Part-time Research Assistant - Shakespeare’s Scotland

The successful candidate will work under the direction of Professor Lorna
Hutson on a project entitled ‘Shakespeare’s Scotland’. The project involves
reconceiving the question of Anglo-Scots relations in the period before James
VI’s succession, not as a ‘succession problem’, but as a complex
transformation, through English literature, of the older Anglo-imperial claim
to sovereignty over Scotland by means of the medieval legendary ‘British’
history of Brutus and King Arthur. The project looks at the printed literature
of England’s invasion of Scotland in the 1540s; the Anglo-imperial fashioning
of England-as-island through chorography, river poetry and epic romance in the
1540s - 1590s; the development of a ‘political theology’ of Scottish vassalage
in the theory of ‘The King’s Two Bodies’; Scottish sovereignty as expressed in
Scots poetry of the 1570s and 1580s; the occlusion of Scottish sovereignty in
the ‘English history play’ of the 1590s and in Shakespeare’s tragedies of the
1600s. The project aims at a monograph and much of the reading and gathering
of material has been done. The RA’s remit will therefore be to assist
Professor Hutson in transcription, checking, going through Calendars of State
Papers and other historical collections, as required.



The Research Assistant will research and present results from reading in
historical collections of letters and state papers from the period. They will
assist with ordering photographs relevant to the project and checking
citations and readings from printed materials in final portions of the
project, and will organise workshops and day conferences.



Applicants should possess a degree in English language or literature or a
related field, and should have or be working toward a doctorate in a related
specialist discipline. They should also possess the ability to manage their
own research and associated administrative activities, and have excellent
communication skills including experience in writing for publication.



This part-time post is offered from 1 October (or as soon as possible after
this date), for a fixed-term of 12 months.



The closing date for applications is 12.00 noon on 27 July 2018. Applicants
should request two referees to send supporting letters by this date to:
english.office@ell.ox.ac.uk. Interviews will be held in Oxford on 27 August
2018.