AHRC PhD Studentship on Spanish Influenza, 1918-1919 with Imperial War Museums and QMUL

AHRC PhD Studentship in collaboration with Imperial War Museums (IWM) and Queen Mary University of London

Applications are invited for an AHRC-funded PhD at Queen Mary, University of London: ‘A review of the worldwide effects and impact of Spanish Influenza, 1918-1919 based on IWM’s medical collections’. This is offered under the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership programme. The partner institutions are Queen Mary, University of London and IWM. The studentship will be supervised by Dr Rhodri Hayward and Dr Mark Honigsbaum, Queen Mary, University of London, and Dr Simon Robbins of IWM London. This full-time studentship, which is funded for three years at standard AHRC rates, will begin on 1 October 2015.

The Studentship

This project will study the huge and far-reaching impact of the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918- 1919 which killed some 50-100 million people worldwide, focusing particularly on its effects on Britain and her former Empire. It will look at the history of the pandemic using the IWM’s collections which provide a record not only of the experiences of the patients who suffered from influenza but also of the personnel, doctors, nurses and orderlies who were treating them.

Likely avenues of enquiry include the factors behind the spread of the influenza, notably contemporary medical knowledge of the causes of the epidemic; the practical constraints that the lack of antibiotics and vaccines placed on treatments and survival; and the effects of the close congregation of large numbers of men and animals after a long and debilitating war.

It is hoped that the project would look not just at the effects on the troops of catching influenza in terms of surviving the illness and the experience of being a patient, but also at the social and cultural impact, including the pressures and tensions exerted during wartime. What was the attitude of the troops and the local population and did this change as the pandemic progressed? The project could also consider how ethics and the ‘cultural values’ of the era impinged on the ability of the authorities to treat the local population and control the spread of the influenza which threatened to undermine civilian morale and popular support for the government, as well as the lessons for the management of future pandemics and the ways that the pandemic has been memorialised. This list is not prescriptive and the supervisors will encourage and support new and innovative approaches to the pandemic.

The award pays fees up to the value of the full time home/EU rate for PhD degrees as well as maintenance (the latter is available to UK citizens and residents only, for more information visit: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/Student-Funding-Guide.pdf). In addition, the student is eligible to receive up to £1,000 a year from IWM and £1,000 a year from Queen Mary University of London towards research expenses.

How to Apply

Applicants should have a good undergraduate degree in history or another relevant discipline, and will need to satisfy AHRC eligibility requirements including Masters-level advanced research training or equivalent.

Applicants should submit via email a curriculum vitae (no more than 2 pages), a sample of writing, a brief letter outlining their qualification for the studentship, and the names and contact details of two academic referees to Sara McCallum, Research Officer, IWM (research@iwm.org.uk) no later than

5pm on Friday 10 April, 2015. All documents should be submitted in either a MS Word or PDF format. Please ensure the subject line of your email appears as ‘surname, first name – IWM/Queen

Mary studentship.’

Interviews are scheduled to be held in London on the week commencing 20 April, 2015. Shortlisted candidates will be asked to complete an application for a place in History at Queen Mary, University of London. For further information please contact Sara McCallum (SMcCallum@iwm.org.uk | 020 7416 5461).