1 Doktorandenstelle "Politics in Public. The Emergence of Mass Media and the Legitimacy of European Monarchy. 1870-1930s" (Univ. Leuven)

1 Doktorandenstelle "Politics in Public. The Emergence of Mass Media and the Legitimacy of European Monarchy. 1870-1930s" (Univ. Leuven)

Arbeitgeber
KU Leuven
Ort
Leuven
Land
Belgium
Vom - Bis
01.01.2015 - 31.12.2018
Bewerbungsschluss
15.10.2014
Von
Kohlrausch, Martin

MoSa looks for a PhD researcher for the Project 'Politics in Public. The Emergence of Mass Media and the Legitimacy of European Monarchy. 1870-1930s'

Modernity & Society 1800-2000 (MoSa) is a research group within the history unit of KU Leuven. MoSa studies political and social processes of change that are associated with modernization. MoSa inquires the various ways in which people and societies experience and steer these changes, in a Belgian, European and global perspective. Her key focuses are the history of mobility, identity and mobilization, policy and politics, churches and religion.

Project:
The research project starts from the assumption that the last three decades of the 19th century saw the emergence of modern mass media. Asking what this meant for redefining political legitimacy, this project will look at the monarchy. This institution was in most European countries the dominant or at least a critical political player. Due to its necessarily personal character it was extremely (and more so than other political institutions) affected by the revolution of visibility and thus offering highly relevant European cases of comparison, interchange and shared experience. Against this background the monarchy, normally associated with the forces of the old, has also to be seen as part of the rise of modernity. This not in order to reconsider the merits of monarchy as a modern or even necessary institution, but to productively use the vast potential this in every respect central institution offers to historians.

While the monarchy will provide the test cases and define the research design of the project, the questions asked will go beyond this institution. They will focus on new chances for putting through political agendas via mass media as well as new limitations and they will highlight where legitimacy came to rest against the background of mediated politics. Therefore, while starting in the 1870s, the project will cover a time span till the 1930s.
The project will mainly look at examples from Belgium, Great Britain and Germany.

Through a Ph.D. thesis, an international conference and additional publications the project aims to significantly contribute to new trends in political history beyond the very topic in question.

Profile:
- You hold a Master degree in Modern History or a related discipline with excellent results and demonstrated ability to independently pursue research
- You have a strong interest and preferably experience in research on political history and/or the history of mass media
- You are ideally familiar with the modern history of at least two of the three cases (Belgium, UK, Germany)
- You have a very good command of English and at least passive knowledge of two of the three following languages: French, Dutch, German
- The candidate is expected to conclude the project within four years with a PhD at the Arts Faculty of the KU Leuven
Offer

Offer:
We offer a fulltime employment as a PhD researcher for one year, starting January 2015, renewable till max. four years after positive evaluation.
As a Ph.D. researcher at KU Leuven you will profit from individual supervision as well as a structured doctoral program and the research framework of MoSa.

Interested?
For more information please contact Prof. dr. Martin Kohlrausch, tel.: +32 16 32 49 76, mail: martin.kohlrausch@arts.kuleuven.be.

You can apply for this job no later than October 15, 2014 via the
online application tool: http://www.kuleuven.be/solliciteren/53058000&taal=E&type=VA;type=VA