3 Postdoc and 3 PhD positions in contemporary history (Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History)
The University
of
Luxembourg invites applications for the following vacancies in
its Centre for
Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH)
3 Postdoc and 3 PhD positions in the field of contemporary history (M/F)
- Start date 1 October 2019
The
research project “Remixing Industrial Pasts in the Digital Age:
Sounds, Images,
Ecologies, Practices and Materialities in Space and Time” will
investigate the
contemporary history of Luxembourg’s south, the so-called
Minette region. It
will be a sustainable contribution to the program of the
European Capital of
Culture Esch-sur-Alzette 2022. Six sub-projects will study the
history of
cultures, populations and territories of the Esch 2022 region
from different
perspectives and angles. They will trace back flows and
circulations of ideas,
people and goods between Luxembourg, France, and other European
countries.
Results will be disseminated to an international scientific
public, and, most
importantly, aim at engaging a broad public through different
public history
means and digital storytelling.
The 3
postdoctoral researchers and 3 PhD students will work in
different work
packages under supervision of several members of C²DH. Principal investigator is Stefan Krebs.
All
positions will be located at the Luxembourg Centre for
Contemporary and Digital
History (C²DH), which is one of the three
Interdisciplinary Centres of Luxembourg University. The C²DH is a research
centre for the study, analysis
and public dissemination of contemporary history of Luxembourg
and Europe with
a particular focus on digital methods and tools for doing
innovative historical
research. It serves as a catalyst for innovative and creative
scholarship and
new forms of public dissemination and societal engagement with
history.
Work packages
WP 2 “The Pasts and the Futures of Industrial
Territories: Transitions, Ruptures and Recovery”
·
Postdoc,
24 months,
supervisor Karin Priem
Since the
end of the nineteenth century, industrialization and
urbanization have not only
caused deep concerns and anxieties, but also fascination. This
is also true for
Luxembourg. Starting in the 1880s, the young nation underwent a
rapid and
massive industrialization process driven by its booming mining
and
metallurgical industry. While the shaping of the industrial past
has been
subject to extensive research, this project will primarily look
at the
transformations that happened during the so-called successive
decline of the
steel industry in Luxembourg during the late 1960s, 1970s and
1980s. The
project will draw on rich photography holdings in different
Luxembourgish
archives.
WP 3 “Eat, Hear, Smell, Wear and Repair it: A
Generational Perspective on Commodities and (Sustainable)
Consumption as Means
of Connecting Cultures”
·
Postdoc,
24 months,
supervisor Stefan Krebs
The project
will describe the role of consumption in the formation and
development of
local, regional, and national identities. In addition, it will
scrutinize the
impact of migrant communities on consumption patterns and
cultures. The project
also looks at the downside of the so-called “democratisation” of
consumption,
e.g. the increasing ecological impact of mass consumption (and
production). The
ecological movement of the 1960s started to criticise the
growing ecological
footprint of mass consumption, and this critique gained wider
societal
attention in the 1970s. As results, more sustainable consumption
practices and
better consumer protection were discussed. At the same time, the
economic
engine of mass consumption in Luxembourg, i.e. the iron and
steel industry,
started to stutter. The following transition into a service
society also
questioned traditional consumption cultures, and let to the
emergence of new
post-industrial life styles and consumer identities, which are
at the heart of
this study.
WP 4
“Underground Histories: Smugglers, Refugees, and Miners”
- PhD candidate, student and employee status (48 months studies programme), 14 months fixed-term contract, renewable up to 4 years, full-time (40h/week), supervisor Christoph Brüll
The
geographical situation of Esch-sur-Alzette as a border region
has created,
throughout the 19th and 20th century, a space for smugglers and
refugees. The
project will be a microhistorical study of smuggling ideas,
goods, and persons
especially during war and crisis. It will focus on economic
smuggling, but also
on iron miners as actors of smuggling – be it by getting
political tracts
across the Luxembourgish-French border, by supplying illegal
workers hidden in
the woods near Esch – and finally on refugees using the border
region as a resource
for protection. Following recent trends in the microhistory of
crossborder
smuggling, the analytical perspective of the project will make
use of Alf
Lüdtke’s concept of Eigen-Sinn. This implies a mix of historical
and
anthropological methods. This approach guarantees an insertion
in current
research strands on a European level.
