King's College London AHRC PhD studentships at the British Library 2017, UK

AHRC PhD studentships at the British Library

Eligibility criteria

• Person Specification
  Essential skills, qualities and knowledge
  
  • A first class or upper second class honours degree in a relevant discipline. Candidates would also normally be expected to hold a Masters degree in a relevant area by 1st October 2017
  • Knowledge of at least one of the following research areas: Modern Russian History, Twentieth-Century Russian Culture, History of the Media and Journalism, Russian Literature
  • Knowledge of the Russian language
  • Ability to be self-motivated, well-organized, and to respond to constructive criticism.
  • Willingness to take a full part in the KCL postgraduate community, and the research activities at KCL and at the BL.
  Desirable skills, qualities and knowledge
  • Familiarity with current scholarship on Russian émigré culture
  • Experience of undertaking research in Russian history, cultural history or visual culture
  Please note:
  • The AHRC has strict residential eligibility criteria governing the students that can be nominated for this award. If you are not a British citizen and/or not usually resident in the UK (and have not been for the past three years), please check your eligibility with the project supervisors: see the AHRC’s eligibility criteria

Information about the funding

Applications are invited for a Collaborative Doctoral Award in the following general area: ‘Studying migration and diaspora through Russian language publishing’. The studentship will be held jointly at the British Library and King’s College London, and the project will be supervised jointly by Dr Ekaterina Rogatchevskaia (British Library, European and American Collections) and Professor Stephen Lovell (King’s College London, Department of History).
This studentship, to start 1 October 2017, offers a unique opportunity for the award-holder to receive training and gain experience in collection curatorship within the UK’s principal research library, as well as to undertake an original research project. 

Project Aims

Proposals may focus on one or more of the following periods: the pre-revolutionary era (1860s-1917); the post-revolutionary ‘First Wave’ emigration; the post-war ‘Second Wave’ emigration; the ‘Third Wave’ of the 1970s; and the post-Soviet diaspora. They may investigate one or more of the following areas: the economics and institutional history of publishing; literary or intellectual history; the history of audiences.
An important outcome of the studentship could be a digital resource, or set of resources, to make the Russian diaspora holdings of the BL more visible and engaging to the general public, and to enable new and imaginative connections between different titles, authors, publishers and even eras. As well as drawing on the immense expertise at the BL, the student would be able to work with Digital Humanities at KCL. Applicants are encouraged to include suggestions of practical outcomes of their research in their applications. 

Research Framework

The details of how the project will be undertaken are to be worked out between the successful applicant and the supervisors as part of supervision process.
However, the successful candidate will in the first instance define and analyse the corpus of relevant émigré material in the holdings of the British Library, making comparisons and connections with bodies of material held elsewhere. This will serve as a gateway to broader research questions such as the boundaries and self-definition of a Russian émigré or diaspora ‘community’; the structures and hierarchies of literary and intellectual networks; the economics of publishing; and the imagined and real audiences of Russian-language publishing abroad.

British Library

The Library will provide a desk and general work space, and the student will have access to a networked PC and other IT equipment as required. In addition the student will be able to use the Library phone network and have access to other normal office facilities e.g. stationery, internal and external postal service.
The student will be considered a temporary member of staff at the British Library and will be issued with a staff pass. 

King’s College London

The student will be based in the Department of History and play a full part in the life of this rich and diverse postgraduate community. S/he will be encouraged to attend the numerous seminars and training events organised by the Department of History and the Faculty of Arts & Humanities more widely. S/he will also benefit from close connections to the postgraduate communities of University College London and the School of Advanced Studies under the auspices of the London Arts and Humanities Partnership.

Supervision and Training

The British Library supervisor will be directly responsible throughout the period for working with colleagues at KCL to manage the collaboration and supervise the student, including providing management and mentoring for the appointed doctoral student within the British Library team/workplace. The British Library will provide specialist training and guidance in use of the facilities and archives it holds. The student will benefit from participation in all relevant in-house training, including the national Doctoral Open Days, which also offer a valuable networking opportunity.

The student will also have access to the extensive programme of research training available both at King’s College London and at the Institute of Historical Research.

For more information please click "Further Official Information" below.

This opportunity has expired. It was originally published here:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/graduate/funding/database/index.php?action=view&id=680