Call for applications
The Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies,
Faculty of Humanities, Copenhagen University (UCPH), Denmark, and the
Centre for Culture and the Mind, invite applicants for a tenure-track
assistant professorship in literature and/or cultural history and
medical humanities, to be filled by 1 April 2023 or as soon as possible
thereafter.
Job content
A tenure-track assistant professorship is a six-year, fixed-term
academic position involving both research and teaching. The successful
candidate will be obliged to complete a teacher-training course designed
especially for assistant professors, and will be expected to be able to
take part in all the activities of the Department, including
examinations and administration.
Approximately six months before the end of the six-year period as
assistant professor, a committee set up by the Dean will assess whether
the assistant professor can be considered for promotion to a tenured
position as associate professor.
Read more about the tenure-track programme at the UCPH here:
https://employment.ku.dk/tenure-track/tenure-track-at-ucph/.
The successful candidate’s research profile should be focused on the
relationship between literature, psychiatry and culture, and on
exploring literary engagements with the Centre’s core themes: ideas of
the mind in different socio-cultural and political contexts, narratives
and languages of mental health, the construction and influence of
psychiatric concepts beyond the medical sphere, experiences of illness
and illness narratives, cross-cultural conceptualisations of trauma and
resilience, experiences of migration and cross-cultural encounters, etc.
Engagement with postcolonial and decolonial literatures of health and
illness is particularly encouraged. The candidate should have expertise
in at least one of the following language and cultural areas: English-,
German-, French-, Italian- or Spanish-speaking world, and an active
interest in comparative, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research
and teaching.
The candidate will be expected to develop courses in medical
humanities as part of the Centre’s own emerging teaching portfolio, as
well as to teach more general courses in literature and/or cultural
history at the BA and MA levels in the Department of English, Germanic
and Romance Studies.
The position is partly funded by the DNRF Centre of Excellence, Centre for Culture and the Mind (CULTMIND).
The
successful candidate will work closely with the Centre leader Ana Antic
and join the Centre’s dynamic international and interdisciplinary
research team.
The Centre for Culture and the Mind explores the puzzling
relationship between cultural difference and the human psyche from a
variety of disciplinary perspectives: historical, anthropological,
psychiatric, sociological, literary and psychological. It zooms in on
the core questions about the universality or otherwise of the human
mind, which remain as difficult to answer today as they were a century
ago.
The Centre proposes that the issue of culture-mind relationship lays
at the core of many social, political and medical debates: within
cross-cultural psychiatry/psychotherapy, in trauma studies, and in
migration and refugee studies. It explores how the human mind and common
humanity have been imagined in different cultural, sociopolitical and
disciplinary contexts, examining the assumptions and forces which shaped
such definitions. By analysing how different cross-cultural models of
the psyche were formulated and critiqued, the Centre’s interdisciplinary
team aims to develop a new framework for understanding cross-cultural
interventions, which pushes beyond the binary of universalism and
cultural relativism in order to arrive at a more nuanced model of
interaction between socio-cultural contexts and ideas of the psyche.
The Centre consists of four interrelated thematic strands:
cross-cultural research in human sciences; cross-cultural notions of
trauma and resilience; cross-cultural therapeutics and creative mind;
and cross-cultural encounters and population movements (migration).
Qualification requirements
The
Assistant Professor will be a core member of the Centre’s leadership
team. He or she will take part in the work of all four research strands
and will be expected to contribute to coordinating the second and third
strands in particular, in order to develop academic leadership skills
and become an independent research leader by the end of the tenure-track
period. He or she will also take part in mentoring and supervising
postdocs and PhD students at the Centre, with the expectation that he or
she will be able to supervise independently by the end of the six-year
period.
In
terms of research, the successful candidate is expected to work both
independently and in collaboration with the research team. Within
the Centre, the candidate will take part in broader intellectual and
methodological discussions around the Centre’s goals and general
directions, and will also be expected to design and work on original
research projects. This position will offer the successful candidate an
excellent opportunity to establish and develop his/her own research
career, to establish strategic research collaborations and partnerships,
and acquire requisite academic leadership skills.
