History of science/history of medicine Ph.D. opportunities at University of Glasgow: deadline 03/04/15
"Collections": 5 fully funded Ph.D.s at
the University of Glasgow, including history of medicine and history of science
projects in collaboration with the University Archives, Special Collections,
and The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery.
The Leverhulme Trust: "Collections"
Scholarships
Collections: an Enlightenment Pedagogy for
the 21st Century
It is well known that in the three hundred
years since the Enlightenment, knowledge worldwide has made giant steps - but
that at the same time, this knowledge has become compartmentalised.
Increasingly narrow specialisms deliver insight and technological advances - at
a price. Knowledge reflects depth, but rarely, a breadth of understanding. All
too easily, the various disciplines of the modern academy lose touch with each
other, when there remains much that they might share. Clinicians, scientists,
historians, criminologists, curators and literary scholars, should and could
share knowledge, insight and methodology. The need for a holistic vision for
the academy is all the more pressing now, as researchers confront an
environment where advances in digitization and an accelerating global connectivity
has further increased the complexity and sheer number of accessible
collections, whether these are artefacts, data or other kinds of ‘collected’
material. In this context, what for example, might a clinician learn from a
criminologist or an art historian about the ethics of provenance and questions
of consent? Or how best do we use network theory in relation to collections of
literary novels? By drawing on the extensive resources of the University of
Glasgow, the City of Glasgow and established national and international
networks, Collections presents a re-imagining of the Enlightenment ambition.
Working in close collaboration with one another, the Collections students will
explore historical and contemporary collections using quantitative and qualitative
techniques derived from Science, the Arts and Humanities; methodologies
emerging from Big Data; and analysis from within medical disciplines.
In session 2015-16 there will be 5 PhD
projects, each attracting a doctoral scholarship providing maintenance and fees
(Home/EU rate only) at Research Council rates:
1. Lord Kelvin, Geographer:
This project will consider the work of Lord
Kelvin from the perspective of his role in the development of a range of
scientific instruments for use in studies of earth processes. It will examine
Kelvin’s work on submarine telegraphy, deep-sea sounding, magnetic variation
and marine navigation, and his contributions to tidal studies, to theories of
glacier movement and to polar ice-cap and sea level relations. The project will
use the scientific instrument collections in the Hunterian’s Kelvin collection
and his archives in the University’s Special Collections. The project will
improve understandings of the relations between the geographical and physical
sciences in the 19th century. It will also contribute to debates regarding the
role of place in the production of scientific knowledge and instrumental
practice, and will improve understandings of the The Hunterian’s instrument
collection.
This project belongs to the Material thematic
cluster. The successful candidate will be supervised by Dr Simon Naylor (Human
Geography) and Dr Nicky Reeves (Curator of Scientific and Medical History
Collections in the The Hunterian).
Candidates interested in applying for funded
PhD study on this project are encouraged to make informal contact with the
Supervisor(s) in the first instance.
Candidates wishing to submit an application
should prepare and submit the following documentation:
The application form which
includes a personal statement in which you should detail the particular
attributes and/or achievements which make you a suitable candidate to undertake
the proposed project
Your CV
Your degree transcripts
Two references in support
of your application
The closing date for receipt of complete
applications is Friday, 3 April 2015. Applications should be emailed to Adeline
Callander, Graduate School Administrator (Adeline.Callander@glasgow.ac.uk).
2. Syphilis: exploring the emotional history
of a pandemic
The remarkable collection of pamphlets on
syphilis from their earliest appearances in 1495 to 1820, held in the
University of Glasgow’s Special Collections and recently made more accessible
through an analytical catalog will support an investigation into understanding
the medical, social, and emotional history of the disease over three-hundred
years. This history crosses major medical and intellectual divides--Renaissance
humanism, the Reformation, the Counter Reformation, the ‘decline of magic’, the
Enlightenment, and the surgical and epidemiological breakthroughs of the late
eighteenth century. The current historiography suggests that progress in
medicine from the seventeenth-century scientific revolution to the late nineteenth-century
‘laboratory revolution’ made this and other pandemic diseases progressively
more comprehensible and thus less prone to placing blame on outsiders and
persecuting the victims of disease. But syphilis’ cultural toxicity spread in
the opposite direction. From the late sixteenth century to the nineteenth
century and beyond, women became increasingly the targets of blame and the
syphilitic of both sexes were punished for acquiring this sexually transmitted
disease. Glasgow’s collection of 246 pamphlets on syphilis will serve as the
gateway to explore the emotional life of this disease in broader contexts
including that of other pandemic diseases in early modern Europe and the New
World.
This project belongs to the Material thematic
cluster. The successful candidate will be supervised by Prof Samuel Cohn
(Medieval History) and Dr Sarah Cockram (History).
Candidates interested in applying for funded
PhD study on this project are encouraged to make informal contact with the
Supervisor(s) in the first instance.
