Nineteenth-Century Matters 2024 Royal Holloway, University of London

Outline

Nineteenth-Century Matters is an initiative jointly run by the British Association for Romantic Studies and the British Association for Victorian Studies. Now in its eighth year, it is aimed at postdoctoral researchers who have completed their PhD, but who are not currently employed in a full-time academic post. Nineteenth-Century Matters offers unaffiliated early career researchers a platform from which to pursue their research, while also organising an academic event on a theme related to nineteenth-century studies or a workshop focused on an aspect of professionalisation. The focus of their proposed research should be on the nineteenth century, rather than on Romanticism or Victorianism. There is no requirement for this research to relate directly to Royal Holloway’s institutional specialisms, but areas of interest, in addition to the long nineteenth century, might include: interdisciplinarity; transnational and global connections; temporalities, memory, life-writing; age and disability studies.

For the coming year, the Nineteenth-Century Matters Fellowship will provide the successful applicant with affiliation at Royal Holloway, University of London. The fellowship will run from October 2024 to September 2025. In addition to intellectual exchange and collaboration, the successful fellow will benefit from:

• Access to Royal Holloway’s library resources, both physical and digital, for the duration of the fellowship. These include the University Archives and Special Collections, which hold a wealth of information on the history of women’s education in the institutional records of Bedford and Royal Holloway Colleges, as well as personal papers of alumni from the colleges’ histories. There are also strengths in theatre history and women’s suffrage. Royal Holloway also has one of the largest private collections of nineteenth-century art, held in the University’s Victorian Picture Gallery. This collection includes world-class paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and watercolours including works by William Powell Frith, John Everett Millais and Edward Burne-Jones.
• Access to the Centre for Victorian Studies (CVS), which builds on Royal Holloway’s longstanding international reputation for research in Victorian literature, ecology, art, and globalisation. The CVS has 200 cross-disciplinary members, and runs a rich programme of events and training, including the only UK residential colloquium for postgraduates and ECR colleagues in Victorian Studies.
• Mentorship from Dr Helen Kingstone, Senior Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Visual Culture, who can advise on research, careers and publication engagement
• Free access to the 2025 BARS Early Career and Postgraduate Conference.
• Access to Royal Holloway’s webinar function to host online events, if desired.
• Access to room bookings to host in-person events, if desired.

There is no requirement for the Fellow to live near Royal Holloway during the fellowship and accommodation will not be provided as part of the fellowship. The primary purpose of the fellowship is to enable the successful applicant to continue with an affiliation and remain part of the academic community. It is a non-stipendiary post, and the fellow will need to support themselves financially. The value of the fellowship is £1,500. These funds are intended to support the fellow’s research project as they deem appropriate (paying for travel to archives, accommodation, and other research-related costs) and to cover the organisation of a research or professionalisation event related to their own research and/or development interests. It is also expected that the fellow will acknowledge BARS, BAVS, and Royal Holloway in any publications that arise from their position.

Application Process

Applicants should submit a CV with a proposal of their research topic and event (maximum of two pages), explaining how and why they would benefit from the fellowship. Applicants can propose research on any aspect of the nineteenth century, and we are keen to encourage interdisciplinary proposals which might include, but are not limited to: literature, history, art history, theatre, periodical culture, medical humanities and 19thC legacies. Applications should be sent to Sarah Parker (s.l.parker@lboro.ac.uk) and Cleo O’Callaghan Yeoman (cleo.o.callaghan.yeoman@stir.ac.uk). The deadline for applications is Monday 12^th August 2024.