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Urban History
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Job Outline
The purpose of this post is to contribute high quality research and teaching in the urban history of modern China (post-1800). The person appointed will be expected to contribute actively to the life of the Centre for Urban History (CUH) and to promote urban history as a subject.
For the first four years the post holder will fulfil the duties specific to the New Blood lectureships. After the fourth year the post holder will be expected to cover normal duties as detailed below. The post holder will be responsible to the Head of School of Historical Studies, and will undertake undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and research in the field of Chinese Urban History, administration and other activities that contribute to, and support the work of the School in developing and enhancing its reputation, both internal and external to the University.
The School of Historical Studies
The School was established in 2003 as an amalgamation of the former departments of History and Economic & Social History. The School is rated excellent for teaching by TQA and in RAE 2008 50% of its output was judged at 4* and 3* standard. It is one of the largest and most diverse Schools of Historical Studies in the United Kingdom with 33 members of academic staff, several members of research staff and 7 support staff. It teaches more than 1000 undergraduate students and has a thriving postgraduate and research community based in the Marc Fitch Historical Institute in Salisbury Road, about 10 minutes walk from the University's main campus. Including its contribution to American Studies, the School’s undergraduate programme comprises nine degrees, its strongest links being with the Schools of Archaeological Studies and English and the Department of Politics. The School also runs an MA portfolio of four degrees, which in recent years have recruited annually between 15 and 36 students. It is focusing on growing its postgraduate portfolio, both taught MA and PhD work; it is able to offer its doctoral students private study space with networked computer facilities at Marc Fitch House .
The School gives a high priority to encouraging and supporting the individual and collaborative research strategies of its staff and to maintaining a shared research culture. The following research centres are based in the School: the Centre for Urban History, the Centre for English Local History and the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust Studies. Each Centre has a Director who administers and reports on its research programme which typically includes research seminars, symposia, conferences and externally-funded projects. In addition there are School and postgraduate seminar series, so that in a typical session the School runs approximately six seminar series. Inter-disciplinary research is encouraged through the Centre for American Studies, the Medieval Research Centre and the Victorian Studies Centre.
The University has excellent study leave provision and all members of the School’s academic staff are entitled to apply to the Head of School for financial assistance for travel costs associated with research. Leicester’s rail link to London is fast and reliable, St Pancras being a few minutes walk from the British Library. The Head of School, acting with the advice of its Research Committee, has the brief of monitoring the research undertaken by all staff. This process includes encouraging staff to take advantage of external opportunities for research funding and collaboration, and assisting them in formulating their grant applications. The School has a very good track record of winning awards from the AHRC, ESRC and the Leverhulme and Wellcome Trusts. These awards have included a number of grants which have enabled colleagues to take leave of absence for up to three years in order to concentrate on their research projects.
Further details about the School, including its teaching and research, can be found at www.le.ac.uk/histstud/
The Centre for Urban History
The Centre for Urban History (CUH) is an internationally recognised centre for research and postgraduate training. It runs two MA programmes in Urban History and European Urbanization and has a large and lively community of postgraduate students engaged on doctoral research. It is part of the Marc Fitch Historical Institute at the University of Leicester, spread over two adjacent buildings. The Centre possesses its own research library of international urban history and incorporates two major national archives, the East Midlands Oral History Archive (EMOHA) and the Media Archive for Central England (MACE). Current research in the Centre spans tourism in 18th century Italy (Prof Rosemary Sweet), visual representations of nineteenth century cities and urban green space (Dr Katy Layton Jones), urban cultures in post-war England (Prof Simon Gunn), garden cities in France, Germany and the USA (Dr Gisela Mettele) and colonial cities in India and Africa, 1850-2000 and a Leverhulme funded project on cricket and empire (Dr Prashant Kidambi). It runs a regular fortnightly research seminar and the journal Urban History is edited from the Centre.
Further Particulars
Download Further Particulars (PDF, 194KB)