Job – PhD candidate ‘Late Medieval and Early Modern Literary Culture (French & Dutch), Utrecht University
The NWO-funded research project ‘Uncovering Joyful Culture: Parodic Literature and Practices in and around the Low Countries (13th-17th centuries)’ explores the cultural practices and the literary production of joyful culture (among which parodic texts in French and Dutch), in order to demonstrate the essential role of parody in social cohesion in the pre-modern era. The project will offer a comparative, transnational approach, in order to show how joyful culture helped to bind together various social groups in pre-seventeenth-century society, and how parody was used to reinforce group identity and the sense of belonging to a community, whether at the scale of a regional political entity, a city, or a professional group. To do so, a range of literary texts, products and artefacts will be contextualised with archival material.
As a PhD-student, you will carry out the subproject ‘The joyful summons in Europe: production, circulation and transformations of a literary genre (13th-17th centuries)’ which is aimed at studying a corpus of literary texts in manuscripts and prints in French, with a comparative approach of texts in other languages (Dutch, English and German), in order to establish the main features of this parodic genre, its variations across time, space and language, as well as its possible reception in pre-modern society.
You will work under the supervision of the project leader dr. Katell Lavéant and complete a dissertation within four years.
In addition, you will work as a member of the core research team, together with dr. Lavéant and a post-doctoral researcher. As such, you will participate in conferences and other activities related to the project.
You will take part in the PhD curriculum organised by the Dutch national research school for Medieval Studies (Onderzoeksschool Mediëvistiek). This curriculum is designed to support PhD students in developing their skills, competence and self-awareness as researchers.
You will be based at the Utrecht Department of Languages, Literature and Communication, section French studies, and will be affiliated to the research institute for cultural enquiries (ICON), both of which provide a stimulating and internationally oriented research environment.
You can apply for this job until 30 november 2015.
