Founded in 2018, the Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities (Centro per la Storia dell’Arte e dell’Architettura delle Città Portuali) is a collaboration between the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas, Franklin University Switzerland, and the Amici di Capodimonte.
Housed in “La Capraia”, a rustic eighteenth-century agricultural building at the heart of the Bosco di Capodimonte, the Center engages the museum and the city of Naples as a laboratory for new research in the cultural histories of port cities and the mobilities of artworks, people, technologies, and ideas. Global in scope, research at the Center is grounded in direct study of objects, sites, collections, and archives in Naples and southern Italy. Through research residencies for advanced graduate students, small field seminars, and larger programs organized with partner institutions, the Center fosters research on Naples and southern Italy as a site of cultural encounter, exchange, and transformation, and cultivates a network of scholars working at the intersection of the global and the local.
The Advisory Committee of the Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia” invites applications for Research Residencies for PhD students in the earlier stages of their dissertations. Projects, which may be interdisciplinary, may focus on art and architectural history, music history, archeology, the digital humanities, or related fields, from antiquity to the present. Projects should address the cultural histories of Naples and southern Italy as a center of exchange, encounter, and transformation, and, most importantly, make meaningful use of local research materials including artworks, sites, archives, and libraries.
This year’s Research Residencies will run for the 2023-2024 academic year, from 11 September 2023 through 3 June 2024. Research Residents will be granted free lodging at La Capraia (private bedroom/study/bath and communal study/living/kitchen spaces) and a modest stipend of 6,500 EUR, administered by the Amici di Capodimonte, to help defray the cost of living. The Center will help Research Residents arrange access to collections, sites, archives, and libraries as needed for their projects; at Capodimonte, we will arrange access to collections and research resources insofar as it is possible during the museum’s upcoming closure for renovation. During their time in Naples, Research Residents are expected to work on their projects full time and in residence, and to participate in the organized activities, scholarly programs, and intellectual life of the Center. In the spring semester, Research Residents will be invited to present their research in an informal seminar, gallery talk, or site visit. In the summer following the residency period, Research Residents will be invited to contribute a short essay to the Center’s annual research report.
Residents will be responsible for obtaining appropriate visas (the Center will provide official letters of support) and for providing proof of health insurance. Residents must arrange their own travel to and from Naples. Because the Center is housed within an Italian institution, all residents are required to follow government COVID-19 regulations in effect during the residency period. We strongly recommend that all residents be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before arriving in Naples.
We welcome applications from advanced doctoral students of any nationality. Applicants are invited to submit a letter of interest, a CV, and a research proposal of 1,000-1,500 words that frames the central questions, methods, and scholarly contributions of project, and describes the resources that will be used while on site in and around Naples. Materials should be sent in a single PDF file (with last name as the title of the file) to Center Coordinator, Dott.ssa Francesca Santamaria (francesca.santamaria@utdallas.edu). In addition, applicants must invite three recommenders to send letters of support directly to the same email address. All materials, including letters of recommendation, are due by January 31, 2023.
Learn more about the Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia” at https://arthistory.utdallas.edu/port-cities/. Learn about our Research Residencies at https://arthistory.utdallas.edu/port-cities/residencies/. View past and upcoming scholarly programs at https://arthistory.utdallas.edu/port-cities/programs/.
Download an overview of La Capraia at https://arthistory.utdallas.edu/port-cities/La_Capraia_Overview.pdf
Medieval Art Research 