Two new PhD candidates will conduct their research at the Radboud Institute for Culture and History (RICH) with support from NWO, as part of the PhD programme in the Humanities. In their projects they will shed new light on how and why sensory and emotional human-animal relationships changed between 1840-1930 in an urban context and on emotions and emotional shifts in Roman slaveholders’ discourses on slavery.
The aim of the PhDs in the Humanities Programme is to give a boost to the supply and promotion of young talent in the humanities. The programme is funded by the Programme Office Sustainable Humanities and the NWO Domain Social Sciences and Humanities.
Two of the awardees will conduct their research at the Radboud Institute for Culture and History (RICH). Main applicant of the project Faithful friends and filthy foes. A sensory and emotional history of human-animal interactions in Amsterdam (1840-1930) is prof. Jan Hein Furnée. The PhD candidate is Jenna The. The other project is titled Uncovering Emotions – The strains of Roman Slave Ownership. Main applicant is Olivier Hekster. The PhD candidate is Larissa Henrique dos Santos Lemos. A short description of both projects can be found below.
Faithful friends and filthy foes. A sensory and emotional history of human-animal interactions in Amsterdam (1840-1930).
Contemporary environmental problems require us to reconsider our relationship with animals. The same was necessary in the nineteenth century, when, as a result of industrialisation and urbanisation, the presence of animals in western cities created increasingly serious challenges, which were highly sensory and emotional in nature. By using the case-study of Amsterdam, this project aims to understand how and why sensory and emotional human-animal relationships changed between 1840-1930 in an urban context, by focusing on the sensory and emotional stimuli and competences that humans and animals developed in different types of human-animal relationships and material contexts.
Uncovering Emotions- The Strains of Roman Slave Ownership
Everything that happened within Roman slavery, from the purchase and sale of people, from punishments to rewards, from grants of freedom to changes in slavery laws, was accompanied by emotions. The period between the 2nd century BCE to the mid-3rd CE witnessed massive transformations in Roman slavery, and only the voices of the free, mostly slaveholders, and how they responded to slavery and its transformations survived. Uncovering Emotions focuses on emotions and emotional shifts in Roman slaveholders’ discourses on slavery. By doing so, this project hopes to shed light on how slave ownership was expressed through emotional language.
More information can be found on the NWO website.