PhD position, project: LangPro Women in the Early Modern Language Sector
The LangPro project examines the notion of the language sector in early modern North-West Europe: that part of early modern societies and economies which relied primarily on language skills. The early modern period saw a swift increase in occupational opportunities for men and women who possessed language skills such as reading, writing, and text editing in one or more languages. However, since language professionals have never been studied as a separate category in the early modern workforce, the possibilities that existed for linguistically skilled individuals remain a big unknown. LangPro’s central research question is: What professional, financial, and social opportunities did the early modern language sector offer to men and women in the Low Countries, France, the German lands, and England, between 1550 and 1650? Laying the groundwork for a new research domain on the history of the language sector, the project team will develop a prosopographical database that makes it possible to gain insight into the characteristics of professionals in the past whose core business was language and the nature of the sector that employed them.
PhD position: Women in the Early Modern Language Sector
The PhD candidate will conduct a collective analysis of a selection of early modern female language professionals from England, the Low Countries, France, and the German lands to explore to what extent women could benefit from employment in the language industry. Although women (with only a few exceptions) did not have access to academic education, language skills offered them a way to pursue intellectual professions, such as translator or language teacher. For each of these women, The PhD will examine their biographical data, personal writings, and correspondence in order to find patterns in the language skills they professed, the ways in which they found and secured employment, and the financial and social benefits they obtained through their language work. Besides working on this individual research project, the PhD candidate will also collaborate with other team members in the LangPro project to build a database on early modern language professionals.
The PhD candidate will be working within the ERC Starting Grant research project LangPro, funded for 2026-2031 by the European Research Council, and directed by dr. Alisa van de Haar (university lecturer in historical French literature at Leiden University). Prof. Nadine Akkerman (professor in early modern literature and culture at Leiden University) will be the co-supervisor of the PhD candidate.
Deadline for application: 15 February 2026