[ecrea] Bill Douglas PhD studentship award

*College** of Humanities, Department of English: Film at the University 
of Exeter*

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*A Doctoral Studentship Funded by the Bill Douglas and Peter Jewell Trust*

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*About the award*

Funded by the Bill Douglas and Peter Jewell Trust, the Department of 
English in the College of Humanities is offering £4000 per annum for 
doctoral research on the work of filmmaker Bill Douglas, particularly 
the production of /Comrades/, released in 1987.

The Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture is 
an accredited public museum and a research facility for scholars. It 
holds over 70,000 artefacts related to the broad history of the moving 
image and its founding collection was put together by the renowned 
filmmaker Bill Douglas and his friend Peter Jewell. The Centre plays an 
important role in teaching and research at the University of Exeter.

The successful candidate for this studentship will be studying in the 
University's Department of English, rated number one in the UK in the 
last research assessment exercise in 2008. The project will be 
supervised by Dr Dan North, the British cinema specialist in the 
department, and the successful applicant will benefit from a diverse and 
vibrant research culture.

*The research topic *

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This studentship offers the opportunity to work on previously 
unavailable primary sources in researching the work of Bill Douglas, one 
of Britain's most important and influential filmmakers. The successful 
candidate will study draft scripts and production correspondence around 
/Comrades/ and will write a doctoral thesis using this material on the 
film and its production. In doing so, the candidate will work closely 
with the curatorial team at The Bill Douglas Centre and, as part of the 
project, will accession and catalogue scripts, correspondence and other 
material onto the Centre's database (or archival management system). The 
candidate will also have the opportunity to interview Peter Jewell and 
others involved in the production in order to understand Bill Douglas's 
distinctive working practices.  The study will also consider the 
background of British film culture in the 1980s and should make a 
valuable contribution to the understanding of British cinema and its 
contexts in this period. The successful candidate will disseminate 
research findings in publications, conference papers, and through 
exhibition displays and digital media.

This project has the potential to produce ground-breaking research on 
one of Britain's greatest and most distinctive cinematic artists. 2011 
marks the twentieth anniversary of Bill Douglas's death and the launch 
of this study is one of the ways in which the Centre will commemorate 
Bill Douglas, his life and his work. We hope that the doctoral project 
on /Comrades/ will lead to further research on Bill's archive. This 
could emerge from the progress of the initial project and discussions 
with Peter Jewell about the donation of further material relating to 
Bill's life and career, and from successful bids to other research 
funders upon completion of this advertised project.

*Summary*

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*Funded by *The Bill Douglas and Peter Jewell Trust

*Application Deadline *Friday 1^st July 2011

*Number of Awards *1

*Value *£4000 per annum

*Duration of Award *3 years full-time -- part-time options could be 
negotiated with appropriate candidates.

For details on how to apply please go to 
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/studying/funding/award/?id=605

Phil Wickham

Curator

The Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture

University of Exeter

Old Library

Prince of Wales Road

Exeter

Devon

EX4 4SB

01392 724321

(P.J.Wickham /at/ exeter.ac.uk) <mailto:(P.J.Wickham /at/ exeter.ac.uk)>