Jobs: 2 PhD positions
2 PhD positions (20 hours/week) for 1 year (possible extension for additional 1,5 years)
NewsEye: A Digital Investigator for Historical Newspapers
Horizon 2020 Call: H2020-SC6-CULT-COOP-2016-2017 (UNDERSTANDING EUROPE – PROMOTING THE EUROPEAN PUBLIC AND CULTURAL SPACE)
Newspapers collect information about cultural, political and social events in a more detailed way than any other public record. Since their beginnings in the 17th century, they are recording billions of events, stories and names, in almost every language, every country and every day. Newspapers were always an important medium for the dissemination of public and political opinions, literary works, essays and art. This thematic wealth sets them at the center stage for anyone interested in European cultural heritage. In the last decades, tens of millions of newspaper pages from European libraries have been digitized and made available online – and national libraries will intensify their digitization efforts in the coming years.
The importance of newspapers as cultural heritage is of course well understood. What has not yet been fully grasped is their relevance as digital cultural heritage. In digital format newspapers offer new ways not only for reading, but also for access and in-depth analysis. As digital cultural heritage they will transform the conception of our past for students, experts and laypersons alike.
The NewsEye project involves national libraries, humanities research groups and computer science research groups. It addresses a number of challenges, which will result in significant scientific advances in several fields of study. The main objective of the proposed NewsEye project is to develop methods and tools for effective exploration and exploitation of digital newspaper resources by means of new technologies and “big data” approaches, combining “close” and “distant reading” methods of Digital Humanities. To test and demonstrate the search and browse possibilities NewsEye offers, case studies on historically relevant topics will be pursued. The methods and tools that are being developed within the project will ultimately be included in the search-engines of national newspaper-corpora in Vienna, Helsinki and Paris.
For collaboration in the NewsEye project we are looking for:
• 1 PhD candidate in the field of Modern History or Contemporary History for 20 hours/week for 1 year (with the possibility of extension for another 1,5 years) who is interested in working in the thematic field of “Migration between 1850-1950 in Europe (mainly Austria, Finland, France)”.
• 1 PhD candidate from the field of Modern History or Contemporary History for 20 hours/week for 1 year (with the possibility of extension for another 1,5 years) who is interested in working in the thematic field of “Revolutions, Upheavals and Wars in Europe between 1850-1950 (mainly Austria, Finland, France)”.
Candidates must have
• graduated (MA or Magister) in modern or contemporary history;
• be fluent in German and English;
• experience in working with historical newspapers.
• Experience or training in digital methods, digital history or digital humanities is of advantage!
Assigned holders of the positions are required to cooperate with all project partners and are responsible for the testing and evaluation of tools. They will also publish in their respective research areas for both scholarly publications and social media (Wikipedia, blogs, etc.).
The University of Innsbruck is an equal opportunity employer. Applications should include (1) a cover letter with short statements of motivation and research interests, (2) scientific CV with degree certificates, (3) list of publications, (4) contact details of two academic referees, (5) a text written (ideally published) over the last four semesters (seminar-paper, MA-thesis, journal articles etc.).
Applications should be submitted electronically as a single PDF file to Eva.Pfanzelter@uibk.ac.at.
Deadline for application: February 15, 2018
Beginning of Project: May 15, 2018
assoc. Prof. Dr. Eva Pfanzelter
Professor of Contemporary History Deputy Head Research Center Digital Humanities
Innrain 52, Room no. 40612, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
phone +43 512 507-4408
fax +43 512 507-2889
e-mail Eva.Pfanzelter@uibk.ac.at
home http://www.uibk.ac.at/zeitgeschichte