PhD position, project: LangPro Women Early Modern Language

PhD position, project:
Lang Pro Women in the Early Modern Language Sector

Leiden University was founded in 1575 and is one of Europe’s leading international research universities.

The Lang Pro project examines the notion of the language sector in early modern North-West Europe: that part of early modern societies and economies which relied primarily on language skills. The early modern period saw a swift increase in occupational opportunities for men and women who possessed language skills such as reading, writing, and text editing in one or more languages.

However, since language professionals have never been studied as a separate category in the early modern workforce, the possibilities that existed for linguistically skilled individuals remain a big unknown. Lang Pro’s central research question is:
What professional, financial, and social opportunities did the early modern language sector offer to men and women in the Low Countries, France, the German lands, and England, between 1550 and 1650? Laying the groundwork for a new research domain on the history of the language sector, the project team will develop a prosopographical database that makes it possible to gain insight into the characteristics of professionals in the past whose core business was language and the nature of the sector that employed them.

• The PhD candidate will conduct a collective analysis of a selection of early modern female language professionals from England, the Low Countries, France, and the German lands to explore to what extent women could benefit from employment in the language industry. Although women (with only a few exceptions) did not have access to academic education, language skills offered them a way to pursue intellectual professions, such as translator or language teacher.
  
  For each of these women, The PhD will examine their biographical data, personal writings, and correspondence in order to find patterns in the language skills they professed, the ways in which they found and secured employment, and the financial and social benefits they obtained through their language work. Besides working on this individual research project, the PhD candidate will also collaborate with other team members in the Lang Pro project to build a database on early modern language professionals.

• Conducting research on the role of women in the early modern language sector. Part of this research will take place in archives and libraries in the UK, Belgium, Germany, and France;
• Completing a PhD thesis (in English) within four years;
• Contributing to the project’s collaborative database;
• Publishing at least two (co‑authored) articles in peer‑reviewed journals or volumes;
• Presenting papers at conferences, both in the Netherlands and internationally;
• Participating in monthly meetings of the project research group;
• Participating in the training programme of the LUCAS (Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society) Institute, the Leiden Graduate School of Humanities, the Huizinga Institute (Netherlands Research School for Cultural History), and other relevant masterclasses, summer schools, seminars, workshops, and events;
• Participating in the PhD community and the intellectual life of the LUCAS Institute;
• Subject to progress and demand, some teaching in the second and third years of your PhD project, in line with your expertise and prior experience.

• You hold a ResMA/MRes or MA with a specialisation in history, early modern studies, literature, or languages;
• Your ResMA/MA should be awarded by time of appointment, with a grade of 8.0 or above on a ten‑point scale (distinction or equivalent) for your thesis. If the MA thesis is not yet finished, we invite you to provide contact details for your supervisor in your application letter so we may consult with them on your progress;
• You are willing to work up to 2 months in archives and libraries in the UK, Belgium, France, and Germany in year 1 and year 2 of the project, up to a total of 4 months for the duration of the project;
• You have well‑developed research skills, including the ability to formulate…