28 June 2017

Funded PhD opportunities Royal Holloway and Kew Gardens

Research Assistant (Mobile Museum Project) 0.8 FTE This 22 month post focusses on the educational uses of economic botany artefacts and specimens dispersed by Kew to schools across the UK in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  This will involve analysis of collection archives at Kew; investigation of the role of school museums in contemporary educational policy and pedagogic practice at both the national and local levels; and historical research on science education and the broader contexts of nature study in the period. The work undertaken will require co-authorship of a working paper and one or more publications in scholarly journals.  The research will also feed into a schools-based outreach project managed by the Learning & Participation Department at Kew, involving the creation of new museums in two London primary schools.
Closing date 9 August, details at:

PhD on papermaking & materials
Fully-funded PhD scholarship to work on 19th century papermaking and raw materials, jointly supervised by Prof. Felix Driver and Dr Mark Nesbitt. Focussing on the unrivalled collection of plant materials and manufactured papers from many parts of the world held in the Economic Botany Collection at Kew, the studentship provides an opportunity to explore the economic, cultural and technical significance of the search for alternative sources of material for paper making during the Victorian era. The PhD thesis is likely to take the form of a series of well-chosen case studies, raising wider questions concerning the formation of knowledge about raw materials, technologies and commodities.

We are open to applications from a  wide range of disciplines. Closing date is 4 August and details are at: 

14 June 2017

MEG Event: Textiles Study Day


10am – 4pm, September 29th 2017

Brighton Museum and Art Gallery

Brighton Museum have recently created a new collection of post 1960’s African dress and textiles, with the help of the Heritage Lottery Collecting Cultures Fund. The ‘Fashioning Africa’ collection provides new perspectives on the museum’s historic collection and documents changing practices, enduring traditions and new innovations in fashion and textile production on the continent.

MEG members are invited to come and view the new collection, share skills and knowledge, and explore how to identify textile techniques and practices both from Africa and further afield.  As such this event will be of interest to curators and specialists working with a broad range of textile material, not only those from Africa.

The event will be hosted by the World Art team at Brighton Museum and two invited specialists in the field; Dr GillianVogelsang-Eastwood, Textile and Dress Historian and Director of the Textile Research Centre, Leiden and Dr.Nicola Stylianou, African Textile Specialist, Collecting Panel Member for the ‘Fashioning Africa’ project and Post-Doctoral Researcher for the ‘South Coast Cosmopolitanism: Collections, Connections, Diversities’, The University of Sussex.

The first half of the day will include presentations introducing the Fashioning Africa project and collections, and the specialist’s current work. After lunch will be a hands-on session with the collection, exploring techniques and practices with the specialists and staff.


This event is a partnership event with Brighton Museum and the Museum Ethnographers Group, the event and lunch are free, but places are limited.

Curator of World Art at Brighton Museum and MEG events Officer.