We invite applications from qualified candidates who wish to complete a fully-funded doctorate examining the diverse ways in which eighteenth-century readers lived actively with print. The project will focus on underutilised archival materials—including manuscript commonplace books, annotated copies, collections of anecdotes, scrapbooks, and albums—to explore how reading practices extended beyond passive consumption to encompass a wide range of dynamic engagements with texts and with the material forms of books. By tracing practices of annotation, excerpting, compilation, and reuse, this PhD will provide opportunities to shed new light on how eighteenth-century readers actively participated in knowledge circulation and the production of literary meaning.
Bringing new materials into the centre of analysis will allow the project to develop a rich account of reading as a creative and materially embedded practice, contributing to broader debates in eighteenth-century studies, book history, and the history of reading about the entangled relationships between manuscript, print, and lived experience. The student will be guided by two experienced supervisors, Nicola Parsons (Sydney) and Matthew Sangster (Glasgow), but will have considerable scope for shaping the project based on their interests.
The project takes full advantage of the Sydney–Glasgow joint PhD structure to bring together unique archival holdings and specialised scholarly expertise. The successful applicant will spend the first year undertaking a literature review and initial archival work in Sydney, followed by a substantial period of research in Glasgow engaging with extensive eighteenth-century collections held across Scotland and the UK, before returning to Sydney for a final year of intensive writing and synthesis. This structure supports a research approach that reconnects geographically dispersed but methodologically connected materials, allowing for an analytical breadth that would not be possible within a single institutional or national context. The student’s studies will also incorporate extensive opportunities for professional development, including bespoke training in rare book and manuscript studies; public-facing writing; and collaborations with cultural heritage professionals on physical and digital exhibitions.
Full details here: https://www.gla.ac.uk/scholarships/usyduofgjointphdscholarshiplivingwithprintintheeighteenthcentury/.
The deadline for applications is April 21st.
Please feel free to contact either or both of us with any questions (nicola.parsons@sydney.edu.au and matthew.sangster@glasgow.ac.uk).