Course description
During CC1 PhD candidates who have just started their project are introduced to the broad field of professional cultural history. In six sessions, they meet their peers and various inspiring experts to build their national network and reflect on the methods, theories and practices in the field, on interdisciplinarity, and the relevance of their own work. They learn to better position their project in a highly interdisciplinary environment, and to access experts and expertise that might be relevant to their project’s success. All in all, the course aims to help them fulfil the transition from being a student to a professional historian. The course is concluded by a position paper of 2-3000 words that builds towards their end-of-year go/no-go chapter. At the end of the course, students have joined or committed to organise a working group of Huizinga members, which functions as a sounding board throughout the remainder of their PhD. This course is open to beginning PhD candidates only.
Programme
The programme will consist of 7 sessions on Wednesday afternoons between end of January 2026 and mid-March 2026; exact schedule will follow soon. All sessions will be in Utrecht.
- Session 1: Kickoff session (Arnoud Visser)
- Session 2: Working in Cultural History
- Session 3: Positioning Your Research
- Session 4: Getting the Question Right, and Answering It
- Session 5: Interdisciplinarity as a Challenge
- Session 6: Skills for Creating Impact
- Session 7: Final session (Arnoud Visser) devoted to discussing participants’ papers and closing discussion
