‘All the Watery Margins’: Water and the American Civil War
The PhD project will generate critical-historical work on the various symbolic and practical roles of water in how the American Civil War was understood and remembered.
Key details:
– The award is funded by the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships Centre for Water Cultures.
– It offers four years of PhD funding (2023-27), tuition fees and research support funding for UK candidates; there is also the possibility that overseas candidates may be funded (see below).
– The supervisors are Rachel Williams (American Studies/History) and David Atkinson (Human Geography), University of Hull.
– The deadline for applications is Monday, January 30, 2023
FULL DETAILS: Fully-funded four-year PhD opportunity: ‘All the Watery Margins’: Water and the American Civil War
The All the Watery Margins project combines approaches from social and environmental history and historical geography to understand water as a destructive, productive, restorative, and symbolic force during and after the American Civil War (1861-65). It will explore responses to and representations of water by a range of groups and perspectives in the period.
The following research questions will interrogate the interplay between the practical and symbolic uses of water during and after the conflict:
1. How did coastal, inland, and estuarine water bodies and wetlands constitute sites of conflict and danger for military and naval personnel? How did they also function as refuges and routes to safety and liberation for deserters, guerrillas, and self-emancipating enslaved fugitives?
2. How did the struggle to access clean, safe water shape military and civilian experiences of the war? How did water scarcity and polluted/diseased water threaten the physical and emotional health of civilians and soldiers on both sides?
3. How was water mobilized in cultural and political debates about cleanliness and purity during the war and in processes of reconciliation and memorialisation after its end?
This PhD scholarship is offered by The Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Centre for Water Cultures: an interdisciplinary research centre exploring humanity’s relationships with water in the green-blue regions of the world, past, present and future. It pioneers a new, humanities-led, interdisciplinary and transhistorical research area – the green-blue humanities – and equips a new generation of PhD students to take this agenda forward and transform our understanding of humanity’s relationships with water.
Queries about this project should therefore be directed to watercultures@hull.ac.uk who will liaise with the supervisors to ensure you receive responses to your queries. This method supports our inclusive recruitment practices (please see ‘How to apply’ section below for more information). For further information visit the University of Hull website.
Candidates should have a good undergraduate degree (at least a 2:1 Honours degree, or international equivalent) in a relevant subject such as History, American Studies, Human Geography, Anthropology or related disciplines. A Masters degree in a relevant subject is desirable, but not essential.
The Centre for Water Cultures welcomes applications from international candidates. While the Leverhulme Trust funds fees at the UK rate, we are able to offer a limited number of international fee waivers to support EU and International applicants. These are likely to be attached to no more than 30% of our scholarships.
If your first language is not English, or you require Tier 4 student visa to study, you will be required to provide evidence of your English language competency. Information on the tests that we accept can be found on the University of Hull website.
To apply, please visit the application portal.
Closing date for applications: Monday, January 30, 2023
Interviews will happen during the week of March 6, 2023
