2 PhD grants in the humanities and social sciences

The Aleksander Brückner Center for Polish Studies (Halle/Jena) is inviting applications for two doctoral grants in the humanities and social sciences, funded by the German-Polish Science Foundation (DPWS), for 1 October 2024.

The Aleksander Brückner Center for Polish Studies, which opened in 2013, is engaged in interdisciplinary research into historical and contemporary formations of Polish statehood, society, language and culture. It is a joint project of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, funded by the Foundation for German-Polish Cooperation, the German-Polish Science Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service, the German Research Foundation, and others. The Centre cooperates with numerous academic institutions and NGOs in Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Israel, as well as in other countries that are or were closely entangled with Poland. Since 2013, it conceives the Master program “Interdisciplinary Polish Studies”, promotes doctoral and post-doctoral projects and conceptualizes a program for an extended audience.

More information about the Aleksander Brückner Center and its fields of research at: www.aleksander-brueckner-zentrum.org.

What we expect from you:

- a Master’s degree (above-average) in a discipline of the Humanities or Social Sciences, for project 2 also in Computational Linguistics

- a focus on Polish history, language, society or culture

- good knowledge of Polish and preferably another language of the region or the willingness to learn one during the funding period

- interest in transdisciplinary questions and interdisciplinary exchange

- willingness to contribute to the activities of the Aleksander Brückner Center

What we offer you:

- a three-year doctoral grant (€1,500 per month) for a project within one of the profiles outlined below

- a limited amount of travel funds

- intensive dialogue with your supervisors and other doctoral candidates

- interdisciplinary exchange

- integration into national and international networks

- socially orientated scholarship

Project 1 (Halle) is based in the research field "(Re)Configurations of Community and Society". It shall focus on the analysis of norms in times of political transformation or migration. You can explore legal, religious or social norms as well as competition and interdependence of norms, for example in socio-political movements, judiciary and administration, churches and religious communities or in biographies. What ideas of society, law, justice and morality are up for discussion? Who takes the floor, who remains excluded? Which are the relevant media of communication? Is it possible to consolidate norms?

The call is aimed at graduates from the humanities, social sciences and law. The doctoral candidate is free to choose the period of investigation, as well as the methodological and thematic concretization.

Project 2 (Jena) shall focus on the relationship between Polish and Ukrainian. Departing from the two standard varieties of Ukrainian in the first half of the 20th century – centered in Lviv on the one hand, and Kyiv and Kharkiv on the other – the project aims at an investigation of the influence of Polish in the western standard variety before 1939. In a second step its persistence and decline during the second half of the 20th century is at stake. How does the influence of Polish relate to the establishment of a uniform standard of usage? Which features are attributable to language contact with Polish? Which elements have become dominant and which have faded? What proportion of the regionalisms formerly characterized by Polish have turned into stylistic variants? What identity does their use signify?

The call is aimed at graduates of Slavic philology and related disciplines. Full call for applications at: https://www.aleksander-brueckner-zentrum.org/forschung/ausschreibungen and www.ukr.uni-jena.de.

Application:

Please apply in electronic form, attaching a letter of motivation, CV, diploma, information on major fields of study, internships and projects, publications (if applicable) as well as an outline of your doctoral project (max. 5 pages). In the latter you should address your sources/data, research questions, theory and methodology. Please send your application to Yvonne Kleinmann (yvonne.kleinmann@geschichte.uni-halle.de) and Ruprecht von Waldenfels (ruprecht.waldenfels@uni-jena.de) by August 15, 2024. We will be happy to answer your queries!

Call for applications: DAAD-Guest Professorship at the Aleksander Brückner Center for Polish Studies, Halle / Germany

The Aleksander Brückner Center for Polish Studies in Halle is looking for a short term guest professor, having her/his residence outside Germany, who would like to join our team for a period of one month from April 2024 to February 2025.

Tasks:

• teach a course (in English or German) on a topic within the range of your current research relating to Polish society, culture or politics to MA and BA students from
  various disciplines (28 academic hours, concentrated on two to three weekends)
• participate in the activities of the Center
• engage in interdisciplinary discussions

Application forms (in one pdf):

• CV
• Doctoral diploma
• list of publications
• short outline of your course proposal

Deadline: December 15, 2023

We are especially interested in researchers who can give an engaging course that caters to an audience from the Humanities that does not necessarily specialize in Polish Studies. Candidates with a background in a variety of disciplines, including literature & cultural studies, political science, sociology, social anthropology, law, history, etc., are welcome.

The lecturer will be hosted at the Aleksander Brückner Center in Halle (www.aleksander-brueckner-zentrum.org) and will receive a lump sum of 4,000 Euros to cover all expenses. The staff of the Center will support you in practical matters, e.g. finding accommodation and access to libraries.

Guest professors are expected to reside in Halle most of the time, pursue their research and interact with academic and other institutions in town, e.g., the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.

If you are interested, please contact paulina.gulinska-jurgiel@geschichte.uni-halle.de.

We are looking forward to read about your ideas!