023 and end of the summer vacation. The closing date for applications is Friday of Week 5 of Trinity Term = 26 May);  decisions will be made promptly after the closing date.

Grants are normally in the region of £100–250. Recipients will be required to supply a report after the event for the TORCH Medieval Studies blog. Recipients of awards will also be invited to present on their events at the next Medieval Roadshow.

Applicants will be responsible for all administrative aspects of the activity, including formulating the theme and intellectual rationale, devising the format, and, depending on the type of event, inviting speakers and/or issuing a Call for Papers, organising the schedule, and managing the budget, promotion and advertising. Some administrative and organisational support may be available through TORCH subject to availability.

Applications should be submitted to  lesley.smith@history.ox.ac.uk  using the grant application form. Applications submitted in other formats or after the deadline will not be considered.

Informal enquiries may be directed to lesley.smith@history.ox.ac.uk

The Oxford Medieval Studies Programme is sponsored by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH).

For more medieval matters from Oxford, have a look at the website of the Oxford Medieval Studies TORCH Programme and the OMS blog!

CALL FOR PERFORMERS

THE EXECUTION OF JOHN THE BAPTIST [IN MEDIEVAL FRENCH]

This will be a contribution to the festival of 20-minute medieval plays performed in the gardens of St Edmund Hall on Saturday April 23, with a subsequent performance in Iffley churchyard on the morning of Sunday April 24.

John the Baptist preaches to the masses about the corruption of those who rule the state, King Herod throws a birthday party, and young Salome induces him to promise her any gift she chooses. The gift is of course John’s head, and medieval theatre delighted in the use of stage blood. The language is accessible enough to speakers of modern French, and we will concentrate on rhythm and expression rather than antique vowel sounds.

Rehearsals will be one evening a week through term. Some of the cast will be actors from Iffley village. If you’d like to join in, and bring to life a text that has probably not been played for 500 years, please e-mail the director David Wiles at d.wiles@exeter.ac.uk, or come along to St Edmund Hall on Thursday 20 Jan at 6.00 (where the porter will direct you).

OMS Small Grants MT 2021

The TORCH Oxford Medieval Studies Programme invites applications for small grants to support conferences, workshops, and other forms of collaborative research activity organised by researchers at postgraduate (whether MSt or DPhil) or early-career level from across the Humanities Division at the University of Oxford.

The activity should take place between November 2021 and April 2022. The closing date for applications is Friday of Week 4 of Michaelmas Term 2021.

Grants are normally in the region of £100–250. Recipients will be required to supply a report after the event for the TORCH Medieval Studies blog. Recipients of awards will also be invited to present on their events at the next Medieval Roadshow.

Applicants will be responsible for all administrative aspects of the activity, including formulating the theme and intellectual rationale, devising the format, and, depending on the type of event, inviting speakers and/or issuing a Call for Papers, organising the schedule, and managing the budget, promotion and advertising. Some administrative and organisational support may be available through TORCH subject to availability.

Applications should be submitted to  lesley.smith@history.ox.ac.uk  using the grant application form. Applications submitted in other formats or after the deadline will not be considered.

Informal enquiries may be directed to lesley.smith@history.ox.ac.uk

The Oxford Medieval Studies Programme is sponsored by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH).

NB: Given COVID-19, we will also consider applications for online or virtual projects, e.g., costs of hosting and/or designing a website, digital recording equipment, purchasing image rights and digitisation.

For more medieval matters from Oxford, have a look at the website of the Oxford Medieval Studies TORCH Programme and the OMS blog!

Invitation to research staff to write a blog for the University Bulletin

The Public Affairs Directorate (PAD) would like to hear from research staff who would be interested in writing a blog for publication with the University Bulletin. This is a fabulous opportunity for research staff to give insight into their area from their perspective.

Those interested in writing a blog should contact Rakiya Farah, PAD. Rakiya will need a one-line description of the subject of the proposed blog and an indicative time line that would work for the researcher.

About the blog: We send out a weekly blog with University Bulletin, usually written by a senior member of staff. Several hundred staff read it every week and we are now keen to ensure that our colleagues hear from a broader range of staff at Oxford.

We’d particularly like to profile more Early Career Researchers in the blog to give more visibility to their work, and because research stories are consistently among the most popular articles we share in the Bulletin.

With this in mind, we would like to invite you to write one of our blogs. This would be a platform to describe your work to a (predominantly) uninitiated audience, to reflect on your experiences as a researcher, your motivations, and to share your perspective on research at Oxford.

The brief: • Informal, personal style and tone 
• A reflective piece that gives staff some insight into your area – we tend not to use the blog as a place for formal announcements 
• Content: a guiding question, when writing your blog, might be good to think about what staff across the University would find most interesting about your work and experiences 
• Around 250 words, but can be longer – they can be up to 450 
• Deadline: end of Thursday preceding the Monday edition – unless you are drafting a blog not for inclusion on a set date 
• We are finding that staff are really responding to this style and have been asking to hear from a wider range of staff.

Examples are available online, including these from July 2020 and October 2020 respectively.

Timing: We would welcome a blog that you draft at your leisure, which we can slot in as appropriate. But if you had a particular week in mind, we could also pencil this in provisionally. All of our blogs are subject to final approval by the Vice-Chancellor.


A great example for a suitable blog post is this short article about anchorites by Godelinde Gertrude Perk