Professorship (W3) "Curating Digital Objects of Cultural Knowledge and Memory" (m/f/d)

The Ruhr area, one of Europe’s largest metropolitan regions, offers attractive career opportunities for excellent scientists and scholars from around the world. In 2021, Ruhr University Bochum, TU Dortmund University and the University of Duisburg-Essen established the Research Alliance Ruhr to bundle their cuttingedge international research on the most urgent challenges facing humankind. There are four research centers and a college. This is just the latest chapter in our long-standing collaboration as the University Alliance Ruhr (UA Ruhr), a community of 14,000 researchers and 120,000 students in the heart of Germany.

As part of the Research Alliance Ruhr, the College for Social Sciences and Humanities is seeking to fill the following position at the Faculty of History, Ruhr University Bochum, as soon as possible:

Professorship (W3)
“Curating Digital Objects of Cultural Knowledge and Memory” (m/f/d)

Based at the Institute of Art History at the Ruhr University Bochum, this full-time position is aimed at scholars of exceptional caliber who contribute a distinctive body of work to the field of digital curatorial practices and their epistemic, ethical, political and social implications. The professorship will focus on the question of how digital storage and display techniques affect the epistemic status, political significance, and ethical evaluation of objects that form cultural knowledge and memory. A further point of investigation will be the question of how virtual objects are represented and displayed as cultural objects of knowledge and memory in different areas and disciplines. The position will entail a reduced teaching load of four semester hours per week.

YOUR QUALIFICATION

Applicants should have a broad and internationally visible research profile in the history of knowledge, as well as an innovative theoretical and methodological approach in the field of digital humanities, combined with practical knowledge of designing cultural objects in virtual environments. Since the profile of the professorship is expected to have strong links to current debates on the politics of memory and postcolonialism, transdisciplinary and transcultural research skills are also required.

As member of the College the professor will be expected to engage in the activities of the College for Social Sciences and Humanities and to participate in interdisciplinary research projects of the University Alliance Ruhr. Applicants are expected to have a proven record of publications in internationally renowned journals, experience in applying for competitive third-party funding from national and/or international research funding institutions, and relevant teaching experience. They should have a record of close cooperation with cultural institutions (museums, archives, collections, etc.). In addition, the recruitment criteria of Sections 36 and 37 of the North Rhine-Westphalia Higher Education Act (Gesetz über die Hochschulen des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, HG NRW) apply.

ATTRACTIVE ENVIRONMENT

The College for Social Sciences and Humanities will provide a forum for the humanities and social sciences, inviting international researchers to strengthen the existing research focus of the University Alliance Ruhr through collaborations and the addition of new topics. The Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) Essen, one of the oldest joint institutions of the UA Ruhr, acts as an organizational basis for research initiatives in the social sciences and humanities. The College will host research groups and interdisciplinary professorships as well as different fellow and residency programs in order to develop innovative questions and forms of collaboration in direct exchange with international visiting scholars. The increased collaboration opportunities will allow scholars to broaden their research scope and expand their academic network. The universities supporting the College also offer established research alliances for collaboration, such as the new “Rhine Ruhr Center for Science Communication Research”, the Collaborative Research Centre “Virtual Lifeworlds” and, in close proximity, the Folkwang University of the Arts.

RESEARCH ALLIANCE RUHR

The Research Alliance Ruhr is a joint undertaking of the three major universities in the Ruhr area and was initiated by the Ruhr Conference. The four research centers focus on “One Health Ruhr”, “Chemical Sciences and Sustainability”, “Trustworthy Data Science and Security”, and “Future Energy Materials and Systems”. In addition, the Research Alliance Ruhr has established a “College for Social Sciences and Humanities”. The Research Alliance Ruhr will appoint up to 50 research professors in the next few years and also offer numerous positions for research assistants. Join us now to create innovations for the world of tomorrow in Europe’s densest university landscape, where you can find a wide range of scientific and industrial partners right on the doorstep.