‘Overlapping Sovereignties and Treatied Space’ - to explore how treaties created multiple and overlapping sovereign claims and counter-claims.

Treatied Spaces: Environment & Peoples in America, 1607-1890 (2 PhD Scholarships)

To celebrate the University’s research successes, the University of Hull is offering a full-time UK/EU PhD Scholarship or International Fees Bursary for candidates applying for the following project.

Closing date: - 13th March 2017

Studentships will start on 25th September 2017
Project Description A fully funded PhD bursary opportunity for a candidate with an interest in Native American Indian Studies, Colonial American History, Law, Diplomacy, International History &/or Environmental History.

Supervisory team: Dr Charles W.A. Prior (History, [Email Address Removed]), Professor John Oldfield (Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery & Emancipation, [Email Address Removed]), Dr Julia Affolderbach (Geography, [Email Address Removed])

This project looks at treaties as legal instruments for acquisition of territory on the part of settler governments, Indian groups, and by the British Crown. Reflecting the current ‘spatial turn’ influencing scholarship on colonial history and recent work re-examining the foundations of international thought, the candidate will explore how treaties created multiple and overlapping sovereign claims and counter-claims.

Potential PhD research topics could include, but are not limited to:
• The nature of diplomatic relationships between settlers, colonial governments, and Indian groups;
• The role of treaties as the means to claim and expand colonial territory;
• How Indians themselves understood treaties, and used them as a way of preserving their hunting grounds, resources and wars paths against encroachment and seizure;
• How treaties illustrate conflicts over territory between settlers and the British Crown.

The University of Hull can offer considerable research resources to support this project. The recently-refurbished Brynmor Jones Library is one of only three institutions that hold the complete 20 volume set Early American Indian Documents: Treaties and Laws, 1607-1789, (edited by Alden Vaughan). The Library’s digital holdings include all of the major journals in American and American Indian History, as well as full access to the Evans Collection of Early American Imprints, which covers every book printed in the American colonies between 1639 and 1800.

The doctoral candidate will be encouraged to cultivate relationships with a series of Indian groups, U.S. government bodies, legal entities and policy advocates. The supervisory team has extensive experience publishing on early modern Britain in global context, on the American revolution in settler context, on maps and slave migration and on environmental justice, land use and resource conflicts.
How to ApplyTo apply for these Scholarships please click on the Apply button below.

Full-time UK/EU PhD Scholarships will include fees at the ‘home/EU’ student rate and maintenance (£14,553 in 2017/18) for three years, depending on satisfactory progress.

Full-time International Fee PhD Studentships will include full fees at the International student rate for three years, dependent on satisfactory progress.

PhD students at the University of Hull follow modules for research and transferable skills development and gain a Masters level Certificate, or Diploma, in Research Training, in addition to their research degree.

Successful applicants will be informed of the award as soon as possible and by 8th May 2017 at the latest.