He or she should hold a PhD degree in the
field of literature or/and literary and cultural history with a focus on
medical humanities.
For further information, including more details on the Centre for Culture and the Mind, please contact Centre Leader Ana Antic at ana.antic@hum.ku.dk, or Head of Department Lisbeth Verstraete-Hansen at lvhansen@hum.ku.dk
The applicant is expected to provide a statement of his/her academic and pedagogical approaches to university teaching.
Applicants are encouraged to read the University guidelines for teaching portfolio when appointing staff at the UCPH https://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/job-application-portfolio/
The duties of the position are evenly distributed on tasks related to
teaching and tasks related to research (including relevant
administration and knowledge-sharing). Documented competences in both of
these main fields of activity, as well as the ability to reflect on
them, will be weighted in the assessment process (see further below).
Furthermore, emphasis will be placed on the following academic and personal qualifications:
- Research qualifications, which will be assessed in relation to the
period of active research, the degree of originality, and academic
output, e.g. number of publications published in internationally
recognized, peer-reviewed journals or in comparable high-ranking series
published with internationally recognized publishing houses.
- The applicant’s scientific record, academic breadth and depth, rigour, thoroughness, and accuracy.
- Research qualifications, which will be assessed in relation to the
period of active research, the degree of originality, and academic
output, e.g. number of publications published in internationally
recognized, peer-reviewed journals or in comparable high-ranking series
published with internationally recognized publishing houses.
- The applicant’s scientific record, academic breadth and depth, rigour, thoroughness and accuracy
- Teaching qualifications: Read more about our Educational Charter at Educational Charter – University of Copenhagen (ku.dk) and Pedagogic Basis and Guidelines at https://uddannelseskvalitet.ku.dk/quality-assurance-of-study-programmes/university-guidelines/pedagogic-basis-and-guidelines/
- Experience and qualifications with regard to dissemination of
research, knowledge-sharing and engagement with the wider public, the
media and the world of politics.
- Documentation of possible administrative qualifications.
Tenure-track assistant professors must hold an academic record
demonstrating internationally competitive research, and/or have
internationally recognized potential to make a future impact.
Assessment of applicants will primarily consider their level of
documented, internationally competitive research. Teaching
qualifications are not mandatory, but documented teaching qualifications
and teaching experience will be taken into account. Applicants’
outreach qualifications, including the ability to attract external
funding, will also be considered.
The Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies aims to
promote a parallel-language working and study environment. The working
language of the Centre for Culture and the Mind, where the appointment
will be based, is English. The candidate will be expected to have a high
proficiency in academic English, and to be able to interact in English
in a professional setting. Within a reasonable period of time (3-6
years), non-Danish-speaking appointees are also expected to acquire
proficiency in Danish sufficient to be able to interact with colleagues
and students.
For further details about the qualification requirements for
assistant professorships, please read the Job Structure for Academic
Staff at Universities 2019 here:
Ministerial_Order_no._1443_of_11_December_2019_on_Job_Structure_for_Academic_Staff_at_Universities.pdf (ku.dk)
Six overall criteria apply for assistant professor appointments at
the University of Copenhagen. The six criteria (research, teaching,
societal impact, organisational contribution, external funding and
leadership) are considered a framework for the overall assessment of
candidates.
Furthermore, each candidate must be assessed according to the specific requirements stated in the job advertisement.
You can read more about the criteria UCPH criteria here: https://employment.ku.dk/faculty/criteria-for-recognising-merit/
You can read more about the criteria for recognising merit for assistant professors here: 5a_Criteria_for_recognising_merit_-Assistant_professors.pdf (ku.dk)
Application
Please click on the “Apply now” icon at the bottom of this page.
The application must be written in English and include the following enclosures:
- