CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Turin Humanities Programme - 2nd Call for Applications, 2021 - 2022-2024 Research Cycle: “Political Thought and the Body: Europe and East Asia, ca. 1100-1650” (deadline 15 February 2022)

(Source: Fondazione 1563)

TURIN HUMANITIES PROGRAMME

 2nd CALL FOR APPLICATIONS - 2021 

2022-2024 RESEARCH CYCLE 

“Political Thought and the Body: Europe and East Asia, ca. 1100-1650” 

INTRODUCTION 

Fondazione 1563 per l’Arte e la Cultura della Compagnia di San Paolo (hereinafter “Fondazione 1563”) has since 2013 supported research and advanced training in the field of the humanities. In a wider effort to pursue this goal, in 2020 Fondazione 1563 has launched the Turin Humanities Programme, a research initiative that allows junior scholars to work on interrelated research projects under the guidance of especially appointed Senior Fellows. THP aims at promoting two-year research projects about relevant global history topics. Under THP in 2020 Fondazione 1563 launched a first call for application for research on the Enlightenment legacy: the rights of man in a global perspective. 

SUBJECT OF THE CALL 

Fondazione 1563 is now pleased to launch the second call for applications to award up to 4 two-year fellowships for advanced studies on Political Thought and the Body: Europe and East Asia, ca. 1100-1650. 

The Director of Studies for this programme (2022-2024) will be Serena Ferente, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Amsterdam. For information and questions please email: info@fondazione1563.it

Applicants are invited to submit research projects of a maximum of 3000 words, plus bibliography. Projects are expected to engage with one or more aspects of the general research framework Political Thought and the Body: Europe and East Asia, ca. 1100-1650. Proposals are expected to focus on the symbolic use of the body in political discourse through the analysis of texts, objects and images produced in the Euro-Mediterranean and/or East Asian world during the period between ca. 1100 and ca. 1650. Proposals should also contain an illustration of the different project phases, the relevant sources and methodologies and the expected outcomes, which will be considered an integral part of the project itself. Details of the research framework can be found here. 

In addition to the research proposal, applicants must submit their Curriculum vitae et studiorum and: - an article-length piece of writing, published or unpublished, which demonstrates innovative thinking (written in English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish) and - the contact information of two scholars familiar with the applicant’s work and willing to act as their referees (one of whom can be their PhD supervisor); only the referees of shortlisted candidates will be contacted by the Fondazione 1563. Successful candidates will carry out their individual research projects under the supervision of the Director of Studies. They will also collaborate to the organization of activities such as seminars, conferences, exhibitions and summer schools, during which they will be invited to share their research projects with a wider community of academics as well as students and the general public. 

ELIGIBLE APPLICATIONS 

The call is open to applicants holding a doctorate in History or in any discipline in the Humanities. Applicants who will be awarded their doctoral title before 31 July 2022 are also eligible to apply. Applicants should normally be within 7 years of the award of their Ph.D. They must be fluent in English, both spoken and written. English will be the working language of THP. There are no nationality requirements. Fondazione 1563 encourages applications from scholars of all backgrounds. We welcome diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive work environment. 

FELLOWSHIP GRANTS 

Each of the 4 Fellowships consists of an overall grant of € 50.000 (before taxes) to be paid according to the terms and conditions available here. The grant will last two years, starting on September 1, 2022 until August 31, 2024. These grants may not be held in conjunction with any other award. Fellows will be requested to reside in Turin for the duration of the fellowship and Fondazione 1563 will provide accommodation according to the terms and conditions available here. If the fellow is awarded any other grant during the THP fellowship, Fondazione 1563 reserves the right to withdraw and cancel the remaining part of the grant to be disbursed. For any further information on the grants please refer to the THP Terms and Conditions of Grant, that can be found here. 

HOW TO SUBMIT A PROPOSAL 

Applications must be submitted online by filling out the form available on the website of Fondazione 1563 at www.fondazione1563.it/application-form-thp-2021/ under THP/Call for applications/THP-2021. Applications submitted by other means will not be considered. For the application instructions please visit the following page. 

Applications must be submitted by February 15, 2022 (11.00 PM CET).

