Call for Applications: Talking Sense at the Ashmolean Museum
Call for Applications
Talking Sense is an interdisciplinary research project for the 2018/19 academic year at the University of Oxford, hosted in partnership with the Ashmolean Museum and the Ashmolean University Engagement Programme.
The project will bring together a group of DPhil students and post-doctoral researchers from different academic disciplines to explore the subject of the senses in a series of workshops and public gallery talks. The workshops will investigate how the senses are used in different areas of life to construct meaning and value, how their use and understanding vary across time and place, how objects engage and represent the senses and how they offer insights into the sensory worlds of past societies. The workshops will consist of in-depth conversations between participants and days at the Ashmolean to examine these questions through direct engagement with objects in the Museum’s collection. The project will culminate in a series of short gallery talks in the Museum, giving participants the opportunity to present their research to the public on objects chosen from the Museum’s collections. Talking Sense
therefore aims to provide a window into the world of the senses by engaging Oxford early career researchers with the Ashmolean Museum and the wider public.
Call for applications
Applications to join the Talking Sense research project are invited from DPhil students and post-doctoral researchers at the University of Oxford. We welcome applicants from any academic discipline who are keen to work on the subject of the senses in an interdisciplinary and collaborative format through the study of material artefacts.
Applicants need not be specialists on the senses or material culture. Applicants must be able to commit to: one meeting at the end of Michaelmas Term; three workshop days in Hilary Term; and presentation of their talk three times in Trinity Term (first as practice to fellow members of Talking Sense, and twice to the public). Successful applicants will become Ashmolean UEP Research Associates.
All application materials should be sent totalkingsenseoxford@gmail.com by 5th November. Submissions should include an academic CV and a covering letter of no more than a page outlining research interests, reasons for applying and any other information or experience relevant to participation in the project.
If you have any questions, please emailtalkingsenseoxford@gmail.com
