The Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM), one of the six research schools at the Faculty of Humanities, currently has a vacant Postdoctoral position as part of the NWO VIDI Project ‘Mapping Transnational Conflict Heritage, Radio Collections in Europe, 1930-1960’, led by Dr Carolyn Birdsall.

In Mapping Transnational Conflict Heritage, the central aim is to trace the ways in which radio sound collections were archived, circulated and used during and after World War II. The project takes the impact of conflict on media as its central theme, and proposes to develop a framework for studying how media collections became a form of transnational conflict heritage, namely by examining processes of transformation, relocation and valorisation.

The postdoc project explores how digitised (meta)data about European radio collections can be best integrated and analysed using digital tools, and contributes to discussions conducted within the fields of media history, digital humanities and data visualisation. In order to do so, the postdoc role involves experimenting with and critically evaluating available digital tools for the project’s structured (meta)data (i.e. tool criticism), and then using selected tools to work on enriching the data and visualising historical developments over time and space (i.e. data visualisation).

You will work closely with two subprojects, which each examine case studies in Central Eastern Europe (PhD) and Western Europe (PI). You will collaborate with the project team in charting the historical creation and dislocation of broadcast radio recordings in Europe, as part of the project’s overall goal in ‘mapping’ transnational conflict heritage.

Your tasks include:

• contributing to creating the project’s online repository (and linked-data map);
• presentation of intermediate research results at (inter)national workshops and conferences;
• delivering a number of publications directly related to the ‘Mapping Transnational Conflict Heritage’ project in international journals and/or as chapters with leading presses;
• participation in meetings of the project research group;
• assisting with organisational matters connected to the project, such as conference co-organisation.

We expect you to have:

• a completed doctoral degree in a discipline with clear relevance to the research project (e.g. history, media studies, digital humanities, information studies, data science);
• excellent research skills;
• excellent written and spoken English;
• proven experience with digital humanities, with competence in network analysis and data visualisation;
• strong cooperative attitude and willingness to engage in collaborative research and knowledge dissemination activities;
• strong organizational skills. 

The appointment will be for 32 hours per week for a maximum period of three years at the Department of Media Studies of the Faculty of Humanities. The research will be carried out under the aegis of AHM. The appointment is initially for a period of 12 months; contingent on satisfactory performance it will be extended by a maximum of 24 months. The intended starting date of the contract is 1 August 2019. The gross monthly salary (on a full-time basis) will range from €3,303 during the first year to €3,916 during the third year, in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities, supplemented with an 8% holiday allowance and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus. Because we value your continued personal development and professionalisation, we also offer excellent opportunities for study and development.  

University of Amsterdam

With over 5,000 employees, 30,000 students and a budget of more than 600 million euros, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is an intellectual hub within the Netherlands. Teaching and research at the UvA are conducted within seven faculties: Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, Law, Science, Medicine and Dentistry. Housed on four city campuses in or near the heart of Amsterdam, where disciplines come together and interact, the faculties have close links with thousands of researchers and hundreds of institutions at home and abroad.  

The UvA’s students and employees are independent thinkers, competent rebels who dare to question dogmas and aren’t satisfied with easy answers and standard solutions. To work at the UvA is to work in an independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society.

http://www.uva.nl/en/home

Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM)

The Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM) fosters a dynamic, interdisciplinary and transnational research of heritage and memory, organizes PhD training, seminars, reading groups, workshops, public debates, and international conferences, and stimulates scholarly cooperation in an international setting.

http://ahm.uva.nl/