Candidates wishing to submit an application
should prepare and submit the following documentation:
The application form which
includes a personal statement in which you should detail the particular
attributes and/or achievements which make you a suitable candidate to undertake
the proposed project
Your CV
Your degree transcripts
Two references in support
of your application
The closing date for receipt of complete
applications is Friday, 3 April 2015. Applications should be emailed to Adeline
Callander, Graduate School Administrator (Adeline.Callander@glasgow.ac.uk).
3. William Hunter: anatomist to the artists
his project will explore and document
Hunter's collection of c.1000 drawings, almost all of which are of human and animal
anatomy, and include a series of works by major artists which has not
previously been subjected to serious scholarly investigation. The project would
be art historical and anatomical, looking at the drawings as scientific
documents and especially as records of specific dissections. Some of the famous
anatomists (Vesalius, Larche, Cowper, and Cheselden) whose dissections are
represented in the drawings pre-date Hunter. Some of the illustrations belonged
to Hunter's mentor James Douglas, but many of them were commissioned by Hunter
himself. The project will relate the drawings to all other anatomical material
in Hunter's collections, including anatomical books, paintings and anatomical
specimens, seeking to contextualise Hunter's activities and understand the
anatomical themes represented by the collections and the insights they
provided.
This project belongs to the Material thematic
cluster. The successful candidate will be supervised by Mr Peter Black (Curator
of The Hunterian) and Dr Stuart Mcdonald (Life Sciences/Human Biology).
Candidates interested in applying for funded
PhD study on this project are encouraged to make informal contact with the
Supervisor(s) in the first instance.
Candidates wishing to submit an application
should prepare and submit the following documentation:
The application form which
includes a personal statement in which you should detail the particular
attributes and/or achievements which make you a suitable candidate to undertake
the proposed project
Your CV
Your degree transcripts
Two references in support
of your application
The closing date for receipt of complete
applications is Friday, 3 April 2015. Applications should be emailed to Adeline
Callander, Graduate School Administrator (Adeline.Callander@glasgow.ac.uk).
4. Privacy: past, present and future
This project will analyse personal privacy in
the context of (r)evolutions in methods for the collection, recording and
sharing of medical information and samples. Such changes require the
development of new regulatory frameworks to govern collections, which, in turn,
impact on understandings of power, control and trust within, and beyond,
patient-professional relations. Issues covered will include anonymisation/pseudonymisation
of personal data; perceptions of public benefits and private commercial
interests resulting from researchers having access to collections of personal
information; and informed consent - especially regarding future uses of
biological/genetic material held in longitudinal biobanks and personal
information stored in databases.
This project belongs to the Ethical thematic
cluster. The successful candidate will be supervised by Prof Matthew Walters
(Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences) and Dr Angus Ferguson
(Economic & Social History).
Candidates interested in applying for funded
PhD study on this project are encouraged to make informal contact with the
Supervisor(s) in the first instance.
Candidates wishing to submit an application
should prepare and submit the following documentation:
The application form which
includes a personal statement in which you should detail the particular
attributes and/or achievements which make you a suitable candidate to undertake
the proposed project
Your CV
Your degree transcripts
Two references in support
of your application
The closing date for receipt of complete
applications is Friday, 3 April 2015. Applications should be emailed to Adeline
Callander, Graduate School Administrator (Adeline.Callander@glasgow.ac.uk).
5. The 'Glasgow effect': a re-evaluation
The concept of the ‘Glasgow Effect’ - the
understanding that population health and life expectancy appear to have a
significantly negative correlation to living in Glasgow (in a sense that cannot
simply be related to particular demographics or social conditions) - has
previously been evidenced and interpreted through conventional resources.
Working with collected data from a newly devised questionnaire from Glasgow’s
Urban Big Data Centre this project, in collaboration with the Glasgow Centre of
Population Health, will employ new computational models and social science
methodologies to map and interpret the 'Glasgow Effect' and identify possible
solutions that would improve health outcomes. With access to a new Social
Sciences Research Hub based in the East End of Glasgow - a project initiated
and supported by the University of Glasgow - the student working on this
project will have access to a comprehensive range of data and will also have
opportunities for direct community engagement.
This project belongs to the Conceptual
thematic cluster. The successful candidate will be supervised by Mr Des McNulty
(Social & Political Sciences).
Candidates interested in applying for funded
PhD study on this project are encouraged to make informal contact with the
Supervisor(s) in the first instance.
Candidates wishing to submit an application
should prepare and submit the following documentation:
The application form which
includes a personal statement in which you should detail the particular
attributes and/or achievements which make you a suitable candidate to undertake
the proposed project
Your CV
Your degree transcripts
Two references in support
of your application
The closing date for receipt of complete
applications is Friday, 3 April 2015. Applications should be emailed to Adeline
Callander, Graduate School Administrator (Adeline.Callander@glasgow.ac.uk).