For the Research Priority Area Cultural Transformations and Globalisation the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam invites applications for:

2 Postdocs in Cultural Transformations & Globalisation

1.0 FTE (38 hours per week, for 2 years)

vacancy number W11-210

The study of globalization from the perspective of the humanities is particularly focused on how cultural practices – including literature, film, new media, the visual and performative arts and philosophical and other kinds of theorizing – engage with the increasingly transnational orientation and organization of contemporary society. Of special concern are the ways in which everyday experiences of transnationalism generate new forms and expressions of subjectivity and collectivity. Within this context, we are looking for a 2-year postdoctoral project that connects one or more of the four main research clusters of the Faculty’s globalization program: mobility, sustainability, aesthetics, and/or connectivity. The project is expected to be theoretically driven by an interdisciplinary humanities approach, while engaging with clearly defined objects of analysis and/or conceptual problems. Preference may be given to candidates working in one or more of the following disciplines: art history, literary studies, film and media studies, philosophy, or theatre and performance studies.

Tasks
The postdoctoral researchers will execute their research projects within the broader context of the research priority area and will occasionally be called upon to participate in teaching and supervision tasks. The researchers will cooperate with other members of the priority program that have backgrounds in various relevant fields, and contribute to organizing an international conference. Furthermore, candidates are expected actively to apply for external funding related to the research priority area.

Requirements

• Completed Doctoral degree in a relevant field;
• Publications in peer-reviewed journals or with established academic publishers;
• Excellent academic writing and presentation skills;
• Excellent social and organizational skills;
• Experience with external fundraising is an advantage.

Further information
A detailed description of the Research Priority Area can be found on the website, please see the ‘Refer To’-section below. For further information about the positions please contact Jeroen de Kloet (b.j.dekloet@uva.nl), or the Faculty’s research department at onderzoek-fgw@uva.nl.

Appointment
The Postdoc positions will be on a temporary basis for the period of two years. The starting date will be March 1st 2012 at the latest. The gross monthly salary will be between € 3195 and 4374 (‘Onderzoeker 3’; salary scale 11, according to the collective labour agreement Dutch universities) in the case of a full-time position (38 hours/week). Depending on experience and date of completion of the PhD an appointment as ‘Onderzoeker 4’ (between € 2379 and € 3755; salary scale 10, according to the collective labour agreement Dutch universities) may (initially) be necessary. A contract of 0.8 fte is possible as well. Secondary benefits at Dutch universities are attractive and include holiday pay and an end of year bonus.

Job application
Applications including a cover letter, complete academic CV, and project proposal (maximum 1800 words in length) should be submitted at the latest on Monday November 28th  2011, 08.00 hrs.

Please send your documents to onderzoek-fgw@uva.nl. Interviews with selected candidates will be held on Wednesday December 14.

Please state the vacancy number and ‘strictly confidential’ in the upper left corner of the envelope or in the subject field of your e-mail.

Refer to

http://www.uva.nl/vacatures/vacatures.cfm/11D3B8B5-E2AB-48CD-A2ED8B9CEDAC62CB

Research Priority Area description <http://www.hum.uva.nl/onderzoek/zwaartepunten.cfm>

An den selben Tagen organisiert das Berliner Graduiertenkolleg Geschlecht als Wissenskategorie eine Konferenz zu “Contested Truths: Re-Shaping and Positioning Politics of Knowledge“. Auch hier nur die Keynotes: Geoffrey Bowker (Emerging Configurations of Knowledge and Power), Kavita Philip (Proper Knowledge: Reflections on postcolonial technoscience) und Bonnie Smith (The Gender of History Past and Present). Das Goodie hier ist “Dinner and Cultural Event” umschrieben. Das ganze Programm und alles Wissenswerte findet sich auf der Konferenzwebseite. Auch hier ist eine Registrierung Pflicht und es gibt eine kleine Konferenzgebühr.

