Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities, Naples
Call for Applications: 2020-2021 Research Residencies


The Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities was founded in 2018 as a collaboration between the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples and the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas.

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 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 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, or related fields, from antiquity to the present. All projects must address the cultural histories of Naples and sourthern Italy as a center of exchange, encounter, and transformation, while making meaningful use of local research materials including artworks, sites, archives, and libraries.

This year, Residencies will run for 9 months (2 September 2020 – 2 June 2021). Residents will be awarded free lodging and work space at La Capraia and a modest award of 6,000 EUR, administered by the Amici di Capodimonte, to help defray the cost of living during the nine-month period. Residents will be granted privileged access to collections and research resources at the Capodimonte, and access to other sites, collections, and research materials will be arranged as needed. Residents will be responsible for obtaining appropriate visas (the Center will provide official letters of support) and for providing proof of health insurance. During their time in Naples, Residents are expected to share their research in a public lecture, gallery talk, or site visit, to participate fully in the Center’s organized activities, and at the end of the residency period to contribute a short essay to the Center’s annual research report.

We welcome applications from scholars of any nationality. Applicants are invited to submit a CV, a letter of intent, and a proposal of 1,000-1,500 words that outlines the research project and the resources that will be used in Naples. Materials should be sent in a single PDF file to Center Coordinator, Dott.ssa Francesca Santamaria (francesca.santamariautdallas.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 Saturday, February 15, 2020.

Learn more about the Center at http://www.utdallas.edu/arthistory/port-cities and view our 2018-2019 research report at https://tinyurl.com/LaCapraia2018-2019