The Amsterdam School of Historical Studies invites applications for a PhD position at the Faculty of Humanities, tenable from 1 September 2020 (4 years, 1 FTE).

What are you going to do?

Tasks 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 Faculty of Humanities PhD training programme;
• teaching courses at BA-level in the 2nd and 3rd year of the contract (0,2 FTE per year).

• A completed Master’s degree in a field relevant to the proposed PhD project and the research areas of ASH (eg. History, Art History, Religious Studies, Classics, Modern Languages, Philosophy). 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 and relevant research languages.
• excellent research skills.

Fixed-term contract: 16 months.

The PhD candidate at the Faculty of Humanities will be employed within ASH. 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 of Historical Studies

The wide range of research in the Humanities at the University of Amsterdam is organised in five research schools, which together form the Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research (AIHR). Each school covers an important research area within the Faculty of Humanities. In addition, the faculty also participates in an interfaculty research institute: the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC). Each research school/institute covers an important research area within the faculty and has its own research programme. Research schools/institute are also 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/institute.

The Amsterdam School of Historical Studies (ASH) represents and fosters the study of the human past from Antiquity to the present day. It brings together more than 200 academics from Amsterdam’s Faculty of Humanities, who participate in ca. 25 research groups. ASH does not limit itself to a particular period, discipline or method, but integrates a variety of (inter)disciplinary perspectives, including history, history of art, literature and religious studies. It encourages collaborations between scholars along thematic lines (e.g. Religion, the City, Conflict), geographical focus (e.g. Mediterranean History,  American Studies, Modern Germany) and in terms of period (e.g. Antiquity, the Middle Ages, Early Modern and Modern History).