Postdoctoral researcher at the Amsterdam School of Historical Studies

The Amsterdam School of Historical Studies (ASH) currently has a vacant postdoctoral position as part of the NWO-funded VIDI Project The Female Impact. Women, the Art Market and Household Consumption in the Dutch Republic, 1580-1720, led by Principal investigator (PI) Judith Noorman. ASH is one of the six research schools under the aegis of the Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research.

What are you going to do

This postdoctoral project is one of three closely-related projects, which together aim to map, measure and analyse the impact of women on the Dutch art market in the (long) seventeenth century by studying the household as an economic site. Funded through a VIDI-grant of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the programme takes an interdisciplinary approach to study women in the art market via three inter-related avenues:

1. to collect and analyse diverse archival documents bearing witness to women’s household possessions and purchasing power;
2. to study women’s tastes and preferences as consumers;
3. to study the household as a space of consumption within which women found employment relating to the art market.

The postdoctoral researcher will study objective 2 by examining a specific set of art consumers: the so-called ‘Elderly Daughters’ (Bejaerde dochters). This demographic group of women who have never married, will be examined in order to establish how active these women were on the contemporary art market and whether or not they exhibited distinctive tastes when buying and owning works of art. The successful applicant will work closely with the PhD and the PI. A detailed research outline on the project may be obtained from the PI Judith Noorman.

Tasks of the postdoctoral researcher will include:

• conducting research, presenting intermediate research results at workshops and conferences and publishing two single-authored, peer reviewed articles, as well as an essay for the compendium mentioned below;
• participating in meetings of the project research group and developing a shared database;
• co-organizing knowledge dissemination activities;
• co-organizing an international conference on women’s impact on the early modern art market and (co-)editing a collection of essays;
• contributing to teaching courses in early modern art history (0,2 FTE per year).

What do we require

As successful applicant you must have:

• a PhD in Early Modern (Art) History;
• excellent research skills demonstrated by a track record of publishing in high-ranking journals and/or with leading presses or a demonstrable capacity to develop such a record;
• a strong cooperative attitude and willingness to engage in collaborative research;
• enthusiasm for communicating academic research to non-academic audiences;
• excellent command of Dutch and English.

Our offer

You will be appointed at the Department of Arts and Culture of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam and will conduct the research in ASH.

The employment contract will be for 36 months, with 30,4 hours per week dedicated to research (0,8 FTE) and 7,6 hours per week dedicated to teaching (0,2 FTE). This is under the terms of employment currently valid for the Faculty. The initial contract will be for 12 months, with an extension for the following 24 months, contingent on a positive performance evaluation within the first 9 months. The intended starting date is 1 September 2021.

The gross monthly salary, based on 38 hours per week, will range from €3,491 during the first year to €4,012 in the third year, depending on experience and qualifications, in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities.

Questions

For further information, please contact:

• Judith Noorman, Principal investigator

More information and application