Update (26.05.): Wir hatten im März schon mal darauf hingewiesen; weil es gerade so schön passt aber noch mal der Hinweis, dass am gleichen Wochenende an der HU Berlin die Konferenz “Postkoloniale Gesellschaftswissenschaften” stattfindet. Alle Infos dazu gibt es hier.

*Confronting the Global: Alternatives, Alterity, Solidarity*

Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick, 8th-9th September, 2011

Conference co-convened by the PSA Anarchist Studies Network, BISA Poststructuralist Politics Working Group, BISA International Political Economy Group, BISA Marxism and International Relations Group.

Weblink: http://anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/Call_for_Papers

*Supported by*:

The Political Studies Association, the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick, and the International Political Economy Group.

*Plenary Roundtable*:

Dr Gurminder Bhambra (Warwick), Dr Richard Day (Queens University,
Ontario), Professor John Hobson (Sheffield)

The aim of this conference is to nourish intellectual affinities and build research synergies across a broad cross-section of critical approaches to ‘the global’. This conference follows from an ESRC supported conference on ‘Anarchism and World Politics’, held at the University of Bristol in June 2010, and the subsequent forum in Millennium: Journal of International Studies (39:2, 2010). Anarchist approaches to the global, characterised mainly by a desire for a radical, fuller democratic agency in world affairs and the eschewal of the state to this end, raise interesting questions about both how we conceive of agency in the international domain and how we conceptualise the global itself. Anarchists are not the only ones with answers to these questions, but they have hitherto been marginal to the debates. This conference seeks to build solidarities and to widen the terms of debate.

The conference will explore questions of ‘the global’ from anarchist, Marxist, feminist, post-colonial, post-structuralist and other ‘radical’ approaches to global politics. It seeks to bring together a wide range of scholars with the aim of exploring the affinities and differences between and within these approaches, and to consider the productive spaces for praxis which might be generated from intellectual engagement.

We welcome scholars from international relations, sociology, philosophy, geography, anthropology and beyond, and we encourage contributions that reflect on questions such as:

-    How should we understand ‘the global’?

-    What is internationalism in the 21st century?

-    How do commitments to localism intersect with a global focus?

-    What are the radical alternatives to statism at a global level?

-    Do totalising visions necessarily engender totalising polities?

-    What is the proper relationship between academic analysis and social movements?

-    How might we situate existing work on the intersections between anarchism and poststructuralism within the context of world politics?

-    What lessons can gendered approaches to world politics offer for other radical theories?

-    How have globalised resistance movements responded to changing forms of capitalism and hegemony?

-    How does a postcolonial imagination affect the nature and practice of solidarity?

-    How might we think the ethics of resistance within and beyond state forms?

-    What place do Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida, Butler and other poststructuralist theorists have for theorising resistance in the context of the international?

-    What relevance do Marxist theories of international relations have for anarchists, and vice versa?

-    How should anarchists approach dominant theories of ‘anarchy’ in the international arena?

The conference will take place across two days in September 2011, and will be hosted at the department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) at the University of Warwick. The conference is supported by the PSA Anarchist Studies Network (ASN), the BISA International Political Economy Group (IPEG) and the BISA Poststructural Politics Working Group (PPWG). It is funded by IPEG, the Central for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalism (CSGR) at the University of Warwick, and through the Political Studies Association specialist activities fund. Following the conference, the intention is to collect a selection of the best papers into an edited volume and we are actively seeking publishers.

Places for paper-givers will be strictly limited. Funding will be made available for paper-giving delegates, with further space provided for a number of non-presenting attendees. The conference organisers will arrange refreshments and lunch on both days, with a conference dinner for all registered attendees on the evening of the first day.

Accommodation details will be provided and subsidised, and limited travel funding will be available, to be allocated on the basis of need. There will be a small registration fee, but substantial bursaries will be made available.

