"Full-Time PhD Studentship - Daphne and her Sisters: Framing Gendered Violence"

The School of Modern Languages and Cultures and the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS) at Durham University invite applications for a PhD studentship through the Institute’s flagship programme of research, Inventing Futures (IFs). This studentship is for full-time study and covers home-level fees and an annual stipend at the level set by UKRI. International candidates are eligible to apply, but must cover the difference between home and international fees. Candidates not offered funding may be offered a PhD place at the University.

We welcome applications from outstanding candidates who demonstrate academic excellence at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, and provide evidence of sufficient research skills to contribute to the project. The successful candidate will join an exciting interdisciplinary team at IMEMS involving early modern History and French studies alongside Italian. In addition to their doctoral research, the successful candidate will contribute towards project activities, working with the rest of the project team and benefitting from appropriate training.

IFs emphasizes future-oriented consequences of the Institute’s past-oriented study. Its three flagship projects each involve a PhD student and an early-career researcher working with academic staff. For more on these projects, generously funded by Joanna and Graham Barker, please click here.

The project relevant to this PhD is ‘Daphne and her Sisters: Framing Gendered Violence’, led by Professor Ita Mac Carthy, IMEMS and Italian Studies (School of Modern Languages and Cultures). The project asks what portrayals of violence against women in the literature and art of the global early modern past reveal about the cultures that produced them. It examines, too, what our continuing fascination with such portrayals says about our culture and society. Of particular interest will be artistic or literary representations whose profound impact can be traced through imitations, adaptations, translations and other forms of artistic recreation across cultures and time. Where words and images live on in successive iterations, the project will chart varying attitudes to their themes and trace genealogies of cultural response to everyday violence. As it investigates the complex connections between cultural products and the societies that produce them, it develops a model of engagement that deploys such cultural products in the global campaign against the very violence they depict.

Your lead supervisor will be Professor Mac Carthy (ita.k.mac-carthy@durham.ac.uk). A second supervisor will be identified with complementary expertise relating to the candidate’s proposal. We welcome interdisciplinary applications. Applicants are invited to discuss their plans with Professor Mac Carthy in advance of the deadline.

How to Apply

Candidates should apply to the Italian Studies PhD programme (R3A001) through Durham University's application portal by 23:59 (UK time) on 16th January 2026 and should select ‘other’ in the Scholarship Details section, entering ‘IFs’ in the text field.

Applicants will be assessed by a panel of experts regarding past academic and/or professional performance and experience; the coherence, importance, and viability of the proposed research; its relevance to the project; and fit with supervisorial strengths at Durham.