Interested in researching the cultural imaginary of environmental violence in a vibrant interdisciplinary team? Join the ERC Consolidator Grant project “Ecologies of Violence: Crimes against Nature in the Contemporary Cultural Imagination [EcoViolence]” as a PhD candidate!

Your job
As a PhD candidate you will be working on a subproject within the Consolidator Grant project EcoViolence (2024–2029) funded by the European Research Council (ERC) and directed by Dr Susanne C. Knittel (Principal Investigator, PI) at the department of Languages, Literature, and Communication. EcoViolence is an interdisciplinary, transnational, and comparative study of the cultural imaginary of environmental violence. The project’s aim is to understand how contemporary culture frames and remembers environmental degradation as violence; how it can make visible the deep historical roots that tie eco-violence to other histories of violence, especially colonialism and genocide; and how it articulates and reflects on questions of guilt, responsibility, and implication. EcoViolence will bring together research in cultural memory studies and ecocriticism in order to develop an innovative ecological model for the study of violence, its memory and representation. Furthermore, the project explores how these representations harness affect and emotion to promote critical self-reflection. The project focuses on narrative and visual media and takes a comparative, multilingual, and media-specific approach.

Position 1: Poetics of Eco-violence
This subproject will contribute to recent scholarship on eco-poetics by exploring the aesthetic, political, and affective affordances of literature, specifically poetry, for representing eco-violence, past and ongoing. Special attention will be paid to how contemporary poets are reimagining genres and poetic conventions to represent the multidirectional links between eco-violence, genocide, and colonialism. The subproject will explore the interaction between poetry and activism, social and environmental justice, focusing particularly on how contemporary eco-poetry frames questions of guilt, responsibility, and implication. The approach will be transnational/transcultural and multilingual, and the methodology will be comparative analysis and close reading, coupled with discourse analysis. The PhD will draw on recent scholarship in cultural memory studies, ecocriticism – specifically eco-poetics, and affective formalism to analyse the literary and poetic techniques, as well as the formal affordances of these texts. The subproject will also consider how poetry reflects on the role of language in perpetuating as well as resisting eco-violence.

Position 2: Images of Eco-violence
This subproject will focus on the aesthetic, political, and affective dimensions of contemporary documentary film. It will contribute to current debates on the role of visual culture in representing eco-violence and its links to other histories and structures of violence. As an investigative genre par excellence, based on a discourse of evidence, truth, and social representation, documentaries are a particularly fruitful site for the representation of large-scale violence and a critical engagement with questions of guilt, responsibility, and implication. The corpus will consist of a range of different types of documentaries: from mainstream productions to more experimental, independent films. The approach will be transnational/transcultural and multilingual, and the methodology will be comparative, visual, and media analysis as well as discourse analysis. The PhD will draw on recent scholarship in cultural memory studies, ecocriticism – specifically eco-cinema, and affect theory to analyse the cinematic and rhetorical techniques, as well as the use of mediation, remediation, testimony, data, and evidence in these films. The PhD will furthermore explore the place of these films within a larger media ecology, focusing especially on the growing number of environmental film festivals.

Each PhD candidate will have the following tasks and responsibilities:

• conducting research for and completing a PhD thesis within the period of appointment;
• publishing one peer-reviewed journal article or book chapter within the period of appointment;
• co-editing one special journal issue with the PI;
• helping with the organization of workshops and an international conference;
• participating in project meetings, and closely collaborating with the other members of the research team;
• helping with setting up and managing project data;
• assisting with knowledge dissemination and other activities of the project;
• presenting research results at national and international workshops and conferences;
• participating in the ICON and Faculty of Humanities PhD training programmes.

The PhD researchers will be embedded within the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON) and affiliated with the Utrecht Forum for Memory Studies and the Network for Environmental Humanities.

General qualifications:

• You hold a Master’s degree in a relevant field (e.g. comparative literature, film and media studies, cultural analysis) at the time of appointment.
• You have excellent command of spoken and written English.
• You have very good reading and speaking ability of at least one of the following languages: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch. Knowledge of other world languages is desirable but not required.
• You have outstanding research skills as evidenced in strong BA and MA transcripts.
• You have demonstrable knowledge of and experience with relevant research methods such as literary and visual analysis, cultural analysis, historical research, etc.
• You have a demonstrable grounding in one or more of the research fields central to the project: cultural memory studies, ecocriticism, postcolonial or decolonial theory, affect theory, posthumanism.
• You have team spirit and experience working in an interdisciplinary, international setting.
• You are willing to travel abroad for research stays, conferences and workshops.
• You have strong interpersonal, analytical and organisational skills.

We offer:

• a position for 18 months - after positive evaluation the position will be extended for the remaining period of 30 months (four years in total);
• a working week of 38 hours and a gross monthly salary between €2,770 and €3,539 in the case of full-time employment (salary scale P under the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU));
• 8% holiday pay and 8.3% year-end bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave and flexible terms of employment based on the CAO NU.

PhD candidates have free access to courses offered by the Graduate School of Humanities and the Dutch National Research Schools.

In addition to the terms of employment laid down in the CAO NU, Utrecht University has a number of schemes and facilities of its own for employees. This includes schemes facilitating professional development, leave schemes and schemes for sports and cultural activities, as well as discounts on software and other IT products. We also offer access to additional employee benefits through our Terms of Employment Options Model. In this way, we encourage our employees to continue to invest in their growth. For more information, please visit Working at Utrecht University.

Universiteit Utrecht

A better future for everyone. This ambition motivates our scientists in executing their leading research and inspiring teaching. At Utrecht University, the various disciplines collaborate intensively towards major strategic themes. Our focus is on Dynamics of Youth, Institutions for Open Societies, Life Sciences and Pathways to Sustainability. Sharing science, shaping tomorrow.

The Faculty of Humanities has around 7,000 students and 1,100 staff members. It comprises four knowledge domains: Philosophy and Religious Studies, History and Art History, Media and Culture Studies, and Languages, Literature and Communication. With its research and education in these fields, the Faculty aims to contribute to a better understanding of the Netherlands and Europe in a rapidly changing social and cultural context. The enthusiastic and committed colleagues and the excellent amenities in the historical city centre of Utrecht, where the faculty is located, contribute to an inspiring working environment.

For more information, please contact Dr Susanne C. Knittel at s.c.knittel@uu.nl.

Candidates for this vacancy will be recruited by Utrecht University.