Call for Applications: 4-Year-PhD Position in Indigenous Studies at the University of Potsdam, Germany (Application deadline: 19 August, 2024)
The research project “Settler Decolonization on Country/Land: Rehearsing Collaboration,” funded by the German Research Foundation, invites applications for a fully-funded PhD position starting in January 2025.
The larger project is situated at the University of Potsdam, Germany, near the country’s capital Berlin. It pursues a collaborative research design and engages with the theoretical and practical work of decolonization carried out in the anglophone settler colonies of Australia as well as the US and Canada. It understands decolonization as an Indigenous-led effort that may afford spaces for collaboration with non-Indigenous actors. The project is interested in the centring of L/land as the primary site of such Indigenous-settler interactions. It seeks to articulate an understanding of anticolonial and decolonial work that can and must be undertaken in Germany in relation to the two contexts of Australia and Turtle Island.
We invite applicants who wish to write a dissertation in the discipline of Indigenous Studies, ideally speaking to the possibilities and limits of Indigenous and settler collaboration for decolonization (via land relations, modern treaty relations, museum decolonization, or various other fields). However, all applications from the discipline of Indigenous Studies compatible with Anglophone Literary Studies, Postcolonial Studies, American Studies or Cultural Studies are welcome. Applicants must have completed an M.A. degree or equivalent in one of these disciplines or in a related academic field. We specifically encourage applications by Indigenous candidates from Turtle Island. The project’s working language is English. Knowledge of German is not necessary, but successful applicants will have the opportunity to attend German language courses, should they wish to.
The successful candidate will be enrolled for a PhD at the University of Potsdam in American Studies or English and American Studies under the joint supervision of Prof. Nicole Waller (Department of English and American Studies, University of Potsdam) and Prof. Renae Watchman (Indigenous Studies Department, McMaster University). They will be employed in a temporary position for four years with additional funding for (inter)national travel: relocation and return flights, research and conference travel. While the home institution is the University of Potsdam, candidates are invited to spend a significant amount of time with their co-supervisor at McMaster University and communities on Turtle Island. In addition, the project has a trans-Indigenous component that will enable travel to Australia.
We look forward to applications that should contain the following elements:
Cover page containing your name and contact information
- Letter of Motivation (1-2 pages), including a statement of self-positioning in relation to Indigenous communities
- Curriculum vitae
- Outline of proposed dissertation project including bibliography (3,500 words max., not counting the bibliography). In this outline, you should describe your proposed topic, its context, the material you want to study, your research questions and methodology, and relate these to the state of the art in the relevant field(s) as well as to our research project’s aim.
- Proposed work and time schedule. Please provide a provisional work and time schedule covering a period of four years, in order to demonstrate the feasibility of your project and the likelihood of completing it within the funded period.
- Degree certificates and transcripts. Please include an explanation of the grade system used in the certificates/transcripts.
Please combine these documents into a single PDF file which should not exceed a size of 10 MB and direct your application to: niwaller@uni-potsdam.de
More information will be found here by mid-June: (https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/iaa-cult/staff/schwarz/rehearsing-collaboration). We encourage you to contact Nicole Waller / your potential supervisors early in the application process for an informal zoom meeting to help clarify any questions that you may have.
