Modernization, cultural exchanges and innovation in Russian print culture: St Petersburg in the Talbot Collection

Deadline for submitting applications: Wednesday 23 March 2016

Applications are invited for a doctoral studentship, awarded by the Oxford University Museums AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership, on the subject of modernization, cultural exchanges and innovation in 19th-century Russian print culture. The award will be held in the Department of History of Art at the University of Cambridge, and will be supervised jointly by Dr Rosalind Blakesley and Dr Wendy Pullan (University of Cambridge) and Dr Catherine Whistler (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). The award holder will commence a fully-funded PhD at the University of Cambridge in October 2016.

The PhD will use an interdisciplinary approach to examine key questions on modernization, the city and cross-cultural exchanges in Enlightenment and 19th-century Russia. The primary, unpublished research material is found in the Talbot Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, a unique and virtually unknown resource of c.1000 prints dating from the early 18th to the mid-19th century, whose imagery relates to the construction and character of St Petersburg as an imperial capital. This collection will be used to examine the nature of print production and dissemination within the context of Russian modernisation and urbanisation. There is scope for the successful candidate to define and pursue their own research questions appropriate to the primary research material. Comparative studies of visual and archival material may involve travel and research time abroad.

The studentship will cover tuition fees at home/EU rate and provide a maintenance award at RCUK rates for a maximum of three years of full-time doctoral study. See http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/media/news/160125/.

In addition, the Ashmolean Museum will allocate up to £2,000 to the award holder each year, to a maximum of £6,000 over the duration of the studentship, to cover costs associated with undertaking research in Oxford.

All applicants should meet the AHRC’s academic criteria and residency requirements. Please see: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/documents/guides/research-funding-guide/.

Interested candidates are asked to submit their full applications, by the deadline of 5.00 pm on Wednesday 23 March 2016, and also to have two academic references sent by the same deadline.
The further particulars provide full details of the material required and how and where to submit this.

Informal enquiries relating to the project can be directed to Dr Rosalind Blakesley at rpg27@cam.ac.uk . Enquiries relating to the administration of the studentship can be directed to Dr Nichola Tooke on nt219@cam.ac.uk or +44 1223 760122