University awarded funding for Sherlock Holmes research project in partnership with Portsmouth Museums
The University of Chichester is delighted to announce its successful new partnership with Portsmouth Museums and Portsmouth Libraries and Archives to research its world leading Conan Doyle Collection.
Originally collected by Lancelyn Green, the collection consists of 40,000 archives, 16,000 books and 3,000 objects related to the father of Sherlock Holmes.
Professor Hugo Frey, Professor of Visual and Cultural History, has been awarded the Collaborative Doctoral Award grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in partnership with the Museum, Library and Archive service, and said: “This is a vast archive. Truly unique. The challenge is conceptual. To find one original and manageable way of gaining research value from such an incredible resource.
“What we want to focus on for this grant is the visual depiction of Sherlock Holmes, that is how he has been represented as a figure in art, film posters, illustrations, movies, and even comic books and other graphic narratives. The idea of Sherlock Holmes has always been more than about just the words on the page.”
The question of how image-making has shaped the reception of Doyle’s detective also allows the research to chart how these multiple versions of Sherlock Holmes have changed over time.
Hugo added: “It will be fascinating to potentially see the different materials held in the collection, for example, comparing the patriotic materials of the Second World War version of Sherlock Holmes with very different subsequent examples such as in the 1960s.”
The grant to be awarded to the University is the AHRC collaborative doctoral award, a four-year funded PhD programme in which the appointed studentship not only gains from academic supervision but also will be able to get vital professional experience being located in the museum and library setting of the Portsmouth Museums’ unique collection.
It is the first collaborative doctoral award allocated to the Humanities at the University by the AHRC which funds world-class independent research.
