The Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) invites applications for a PhD position at the Faculty of Humanities, tenable from 1 September 2020 (4 years, 1 FTE). We invite proposals that resonate with ASCA’s research mission and that link to one or more of ASCA’s research constellations. We are especially interested in proposals engaging the Global South.  

What are you going to do?

The tasks of the selected PhD candidate will include:

• completion and defence of a PhD thesis within the contract period;
• regular presentation of intermediate research results at workshops and conferences;
• participation in the ASCA and Faculty of Humanities PhD training programmes;
• teaching courses at BA-level in the 2nd and 3rd year of the appointment (0,2 FTE per year).

• A completed Master’s degree in a field relevant to the proposed PhD project and the research areas of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. You may apply if you have not yet completed your Master's degree only if you provide a signed letter from your supervisor stating that you will graduate before 1 September 2020;
• excellent command of English;
• excellent research skills.

Fixed-term contract: 16 months.

The PhD candidate at the Faculty of Humanities will be employed within the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. The employment contract will be for 4 years for 38 hours per week-1 FTE (including 0,2 teaching in the second and third years of the employment contract) under the terms of employment currently valid for the Faculty. Initially, a contract will be given for 16 months, with an extension for the following 32 months on the basis of a positive evaluation after 12 months. The starting date of the contract is 1 September 2020.

The salary for the position (based on a full-time contract) will be €2,325 during the first year (gross per month) and will reach €2,972 during the fourth year, in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities. The PhD candidate receives a tuition fee waiver and has free access to courses offered by the Graduate School of the Faculty of Humanities and the Dutch National Research Schools.

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.

Faculty of Humanities – Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis

The Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) is one of the six research schools/institutes under the aegis of the Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research. Each research school/institute covers an important research area within the faculty and has its own research programme. ASCA is home to more than 110 researchers and 120 PhD candidates, and is a world-leading research school in Cultural Analysis. ASCA members share a commitment to studying culture in all its forms and expressions within an interdisciplinary framework, and to maintaining a close connection with contemporary cultural and political debates.

Research schools are the home base for PhD candidates, who interact with each other and with senior members in the research groups that make up the research school (for ASCA’s research constellations, network groups and research seminars & reading groups, see our website).