This PhD project is one of four closely-related projects, which together aim to systematically analyse the gendering of urban space in pre-modern Asia and Europe. It is widely held that between 1600 and 1850, women gradually withdrew from the public sphere of the street and moved to the private sphere of the home. This powerful narrative, linked to theories of modernisation, has created a conceptual stranglehold that sees public space as exclusively male and private space as entirely female, thereby obscuring the actual workings of gender in pre-industrial urban societies.
Based on extensive visual and textual sources, two PhD projects will provide in-depth studies of Edo and Amsterdam, two major pre-modern cities with distinct cultures, architecture, and governance. One postdoctoral project digitally visualises gendered movement in these two cities, thereby providing a complementary spatial analysis, as well as an important tool to engage with wider audiences. Building on the work of the PhD students and Postdoc, the Principal Investigator will analyse how the access of women to pre-industrial streets was shaped in contrasting European and Asian urban communities.
This PhD project focuses on pre-industrial Amsterdam, often seen as the city where women held a level of freedom unmatched elsewhere. Despite the prominence of women in city life, Amsterdam also experienced the rise of a domestic ideal during the eighteenth century. This propagated that women’s place was in the home, not on the street, suggesting that, in this city too, women’s freedom to use the streets was not uncontested.
To reconstruct and analyse gendered movement in pre-modern Amsterdam, this PhD project will use a wide range of sources, many of which are available in the Amsterdam city archives, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) special collections and map library, Amsterdam Museum, and the Rijksmuseum. These sources include drawings, etchings and paintings, historical maps, literary sources, court records, and petitions.
Tasks of the PhD candidate will include:
completion and defence of a PhD thesis within four years;
participation in meetings of the project research group;
presentations of intermediate research results at workshops and conferences;
participation in the training program of the Graduate School / Research School.
Description
The successful applicant must have:a completed (R)MA or MPhil degree in History or other relevant field in the Humanities;
a thorough command of Dutch and English;
excellent research skills;
excellent skills in paleography or a willingness to achieve this within the first 6 months of starting the project;
excellent academic writing and presentation skills.
Desirable qualities:
an interest in interdisciplinary approaches to historical research;
enthusiasm for collaborative work;
enthusiasm for communicating academic research to non-academic audiences.
Nr of positions available : 1
Please note that the full description may be available in the
national language since some job boards have their own publication
policy. Thank you for your understanding!
Research Fields
Language sciencesCareer Stage
Early stage researcher or 0-4 yrs (Post graduate)Experienced researcher or 4-10 yrs (Post-Doc)
More Experienced researcher or >10 yrs (Senior)
Research Profiles
Not definedBenefits
The PhD candidate will be appointed for 0.8 FTE (30,4 hours per week) for a period of 48 months at the Department of History, European Studies & Religious Studies of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. Initially a contract will be given for 16 months, with an extension for the following 32 months on the basis of a positive evaluation. The intended starting date of the contract is 1 March 2017. The gross monthly salary (on full-time basis) will be €2,191 during the first year to €2,801 during the fourth year, in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities.Benefits
2191 - 2801
Job posted by University of Amsterdam (UvA) via AcademicTransfer (06/10/2016 00.15)
PhD candidate 'Gender and Urban Space in Edo'
This PhD project is one of four closely-related projects, which together aim to systematically analyse the gendering of urban space in pre-modern Asia and Europe. It is widely held that between 1600 and 1850, women gradually withdrew from the public sphere of the street and moved to the private sphere of the home. This powerful narrative, linked to theories of modernisation, has created a conceptual stranglehold that sees public space as exclusively male and private space as entirely female, thereby obscuring the actual workings of gender in pre-industrial urban societies.
Based on extensive visual and textual sources, two PhD projects will provide in-depth studies of Edo and Amsterdam, two major pre-modern cities with distinct cultures, architecture, and governance. One postdoctoral project digitally visualises gendered movement in these two cities, thereby providing a complementary spatial analysis, as well as an important tool to engage with wider audiences. Building on the work of the PhD students and Postdoc, the Principal Investigator will analyse how the access of women to pre-industrial streets was shaped in contrasting European and Asian urban communities.
This PhD project will reconstruct women’s use of urban space in the biggest city in the early modern world: Edo. It aims to enlighten the gendering of urban space during Edo’s transformation from a castle town to Ō-Edo, the Great City of commoners. This development significantly changed the physical and social makeup of Edo as large-scale immigration undermined the planned geography and transformed Edo from a warriors’ city into a city dominated by merchants. This PhD project will work closely with the research group of Professor Takeshi Ito (Department of Architecture, University of Tokyo.
The PhD project will use a wide range of sources, including guide books and surveys, prints and popular fiction, historical maps, records on the governance and day-to-day use of urban space, such as the Edo Machibure Shûshei (1648-1858) and Senyo Ruishu (1716-1853). The materials for this project are held in libraries and museums in the Netherlands (including the Library of the University of Leiden and the Rijksmuseum) as well as in collections and archives in Japan (the National Archives of Japan, the National Diet Library and Tokyo Municipal Archives). It is expected that the PhD student will travel to Japan regularly and spend at least two extended stays in Tokyo.
Description
Tasks of the PhD candidate will include:completion and defence of a PhD thesis within four years;
participation in meetings of the project research group;
presentations of intermediate research results at workshops and conferences;
participation in the training program of the Graduate School / Research School.
The successful applicant must have:
a completed (R)MA or MPhil degree in History, Japanese Studies, or other relevant field in the Humanities;
a thorough command of Japanese and English;
excellent research skills;
experience in working with Edo-period archival sources;
excellent academic writing and presentation skills.
Desirable qualities:
an interest in interdisciplinary approaches to historical research;
enthusiasm for collaborative work;
enthusiasm for communicating academic research to non-academic audiences.
Nr of positions available : 1
Please note that the full description may be available in the
national language since some job boards have their own publication
policy. Thank you for your understanding!
Research Fields
Language sciencesCareer Stage
Early stage researcher or 0-4 yrs (Post graduate)Experienced researcher or 4-10 yrs (Post-Doc)
More Experienced researcher or >10 yrs (Senior)
Research Profiles
Not definedBenefits
The PhD candidate will be appointed for 0.8 FTE (30,4 hours per week) for a period of 48 months at the Department of History, European Studies & Religious Studies of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. Initially a contract will be given for 16 months, with an extension for the following 32 months on the basis of a positive evaluation. The intended starting date of the contract is 1 March 2017. The gross monthly salary (on full-time basis) will be €2,191 during the first year to €2,801 during the fourth year, in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities.Benefits
2191 - 2801