13 positions for PhD students (Doctoral candidates) in the field of digital history and hermeneutics (m/f)

The Historical Institute / Center for Contemporary and Digital History University of Luxembourg has obtained a large grant from the Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg in the framework of the so-called PRIDE-program, enabling the creation of a Doctoral Training Unit (DTU) and opens up to

13 positions for PhD students (Doctoral candidates) in the field of digital history and hermeneutics (m/f)

Ref: R-STR-3067-00-B
Starting date: 15th January 2017
Duration: 14-month initial contract, extendable up to 3 years, further extendable by 1 year if required, 40 hours/week
Doctoral student status at Luxembourg University
Deadline for applications: 1st September 2016

Your Role
This DTU aims at creating an experimental trading zone for the reflection on the epistemological and methodological challenges of doing digital history / humanities research in an interdisciplinary setting. All PhD students will have to conduct their research within the conceptual framework of the DTU. Participation in the collectively organized skills trainings on digital literacy as well as active participation in the planning and organization of thematic workshops of the DTU will be required. For a detailed description of the DTU and the thematic axes see: www.dhlab.lu/digital-literacy/digital-history-hermeneutics-dtu/
Presentation of research findings at workshops and conferences
Publication of papers / scientific articles in peer-reviewed international journals
Possibility of participating in teaching activities (seminars)
Your Profile

Master’s Degree (or equivalent) in a Humanities discipline (History, Philosophy, Sociology, Linguistics, Archaeology) or related disciplines such as Geography; or in Computer Sciences, Data and Information Science, Human-Computer-Interaction and Psychology. It is possible to apply if the respective degree is to be obtained soon (details to be given in the application
Good command of written and spoken English
Dedication to actively participate in the interdisciplinary framework of the DTU
Willingness to integrate in the “experimental space” of the DTU

The University of Luxembourg offers

  • a dynamic environment with a large number of ongoing scientific activities (English as working language; additionally, French and German are accepted as literary languages for the writing of the PhD thesis)
  • a cutting edge digital research infrastructur
  • Financial support (travel allowances) for participating in scientific activities (workshops, conferences, summer schools, etc.)
  • Attractive salary and employment contract including social insurance contribution
  • Enrolment in the doctoral school of the Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education (FLSHASE) or of the Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication (FSTC) with an interesting offer of various disciplinary or interdisciplinary courses and transferable skills trainings

PhD Advisors and Research Areas

  • Ass.-Prof. Andrea Binsfeld: ancient history, slave history, roman archaeology
  • Prof. Pascal Bouvry; computer science, heuristics of search, search optimization, parallel computing
  • Ass.-Prof. Geoffrey Caruso: geovisualisation, spatial data mining, GIS, urban analysis
  • Prof. Andreas Fickers: digital history, historical epistemology, history of media and technology
  • Prof. Peter Gilles: linguistics, corpus linguistics, digital humanities, Luxembourg studies
  • Prof. Frank Hofmann: philosophy, epistemology, theories of cognition, knowledge and rationality
  • Dr. Vincent Koenig: human-computer interaction, cognitive ergonomics
  • Ass.-Prof. Benoît Majerus: European history, war studies, medical history, memory studies
  • Prof. Michel Margue: historiography, memory studies, medieval history, historical hermeneutics
  • Ass.-Prof. Christoph Schommer: data mining, data science, information retrieval, text mining
  • Ass.-Prof. Denis Scuto: contemporary history of Luxembourg, migration history, historical didactics
  • Prof. Leon van der Torre: arcificial intelligence, knowledge representation, deontic/legal reasoning, argumentation, NLP
  • Dr. Martin Uhrmacher: urban history, regional history, historical cartography, medical history

Application Documents

  • Letter of motivation containing compulsorily an explanation of the motives for participating in the DTU and of expected learning outcomes and career perspectives
  • a sketch of a research project (2 pages max) that fits into at least one of the thematic axes developed in the DTU proposal
  • an argued preference for a main supervisor out of the list of PhD advisors listed above
  • Full CV
  • Transcript of academic records and copies of diplomas
  • Names of at least two references who are willing to write a letter of recommendation on the candidate’s behalf (they may be contacted by us)

Remarks
11 of the 13 positions are funded by the Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg in the PRIDE scheme. 2 PhD positions are funded by the University.
General questions concerning the structure, intellectual agenda and organization of the DTU should be addressed to the DTU coordinator Prof. Andreas Fickers: andreas.fickers@uni.lu
Administrative questions shall be addressed to pride-gsm@uni.lu
Scientific questions should be addressed directly to the corresponding potential PhD advisor

All applications must be submitted online. Deadline: 1st of September 2016.

The University of Luxembourg is an equal opportunity employer and applications by women are especially encouraged