(This is part of a series of conversations I’ve had with PhD students, doctors and teachers here at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History in Lund during the summer of 2022. For some the original conversation were in English, but for some in Swedish. When that’s the case I’ve published a translation as well, and any faults or strange word choices are to be considered mine. You’ll find the Swedish original here.)
Hampus Olsson has a PhD from the department and presented his thesis Cultural and socio-political development in south Etruria in October 2021. Since the doctoral conferment ceremony is only once a year, he received his laurel wreath and ring together with Fanny Kärfve in June 2022.
Hampus is teaching a summer course on ancient history and it’s relevance to us today that is running for the first time this year and he took the time to talk to me about his experience of applying for a PhD. When asked how he feels now that everything was done, the answer was ”compared to the joy I felt when I got the PhD position, it’s more of a relief now” and when Hampus told me about the turns his dissertation has taken, I understand him. Since it has been a while since the dissertation, I started by asking Hampus about his plans for the future. Here is a summary of our conversation.
”What are you doing right now and what’s next?”
”There’s a lot going on now. During the summer I’m teaching the summer course on Ancient history and it’s relevance today, and in September I have a research lectureship at the Swedish Institute in Rome where I’ll be working on a couple of different projects. At the moment I am finalising an application for a pilot study for a field project on Blera. There is a city plateau that has been abandoned so it is possible to study the ancient city, urbanisation and the movement of the city centre. Within the research lectureship there will also be a historical project on identity creation and collective memory during the reign of Augustus. This is the topic that my thesis should have been about from the beginning.”
”How did you go about applying for the PhD position and why did you change your dissertation topic?”
”When I finished my master’s degree, I was lucky that four positions in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History were advertised at the same time, and none of them at my home university (Uppsala). So I applied for all four. It took about three months of all the free time I could carve out from my full-time job as a bartender to write it, and many rewrites along the way.
”While working on my master’s thesis, I had come across the Etruscan priesthood that Augustus incorporated into Roman historiography, and with that topic I was able to use much of the knowledge I had gained during my master’s thesis. It was to be the basis of my thesis but after working on it for a semester I got very stuck. I felt that the sources would not be enough for a whole thesis.
”So, in consultation with my supervisor, I changed the topic to another part of Etruscan history. I had been working with a PhD student in Uppsala documenting Etruscan tombs, and during fieldwork I was thinking about how a small cultural area was affected by the expansion of Rome. It took a long time to get into the new subject and get a picture of what was connected. There was so much more material to go through and this contributed to the delay of the thesis.”
”How did you deal with it when the thesis needed more time?”
”I applied for grants and was lucky enough to get them, from the faculty, foundations, the The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities (Vitterhetsakademien), and the Swedish Institute in Rome. It is quite laborious to write applications but it can be worth it. The scholarship world in Lund and Uppsala is large, so as a student here there are many to apply for.”
”Do you have any advice for those who want to try a PhD application?”
”If you find a niche you’re interested in during your master’s thesis, you’ll have help from that research in your application. Go to all the seminars you can and show your interest early, it makes it easier to ask questions later. It’s the single most important thing you can do for your degree and after it. Also apply outside your home university and take help where you can get it.
”Doing a digging internship is another tip. It’s harder as a student of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History to get that experience during your master’s studies, but it’s important to have an understanding of archaeology before interpreting the material for your research.
”Classical Archaeology and Ancient History is a research-oriented subject from the start but don’t forget about modern languages, they are needed if you are going to do research. Almost all research on the Etruscans is written in Italian, for example.”
”You are an active part of a network in your field too, would you like to tell us about it?”
”It’s a network for Etruscanology, pre-Roman archaeology and Italian cultures – a network for students at Swedish universities who have that as their research focus and the idea is that it will act as a bridge between the institute in Rome and the students. We have discussions on thesis topics, text seminars for master theses (similar to the final seminar for PhD theses) and it is now national and has about 20 active students. When fieldwork comes up, we broker those contacts as well. The network was started by Fredrik Tobin-Dodd, who was the PhD student I helped with the Etruscan tombs.”
Thank you Hampus for taking the time to answer questions and good luck with the new position in Rome!