DECADOCS is a pioneering research and training programme enabled by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Networks (MSCA-DN) aimed at reinterpreting the concept of decadence. Traditionally associated with decline, decadence will be explored through new perspectives, focusing on sustainability, transnationalism, and sensoriality. The programme offers tailored intersectoral training in collaboration with museums, archives, galleries, and other partners, reinforcing its scientific and social impact.
‘Decadent Travellers and the Reception of Classical Antiquity in the Nineteenth Century’
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Goldsmiths, University of London and University of Galway
Decadent Travellers and the Reception of Classical Antiquity, will investigate the development of a decadent version of the Grand Tour in the late-nineteenth century, informed by the reception of classical antiquity in the period. The successful candidate will be jointly supervised throughout their degree by Dr Isobel Hurst (Goldsmiths) and Dr Muireann O’Cinneide (Galway). The project will develop a chronological cultural framework for decadence and the reception of antiquity in nineteenth-century travel writings as well as identifying a wide-ranging and diverse corpus of European and Asian travel writings engaged with antiquity. It will explore the ‘moral cartography’ (c.f. Murray, Landscapes of Decadence (2016)) established by travellers’ textual performances of decadence in locations associated with classical degeneration and excess. As such, the project seeks to establish a distinctive cultural and geographic framework for Southern Italy and in particular the city of Naples as key locations for the articulation of counter-cultural sexualities and for colonial/anti-colonial/nationalist discourses.
The researcher will be enrolled in a double doctoral degree from two institutions: the University of Galway, Ireland and Goldsmiths, University of London. The successful candidate will be required to move to Galway for the first 24 months of the project (January 2026 – 31st December 2027), where they will undergo graduate training under the Structured Ph.D. in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences programme. In this period they will establish the foundations of their doctoral research and complete the first of two training secondments, in which they will gain experience in the region’s cultural industries. They will then move to London to complete the next 24 months of the project in Goldsmiths, where they will complete their PhD thesis and other network activities as well as the second of two secondments, obtaining editorial experience with Volupté (an interdisciplinary Open Access scholarly journal of Decadence Studies).
Duties include:
- Archival and print research
- Compiling and disseminating research findings into conference and other presentations, other scholarly and popular dissemination outputs, and a PhD thesis
- Building a database of decadent travel writing together with an interactive online map
- Engaging with DECADOCS networking activities and training, including organising doctoral online workshops and symposia.
Supervisors
Muireann O’Cinneide, University of Galway
Isobel Hurst, Goldsmiths University
DECADOCS 