School of Modern Languages within the College of Arts and Law

Full Time

Fixed term for 24 months

Grade 7 - Full time starting salary is normally in the range £30,395 to £39,609. With potential progression once in post to £42,036 a year.

We are now recruiting for a 2-year Research Fellow to work on Knowing the Secret Police: Secrecy and Knowledge in East German society, a three year project funded by the AHRC (2018-2021).

The project overturns the approach of existing research to ask not what the ‘all-powerful’ Stasi knew about society, but what and how East Germans knew about the ‘secret police’. It seeks to have impact on dominant narratives on the GDR past in Germany today. The project is managed by PI Anselma Gallinat (Newcastle University), CI Joanne Sayner (Newcastle University) and CI Sara Jones (University of Birmingham). The project team are seeking an RF to work on the ‘Literary Networks’ strand of the project, which focuses on the ways in which knowledge about the Ministry for State Security (MfS) was acquired and circulated within the GDR literary sphere. The research in this strand will be based on close textual analysis of a variety of published and unpublished sources, archive research and semi-structured interviews. The RF will be based in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Birmingham and will start on or as soon as possible after 1 October 2019. The post-holder will be supervised by Prof. Sara Jones.

The main task of the appointed candidate will be to undertake primary independent research on how knowledge of the Stasi was acquired and circulated in the GDR literary sphere. He or she will disseminate the findings of this research in high-quality peer-reviewed publications and will present research outputs at seminars and conferences. The RF will also assist Jones in data collection for the ‘Representation as Knowledge’ strand of the research, which explores how the Stasi was portrayed in unpublished literary works. S/he will also support the project team with the management/administration of the project.

The successful candidate will have completed a doctorate relevant to the research area in history, German Studies or a cognate discipline and expertise in historical approaches, including archival research, will be essential. Experience of qualitative interviewing will be particularly advantageous. Fluency in German and English with a high level of analytical capability is also required. S/he must be highly skilled in communicating complex information clearly both orally and in writing. Experience of carrying out individual or collaborative research projects, archive and/or text-based historical research and writing up research work for academic readerships is required.  

Informal enquiries should be directed to Professor Sara Jones at [log in to unmask]

Closing date:    1st April 2019             Reference: 80809

Interviews will be held in the w/c 6th May

For information on how to apply see: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BQO705/research-fellow

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