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Alastair Owens

3 months ago

Music and lived experiences in non-elite English homes Queen Mary University of London with the Museum of the Home in United Kingdom

I am recruiting a fully funded PhD student for a project on music and domestic life in English homes, 1780–1870.

Queen Mary University of London

United Kingdom

May 23, 2026

Keywords

Sociology
Geography
History
Musicology
Historical Geography
Literature
English Literature
Museum Studies
Home Economics
Cultural History
Popular Music

Description

I am looking for a PhD student for a 4-year, fully funded, collaborative doctoral studentship with the Museum of the Home. Drop me a line if you are interested:

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) studentship
Soundscapes of domesticity: music and lived experiences in non-elite English homes, 1780–1870

Queen Mary University of London with the Museum of the Home

The deadline for applications is: 1700 BST, Friday 23 May 2025
Interviews will be held during the week commencing: Monday 2 June 2025

Queen Mary University of London and the Museum of the Home are pleased to announce the availability of a fully-funded Collaborative Doctoral Studentship from October 2025 under the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) scheme. The studentship is funded for four years full-time, or up to eight years part-time.

Project overview and key aims
This project will explore the significance of music to lived experiences in non-elite English homes from the late-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Focusing on examples of different types of home from working-class cottages to petit-bourgeois households, lodging houses and institutional homes, it aims to provide understanding of the role played by music in relation to three key areas of domestic experience: (i) how music was entwined with embodied domestic practices and how it shaped expressive responses, emotional capacities and movement within the home; (ii) how music enabled and sustained familial relationships and other domestic social interactions; and (iii) how music connected homes to the places around them, and the commercial, social, cultural and political networks of the wider world.

Alongside a PhD thesis presenting original new research on a neglected area of historical and musicological investigation, the findings of the project will contribute to the Museum of the Home’s redisplay of its eighteenth and earlier nineteenth-century period rooms. The production of musical soundtracks for museum visitors and the organisation of a ‘Festival-Symposium’ on ‘Music in the Home’, with contributions from researchers, curators and musicians, will be additional outputs.

This project will be jointly supervised by Alastair Owens (Professor of Historical Geography), and Matthew Ingleby (Lecturer in Victorian Literature) at Queen Mary; and, at the Museum of the Home, by Louis Platman (Curator and Research Manager) and Gaynor Tutani (Creative Programming Officer).

For further details and the application process: https://lnkd.in/ebREJ_Wt


For enquiries, or an informal discussion, please contact Alastair Owens ( [email protected] )

Funding

The studentship is fully funded for four years full-time (or up to eight years part-time) under the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership scheme. It covers tuition fees at the UKRI home rate (£5,006 for 2025/26), a tax-free stipend of £22,780 per year (including London weighting), plus a CDP maintenance payment of £600 per year. An additional travel and related expenses grant of up to £1,000 per year for four years is provided. International students receive the full stipend but must pay the d

How to apply

Visit https://lnkd.in/ebREJ_Wt for full details and application instructions. Prepare your application materials and submit by 17:00 BST, Friday 23 May 2025. For informal enquiries, contact Alastair Owens at [email protected].

Requirements

Applicants should have a strong academic background in history, musicology, literature, geography, or a related discipline. A first or upper second class undergraduate degree (or equivalent) is typically required, and a relevant master's degree is desirable but not essential. Candidates must meet UKRI eligibility criteria for home or international status. International students must pay the difference between home and international tuition fees. Excellent written and oral communication skills, research experience, and an interest in interdisciplinary work are preferred. The studentship can be studied full-time or part-time.

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