WP 6 “Shifting Cultures and Populations: Immigration
and Emigration”
·
PhD
candidate, student and employee status (48 months studies
programme), 14 months fixed-term
contract, renewable up to 4 years, full-time (40h/week), supervisor Denis
Scuto
Since the
end of the 19th century, the southern Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
as well as the
neighbouring border provinces of Luxembourg (Belgium), Lorraine
and Sarre
underwent profound transformations intimately linked to the
evolution from a
mainly rural to an industrial and tertiary universe. These
developments were
made possible by the quantitative and qualitative contribution
of national and
foreign populations, which brought their competencies, their
know-how, their
lifestyles and their cultures. The study will deal with sources
insufficiently
exploited so far: population censuses, professional and
industrial censuses,
archives of fiches d’arrivée from the Luxembourg southern
cities, foreign police
files, ARBED archives. The methodological approach allows the
follow-up of a
large number of individuals thanks to the treatment by digital
methods of a
large range of data coming from nominative sources. Thus, the
notions of
transnational circulatory territories or social cohesion should
be more
precisely defined. The study of the migrant’s itineraries
through the various
documents analyses family and generational filiations in order
to compare the
professional profile of children and parents. The aim is to
better understand
and outline the broad trends of the socio-economic and political
evolutions,
the individual and collective strategies, the generational
links, the relations
between social groups, the construction of identities and
intercultural relations
and the societal challenges in the former industrial south of
Luxembourg today.
WP 7 “Reconstructing Streets of Esch:
Micro-History of a Living and Lived Space”
·
PhD
candidate, student and employee status (48 months studies
programme), 14 months fixed-term
contract, renewable up to 4 years, full-time (40h/week), supervisor Denis
Scuto
The urban
and architectural landscape of Esch-sur-Alzette has not only
been shaped by
prominent names, such as Joseph Stübben, Gottfried Böhm, Peter
Rice or Violet
le Duc. The urban story of Esch-sur-Alzette tells a European
story of the
transformation of rural spaces in industrial towns by human work
and population
movements, and their multiple heritages today, comparable to
regions like Ruhr,
Lorraine, Nord Pas de Calais, Borinage. This study aims to
reconstruct, by
combining sociohistorical research with oral history and digital
tools, the
evolution of typical streets of Esch-sur-Alzette as historic
urban and social
environments from 19th to 21st century: rue de l’Alzette as main
commercial street; rue Jean-Pierre
Bausch and rue des Mines as streets of a worker’s district, rue
Emile Mayrisch
as street of a bourgeois district, rue de Luxembourg as a street
with a
socially mixed population. It is inspired by the pioneering
studies of John
Foot on a micro-history of one apartment block in the
inner-suburb of Bovisa,
Milan, over a period of 100 years. Moreover, the study continues
previous
research work done by Denis Scuto on the history of the “Casa
dei Romagnoli” in
immigrant worker’s district Hoehl in Esch-sur-Alzette. The
project will draw on
a wide range of documents, partly already digitised: population
census,
professional and industrial censuses, archives of the bureau de
la population
from Esch, archives of the Biens communaux office, alien policy
files, private
documents, photos, maps etc. The project will also represent the
first step to
a web-accessible interactive historical map of Esch-sur-Alzette.
WP 8 “Remixing Industrial Pasts in the Digital Age”
·
Postdoc,
36 months,
supervisor Andreas Fickers
This
sub-project aims at creating synergies between the six
historical research
strands of “Remixing Industrial Pasts in the Digital Age:
Sounds, Images,
Ecologies, Practices and Materialities in Space and Time”. The
post-doc will
work under the overarching topic of “Remixing Industrial Pasts
in the Digital
Age” and develop an integral historiographical perspective for
the project. In
addition, s/he will coordinate the integration and deployment of
digital
history tools and methods in the different research strands. The
main tasks of
the post-doc will be to conceptualise, organise and realise the
temporary
history lab for crowd sourcing and digitisation of historical
sources, the
virtual exhibition “Remixing Industrial Pasts in the Digital
Age” and the
mobile App “Discovering the Industrial Past of Esch 2022” in
close cooperation
with all project members.
--
For more
information about
C²DH, please visit: https://www.C2DH.uni.lu
Profile PhD candidates
·
Master in contemporary
history or related field
·
Good
command of the following languages: English, French and/or
German
Activities PhD candidates
- Write a thesis on work package topic
- Contribute to the virtual exhibition “Remixing Industrial Pasts in the Digital Age” and mobile app “Discovering the Industrial Past of Esch 2022”
Profile Postdoctoral researchers
- PhD in contemporary history or related field
- Good command of the following languages: English, French and/or German
Activities Postdoctoral researchers
- Write peer-reviewed article(s) for an international journal on work package topic
- Contribute to the virtual exhibition “Remixing Industrial Pasts in the Digital Age” and mobile app “Discovering the Industrial Past of Esch 2022”
Offer
- An interesting position within an international research centre;
- Dynamic and multicultural research environment;
- Personal work space at the University
Candidates should
submit the
following documents:
All positions will be advertised until
filled.
The
University of Luxembourg is an equal opportunity employer.