The Amsterdam School of Historical Studies (ASH) has a vacant PhD position as part of the ERC-project Healthscaping, led by prof. G. Geltner.

HealthScaping traces the development and impact of preventative healthcare policies, medical discourses and social and religious practices in the continent’s two most urbanized regions in the later Middle Ages, Italy and the Low Countries. The project taps numerous written, material and visual sources and archaeological data from several sites, and examines them also by critically engaging the insights of governmentality studies, cultural-spatial analysis and actor-network theory. A multidisciplinary team, also working in a Geographical Information Systems environment and generating innovative urban health maps, will recover earlier societies’ struggles with domestic and industrial waste, travel and labor hazards, food quality, and social and religious behaviors considered harmful or dangerous.

Within this framework, a PhD candidate proficient in Latin and the relevant vernacular/s will chart and analyse the dissemination of medical knowledge pertaining to prophylactic healthcare passed along several textual and visual conduits beyond the boundaries of traditional medical literature and in two distinct spheres. First, it will track the transmission of medical knowledge among the urban population – identifying medical arguments bearing upon the non-naturals (including quality of air and water, diet, evacuations, motion and rest), hygiene and the senses and their interpretation of physical and spiritual wellbeing in schoolrooms, from the pulpit as well as in urban households. Secondly, it will contextualize the dissemination of prophylactic knowledge and its application in normative sources regulating behaviour, for instance in municipal and guild statutes, regulations of brotherhoods and monastic regulae produced especially in cities in Italy and/or the Low Countries. Researching the interplay of arguments between medical knowledge, good citizenship and social hygiene in diverse behavioral scripts, this research will identify and study the specific urban milieus where medical knowledge was adapted and disseminated, thereby offering a unique insight into the levels of public health awareness and responses thereto, both of compliance and resistance, beyond academic environs.

The PhD candidate’s tasks will include:

• completion and defence of a PhD thesis within 4 years;
• writing two peer-reviewed scholarly articles in major journals;
• contributing to the project database;
• active participation in and organization of project activities.

The successful applicant must have:

• a completed Research MA or equivalent in medieval history or a related field in the Humanities;
• knowledge of premodern health and urban history;
• research experience in archives and manuscript libraries;
• a thorough command of Latin and relevant vernaculars (Middle Dutch and/or Italian), excellent English and a working knowledge of pertinent modern languages, e.g. French, German, Italian, Spanish;
• enthusiasm for collaborative, multidisciplinary research;
• strong organizational skills.

The appointment will be for 30.4 hours per week (0.8 FTE) for a maximum period of four years at the Department of History, European Studies & Religious Studies of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. The research will be carried out under the aegis of ASH. The appointment is initially for a period of 16 months; contingent on satisfactory performance it will be extended by a maximum of 32 months. The intended starting date of the contract is 1 September 2018. The gross monthly salary (on a full-time basis) will range from €2,222 during the first year to €2,840 during the fourth year, in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities.

University of Amsterdam

With over 5,000 employees, 30,000 students and a budget of more than 600 million euros, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is an intellectual hub within the Netherlands. Teaching and research at the UvA are conducted within seven faculties: Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, Law, Science, Medicine and Dentistry. Housed on four city campuses in or near the heart of Amsterdam, where disciplines come together and interact, the faculties have close links with thousands of researchers and hundreds of institutions at home and abroad.  

The UvA’s students and employees are independent thinkers, competent rebels who dare to question dogmas and aren’t satisfied with easy answers and standard solutions. To work at the UvA is to work in an independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society.

http://www.uva.nl/en/home

Amsterdam School of Historical Studies

Research at the Faculty of Humanities is carried out by six research schools under the aegis of the Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research. The Amsterdam School of Historical Studies (ASH), one of the six research schools, represents and fosters the study of the human past from Antiquity to the present day. It brings together more than 200 academics from Amsterdam’s Faculty of Humanities, who participate in ca. 25 research groups. ASH does not limit itself to a particular period, discipline or method, but integrates a variety of (inter)disciplinary perspectives, including history, history of art, literature and religious studies. It encourages collaborations between scholars along thematic lines (e.g. Religion, the City, Conflict), geographical focus (e.g. Mediterranean History,  American Studies, Modern Germany) and in terms of period (e.g. Antiquity, the Middle Ages, Early Modern and Modern History).

http://ash.uva.nl/