PhD position Jewish diasporas (The Invention of the Refugee in Early Modern Europe)
- Project description
This PhD project on Jewish diasporas is one of five closely-related projects, which together aim to analyse the invention of the refugee in early modern Europe. Funded through a VICI-grant of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the programme seeks to achieve three inter-related objectives:
- to explain the emergence of the refugee as a social category in European society. It will map when, where and why particular migrants started to describe themselves as refugees and trace the models (religious, political, legal) of such discursive strategies;
- to identify the agency of displaced religious minorities in forging transnational solidarity networks. By studying how diasporic communities organized themselves, this project reveals the significance of refugees in shaping media coverage, initiating humanitarian interventions and promoting a new emotional culture that focused on empathy and
- to uncover the impact of refugees on European state formation. This project will examine how the protection and accommodation of displaced men and women interacted with the ambitions of early modern authorities to expand their territories and forge confessional regimes
You will study objectives 1 and 2 by focusing on the agency of displaced Jewish minorities in 16th and 17th century Europe. You will work closely with … read more