CfA: Funding for 3 PhD history of health, history of audiovisuals, ERC BodyCapital
The ERC Advanced Grant programme “The healthy self as body capital:
individuals, market-based societies and body politics in visual
twentieth century Europe (BodyCapital)” led by Christian Bonah
(Université de Strasbourg) and Anja Laukötter (MPIHD, Berlin) on the
understanding of body capital and its history, through the twentieth
century history of visual mass media (film, TV, Internet) and inédits
(amateur, family and private visuals) is now accepting applications for
up to 3 three-year PhD positions.
The application deadline is 10 May 2018.
Interviews will be scheduled on the 24 May 2018 in Strasbourg (in-person
interviews will be preferential, with some travel funding provided upon
request), with notification in early June.
The contracts will begin 1 September 2018.
Project Description
Do you know how much rapid eye movement (REM) sleep you need to work
efficiently, do you look at food labels to ensure that you are getting
all the required vitamins and minerals or know someone who uses a step
counter to know if they are getting enough physical activity? These are
just a few examples of our perceptions of health and the resulting
individual practices in twentieth century Europe. In fact, this century
may be characterized by the development of products and techniques for
the body and its health. Bodily health has evolved as a new form of
capital (Bourdieu 1979): a form of symbolic capital that can be
transformed into economic capital. These are not only witnessed by, but
contributed to and were affected by, a flood of visual media that
circulated transnationally in the advent of a media society. Thus, the
ERC BodyCapital project investigates moving images and the idea of
informing, improving or educating better living and health.
The timeframe of the project (1895-2005) starts with the invention of
public health, the rapid emergence and diffusion of mechanically
produced images and moving pictures and the conception of liberal
economic theory and practices at the beginning of the twentieth century
and extends to the reinvention of new public health, the Internet
revolution and the economic crisis nurturing economic neo-liberalism in
the 1990s. It stops before the emergence of YouTube (2005), which
transforming visual Internet practices, and the financial crisis in
2007-2008. At the center of the period is the industry-based therapeutic
revolution, the invention of television, an epidemiological transition
(increasing life expectancy and chronic disease emergence) and the
golden age of the welfare state.
The research group aims to provide a socio-historical understanding of
how an autonomous, self–optimizing, health-managing individual has
emerged as a dominating self-identity in light of sanitary knowledge and
practices in European societies at the end of the twentieth century. To
achieve this, we compare developments in three European countries that
are central to the economy and to visual production, but which differ in
their visual culture and their embrace of neo-liberal market policies
during the twentieth century: France, Germany and Great Britain.
The research group has identified four central subject entries that the
thesis project proposals should address in one way or another (at least
one):
- history of food/nutrition;
- history of movement/exercise/sports;
- history of sexuality/reproduction/infant;
- history of dependency/addiction/
These themes are simultaneously physiological bodily functions and
traditional public health objectives. They are fundamental human needs
and correspond to particular economic sectors. As such, all four
subjects combine concepts and practices spanning across the health and
life sciences, individual and public health, body history and economic
history and are therefore ideally suited to study historical
transformations leading to market-based societies and body politics in
visual twentieth century Europe.
The PhD thesis project is to be a case study focusing on topics related
to one or more of the project’s four subject entries (history of
food/nutrition; movement/exercise/sports; sexuality/reproduction/infant;
dependency/addiction/
Context and working conditions
The PhD funding is in the form of a salary and not a scholarship. The
PhD student will be employed for the duration of 36 months (1 September
2018-31 August 2021).
The thesis will be directed (or co-directed) by Christian Bonah
(Professor of medical history) or Anja Laukötter (PhD in history).
Students will be enrolled in the Social and Human Sciences doctoral
school at the University of Strasbourg and will be associated members of
the UMR research group SAGE (Societies, actors and government in
Europe).
The project may be conducted as a co-direction with another European
university, please indicate in the motivation letter if a co-direction
with another university would be relevant or advantageous for your
project and why.
Requirements and research skills
The candidate must be a holder of a master’s degree from a
highly-recognized university in the history of medicine, history, media
history, sociology/history of science, media or communication studies,
economic history, or related discipline.
The candidate must demonstrate a mastery of research techniques in
social sciences: archival work and sound analysis of textual and
audiovisual sources and good knowledge of the literature related to
their field of study.
The candidate must be able to work and write in English (writing skills
in French or German are also highly welcome). The thesis must be written
in English, French or German.
Application
Candidates are asked to send
- a motivation letter;
- a detailed CV;
- a 3-4 page thesis project outline;
- a chapter of the Masters thesis, a publication or example of
writing;- a letter of recommendation and two complementary reference
names
by email to Christian Bonah (bonah@unistra.fr), Anja Laukötter (laukoetter@mpib-berlin.mpg.de
For further information or details on salary, please contact Tricia Close-Koenig.