*Paper submission*

We welcome paper, panel, roundtable and workshop proposals. Please send a 250 word abstract outlining the aims and scope of your proposal to Chris Rossdale (c.rossdale@warwick.ac.uk) by /*Monday May 2nd, 2011*.

Please ensure you include your name, contact details and a short academic biography (100 words) with your abstract. If you would like to be considered for a conference bursary, please indicate the amount you will need clearly.

For further information, please contact Chris Rossdale

(c.rossdale@warwick.ac.uk) or Alex Prichard (w.a.prichard@lse.ac.uk).

How similar and dissimilar are conceptions of legitimate government in the domestic and global contexts? Which paradigms are emerging, which are being buried? To what extent have they found a legal form? What are the main lines of contestation?

Alle Infos gibt es hier.

Nun ist dieses Argument so alt wie die erste Mindestlohndebatte und es trifft für den Bildungssektor möglicherweise in besonderem Maße zu: Ist es doch die Bildung, die sich im vielbeschworenen globalen Wettbewerb nur langsam auszahlt – jedenfalls kaum innerhalb des Zeithorizonts einer Legislaturperiode. Angesichts begrenzter und schrumpfender Bildungsetats müssen Universitäten und Forschungseinrichtungen nicht nur ihren laufenden Betrieb gewährleisten, sondern zugleich ihre internationale Relevanz und Produktivität beweisen – wenn nötig auf Kosten der universitären „Dienstleister“ in Forschung und Lehre, die ihrerseits zwar so ins vielgerühmte Prekariat abrutschen, aber zumindest „Erfahrung“ sammeln und ihr Humankapital für künftige Beschäftigungsverhältnisse aufwerten. Wissenschaftlichen Einrichtungen wird zwar ein inhärenter Wert zugesprochen, dieser muss aber durch wirtschaftliche Durchrationalisierung erhalten werden.

Soweit, so – aus ökonomischer Sicht – plausibel. Verwundern mag an dieser spezifischen Diskussion aber allemal, dass ausgerechnet ein Politikwissenschaftler solch alte und längst hochproblematische Markt- und Sachzwangargumente bemüht. Das fehlende Vertrauen in die politischen Entscheider, diese Marktkräfte – die letztlich den Bildungssektor und insbesondere bestimmte Fachbereiche (es sei erinnert an die Schließung der Philosophie in Middlesex!)  eindampfen – durch Regulierung zugunsten einer Bereitstellung wertvoller öffentlicher Güter zu zügeln, mag einleuchten. In der Tat entmachten Prozesse der Transnationalisierung und Ökonomisierung bzw. Privatisierung politische Institutionen auf nahezu allen Ebenen, wenn auch sicher nicht gänzlich.

Schwieriger erscheint es allerdings, dass die Eigeninitiative zugunsten fairer Arbeitsbedingungen – und auch ihre symbolische Dimension! – offenbar einen so geringen Stellenwert einnimmt. Sicher: Im Vergleich zu politischen Initiativen auf kollektiver Ebene kann das individualethische Engagement wenig ausrichten, das heißt: nur einige Wenige werden von faireren Bedingungen in einem einzelnen Forschungsprojekt profitieren – am Gesamtpanorama wird sich hierdurch wenig ändern. Dass jedoch die Möglichkeit, mit gutem Beispiel, also als Vorbild und role model voranzugehen, nicht nur verneint, sondern sogar offen geringeschätzt wird und der Fingerzeig reflexartig in Richtung der Systemkräfte geht, ist beunruhigend. Trotz der relativen Machtlosigkeit des Einzelnen, und der statistischen Wirkungslosigkeit punktuellen Handelns, ist der Abschied vom individuellen Engagement nicht ohne weiteres rechtfertigbar. Bernhard Schlink hat übrigens im neuen Merkur einen schönen Essay über Verantwortung in komplexen Prozessen, auch angewandt auf die jüngste Krisenkonstellation, geschrieben.