Research Associate

We have an exciting opportunity to make a leading contribution to a five-year project (“Art and Inequality in the Shadow of the Black Death Century”), working with Principal Investigator, Professor Samuel Cohn.

The project has embarked on its third year and is investigating the rise and fall of nonelite commissions for art in public places from the late thirteenth century to 1525. The project will harness an art history dependent mostly on documentary evidence with quantification and inequality studies.

Through comparative history, we have been exploring a paradoxical relationship: a deterioration in the status of nonelites, just as their wealth was growing from the late fourteenth to the end of the fifteenth century and the gap between rich and poor was narrowing. In year three we are continuing to expand our samples in Italy and will add case studies beyond the Italian peninsula. This role of this Research Associate will involve collecting data from archives mostly beyond Tuscany and from photographed testaments from Venice.

The successful candidate will begin research in Umbria. By the second half of year three the investigation will also focus on secular decrees and church synods, searching for clues on the mechanisms for this decline in nonelite artistic and religious activity that expressed their material culture. Finally, we will begin cleaning our data to enter it into a large and custom-built SQL database. 

For informal enquiries, please contact:

Professor Samuel Cohn, Samuel.cohn@glasgow.ac.uk

This post is full time and fixed term for 12 months in the first instance.

For more information on the role, the project, and to apply online, please click the 'Apply' button, above.

Closing date: 6 February 2025

We believe that we can only reach our full potential through the talents of all. Equality, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of our values. Applications are particularly welcome from across our communities and in particular people from the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community, and other protected characteristics who are under-represented within the University. Read more on how the University promotes and embeds all aspects of equality and diversity within our community https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/humanresources/equalitydiversity/.

We endorse the principles of Athena Swan https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/humanresources/equalitydiversity/athenaswan/ and hold bronze, silver and gold awards across the University.

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