EVALUATION CRITERIA 

The Scientific Committee of the THP and the Director of Studies of the second research cycle of the THP will evaluate eligible applications according to the applicant’s qualifications and the quality and feasibility of the research project proposed. The committee will make its decisions on the basis of a comprehensive evaluation of the dossiers. The research proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria (in no particular order): 1) coherence with the call and the research framework; 2) originality, quality, and scientific relevance of the research proposal; 3) clarity of the research questions, methods, and expected outcomes; 4) contribution to the geographical and chronological remit of the project; 5) appropriate planning in terms of research and implementation. Applicants shortlisted after the first selection will be contacted by email in order to arrange online interviews that will focus on the research proposal and the applicant’s curriculum. The interviews will be held in English and will take place remotely in early March 2022. Once the interview has been scheduled, it will not be possible to reschedule it. Candidates who do not attend the interview will be deemed to have withdrawn. 

HOW THE FELLOWSHIPS ARE AWARDED 

The fellowships will be awarded by the Scientific Committee of the THP, by the Director of Studies of the second research cycle and with the approval of the Board of Directors of Fondazione 1563. Successful applicants will be notified in writing via email and will be required to fill out and return the fellowship acceptance form, accepting the terms contained therein, within 7 working days from the notification. Candidates who do not return this form will be deemed to have withdrawn.

More information is available here.

BOOK: Julia LOVELL, Maoism. A Global History (London: Penguin, 2019), 624 p., ISBN 9781847922496, 30 GBP

(image source: Penguin)

Book abstract:

For decades, the West has dismissed Maoism as an outdated historical and political phenomenon. Since the 1980s, China seems to have abandoned the utopian turmoil of Mao’s revolution in favour of authoritarian capitalism. But Mao and his ideas remain central to the People’s Republic and the legitimacy of its Communist government. With disagreements and conflicts between China and the West on the rise, the need to understand the political legacy of Mao is urgent and growing. The power and appeal of Maoism have extended far beyond China. Maoism was a crucial motor of the Cold War: it shaped the course of the Vietnam War (and the international youth rebellions that conflict triggered) and brought to power the murderous Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; it aided, and sometimes handed victory to, anti-colonial resistance movements in Africa; it inspired terrorism in Germany and Italy, and wars and insurgencies in Peru, India and Nepal, some of which are still with us today – more than forty years after the death of Mao. In this new history, Julia Lovell re-evaluates Maoism as both a Chinese and an international force, linking its evolution in China with its global legacy. It is a story that takes us from the tea plantations of north India to the sierras of the Andes, from Paris’s fifth arrondissement to the fields of Tanzania, from the rice paddies of Cambodia to the terraces of Brixton. Starting with the birth of Mao’s revolution in northwest China in the 1930s and concluding with its violent afterlives in South Asia and resurgence in the People’s Republic today, this is a landmark history of global Maoism.

Discover more with the publisher.

ARTICLE: Delia LIN & Susan TREVASKES, "Creating a Virtuous Leviathan: The Party, Law, and Socialist Core Values" (Asian Journal of Law and Society 2019)

(image source: Cambridge Core)

Abstract:

In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has declared that its governance must dominate over all aspects of law-making and enforcement, declaring that its leadership must be implemented across the entire process of governing the country in accordance with the law. Contemporaneous to this new way of thinking about the law-Party nexus is a propaganda push to integrate moral values into the law. This paper is about moralizing governance in the Xi Jinping era. It explores the ideology behind the promotion of this morals–law integration, focusing on the Socialist Core Values in the legal realm under the current Xi Jinping administration. We do so from two interrelated perspectives. The first examines the relationship between law and morality. Here, we argue that the Party’s calls for a law–morality amalgam can be understood as a form of “pan-moralism.” The second looks at the supremacy of Party rule, extending the theory of the “Leviathan” proposed by Thomas Hobbes to take into account the Party’s morality push. This two-pronged argument enables us to assert that the Xi Jinping administration is creating a “virtuous Leviathan.

Read the full article on Cambridge Core.

NOTICE: Online Sources on Australasian Legal History

A press release from the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland reports that a grant from the Australian Research Council to the Australasian Legal Information Institute will make possible “a massive expansion of free access online to Australasian legal history through digitisation and data aggregation. The Legal History Libraries on AustLII will become a comprehensive trans-Tasman collection from 1788-1999, including all reported case series and those from colonial newspaper reports, and all Acts enacted, plus key collections of historical Bills, Gazettes, legal commentaries, and Parliamentary reports.”