PhD student in the cultural study of resistance

PhD student in the cultural study of resistance (digital humanities)

Category: Academic Staff & Researchers

1 - Working at the VUB

For more than 50 years, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel has stood for freedom, equality and solidarity, and this is very much alive on our campuses among students and staff alike.

At the VUB, you will find a diverse collection of personalities: innovators pur sang, but above all people who are 100% their authentic selves. With some 4,000 employees, we are the largest Dutch-speaking employer, in the private sector, in Brussels; an international city with which we are only too happy to connect and where (around) our 4 campuses are located.

Add to this our principle of free research - in which self-reflection, a critical attitude and an open, creative mind around scientific and social issues are central - and you have a university that is fundamentally groundbreaking and pioneering in education and research. In short: the VUB all over again.

Moreover, the VUB is a member of EUTOPIA, an alliance of like-minded European universities, all ready to reinvent themselves.

The Faculty of Social Sciences and Solvay Business School , Research Group ECHO: Media, Culture & Politics, andthe Faculty ofLanguages and Humanities , Research Group CLIC: Centre for Literary & Intermedial Crossingsarelooking for a PhD-student with a doctoral grant.

As part of a newly created Brussels Centre for Interdisciplinary Resistance Studies (Inter-RESIST), you conduct research with a view to obtaining a doctoral thesis.

Research theme: The research focuses on how resistance is enacted and mediated across time and media. Through cross-historical and cross-media analyses of archival, textual, visual, and digital sources, itstudies how repertoires of resistance evolve and travel. This includes the study of ‘everyday resistance’, ‘constructive resistance’, ‘reverse discourse’ and ‘networked dissent’ (see, i.a., James C. Scott, Mona Lilja). Inter-RESIST focuses on civilian resistance against dehumanization in Belgium as well as transnationally throughout the twentieth century, and specifically resistance to the Holocaust; resistance to post-war racism targeting migrants and their descendants; and resistance to the genocide against Palestinians and its historical antecedents.

Research topic: The PhD project integrates computational content analysis, discourse analysis, and cultural transfer methodologies to examine the discursive and performative dimensions of diverse forms of resistance, ranging from clandestine pamphlets and poetry to film and social media campaigns. Drawing on digital humanities approaches, it analyses both textual and visual data.

Using digital humanities methodologies, the successful candidate will explore how repertoires of resistance travel across time,placesand media by analysing historical and contemporary cultural artefacts.Possible corporainclude (but are not limited to):

underground literature and clandestine publications;

diaries,memoirsand other ego-documents;

graffiti, wall writings and street poetry;

documentary film and visual testimony;

social media activism and digital campaigns;

literary and artistic responses to oppression,displacementand political violence.

The project adopts an explicitly interdisciplinary perspective, combining approaches from literary studies, mediastudiesand digital humanities. Itseeksto understand how resistance is narrated, visualised, translated,archivedand remediated, and how cultural forms shape collective memory,solidarityand political imagination.

As part of Inter-RESIST, you are expected to, (1) actively contribute to research funding acquisition (e.g., FWO grants or European funding), (2) play a proactive role in the interdisciplinary exchanges between the different teams (History, Sociology, Literary Studies, Communication Studies, Political Science).

You have a joint affiliation with the research groups ECHO and CLIC and contribute to the daily functioning of those groups. You will be jointly supervised by Prof. Arvi Sepp and Prof. Kevin Smets, in close collaboration with Prof. Yazan Badran and the Inter-RESIST team.

You will prepare a PhD in Media and Communication Studies, Literary Studies, Translation Studies, or Interdisciplinary Studies.

For this function, ourBrussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus (Elsene)will serve as your home base.

3 - Profile

What do we expect from you?

You hold a Master degree in the fields of (digital) humanities or social sciences, including: Master Digital Humanities, Communication Studies, Literary Studies, Translation Studies, Cultural Studies, or related fields;

• You have an excellent active professional