Remembering the Reformation, AHRC Funded Research Project

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Associate (three-year fixed term appointment). This post will begin on 1 January 2016 and run until 31 October 2018.

The post is offered as part of a major interdisciplinary project, ‘Remembering the Reformation’, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This 3-year grant is led by Prof. Alexandra Walsham (Faculty of History, University of Cambridge), and Prof. Brian Cummings (Department of English and Related Literature, University of York). There will be 2 post-doctoral appointments, 1 based in Cambridge, 1 in York.

The Project

The 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's protest against the Church of Rome in 1517 provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the role of the Reformation in shaping modern historical and cultural consciousness and to interrogate its lasting legacies. The participants in this interdisciplinary research project seek to re-examine central questions about religious revolution through the prism of memory. The project will involve a workshop, conference, postgraduate symposium, public lectures, and educational activities for school children, as well as a digital exhibition combining materials from Cambridge University Library, York Minster Library and Lambeth Palace Library. It will lead to two collections of essays, journal articles, and other publications. The project has four interlinked strands of investigation, each pursued by one member of the project team: (1) Lives and Afterlives; (2) Events and Temporalities; (3) Objects, Spaces and Places (Prof. Alexandra Walsham); and (4) Ritual, Liturgy and the Body (Prof. Brian Cummings). These sub-projects will explore the biographical, temporal, spatial, material and ritual dimensions of remembering the Reformation.

You will be committed to collaboration which unites scholarship across literary, historical, and related disciplines, and participate in a shared research environment between York and Cambridge. You will be responsible for one of the strands, which you will develop in accordance with your own disciplinary background and interests: either (1) Lives and Afterlives or (2) Events and Temporalities. You will hold a PhD in a relevant area of early modern studies (Literature, History or a related discipline). 

Informal enquiries can be made to Prof. Brian Cummings: brian.cummings@york.ac.uk

The post is full time and available from 1 January 2016 for a period of 34 months.

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