100% PhD position in the Group of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts of KU Leuven, Early Modern Research Group, Crossroads Reearch Centre, in the project entitled "Globalisation and the Spread of Disease across Maritime (South-)East Asia, during an Era of Environmental Stress (1560 to 1850)", focus on Taiwan and Dutch Batavia, and their links to coastal China, the Ryukyu Islands, Japan, and Luzon.
Research: The PhD will analyse, under close consideration of human-environment interactions, the spread of infectious diseases into and across early modern Taiwan, especially during the Dutch and Spanish periods, and investigate local healing strategies.
Database: Active engagement in and contribution to our project database is required.
Further activities/fieldwork: Active participation in the team’s international and research dissemination activities as well as preparedness for archival fieldwork are expected.
Publications: The completion of a PhD dissertation and the publication of at least one A1/A2 article is obligatory.
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Project
In this project, we look at Taiwan and the Ryukyu Archipelago, and their connections to major (South-) East Asian port cities, to examine maritime disease transmission patterns, local healthcare and crisis management in face of epidemic outbreaks, and transcultural medical knowledge transfers be-tween commercial centres and island societies. Thereby, we want to answer the following questions: 1) Was the transmission of infectious diseases rather prompted by increasing mobility or by natural environmental factors? 2) How did local societies (a) manage epidemic outbreaks, and (b) which medical treatments did they adopt? What foreign medical knowledge was transferred and how was it integrated into local practices? Results will provide us with innovative insights into the positive and negative effects of the early modern ‘medical globalisation’ on formerly more isolated island populations and on transcultural knowledge transfer between Asian and European medical practices.
The PhD thesis will analyse Dutch, Chinese, and, where necessary, Spanish texts to produce an overview of the available data related to (epidemic) disease, health management, and medicine in Taiwan. The Taiwanese situation will finally be contextualised in the wider China Seas network by connecting it with Dutch Asia, above all Dutch Batavia, and, where necessary, with the Dutch trading post of Deshima off Nagasaki port, with China (particularly Fujian), and the Spanish Philippines. Special focus will be laid on the transcultural transfer of medical knowledge between Dutch and Chinese medicine and local medical traditions.
The candidate populates an existing database with more strictly project-related data and is supported by geoinformaticians with data analysis and medical maps.
Profile
Master degree in History or a comparable master’s degree in another discipline, with a focus on Chinese or Asian history, the history of science, (ethno-)medicine.
You possess an excellent command of pre-modern and modern Chinese and Dutch and are fluent in English. Good skills in IT and GIS technology, basic competencies in Japanese and/or one additional European language (such as French or Spanish), and proficiency in the history of Chinese medicine are a plus.
Offer
Applications should include a cv, diplomas, two reference letters, a research plan (approx. 2-3 pages), with a brief bibliography, in which the applicant introduces his/her research, demonstrates how he/she plans to contribute to the project, and how he/she thinks to address and analyse the topic. The starting date is negotiable, depending on the ability of the successful candidate also earlier or later than 01 June 2025.
The successful candidate must be open for new methodological approaches and is closely cooperating with other team members of the project as well as the ERC AdG project TRANSPACIFIC project. Working language will be English. We offer an excellent opportunity to work in international inter- and transdisciplinary research project, with a global network of scholars working on various aspects of historical disease transmission, health management, healing methods, and, more generally, the history of (ethno-)medicine.
Project website
Related project on the spread of disease and historical health management
Related project with a focus on the transpacific spread of disease, medical knowledge transfer, healing mehtods, and drug trade
Interested?
For more information please contact Prof. dr. Angela Schottenhammer, tel.: +32 16 33 06 33, mail: angela.schottenhammer@kuleuven.be or Mr. Wim De Winter, tel.: +32 16 32 87 72, mail: wim.dewinter@kuleuven.be.
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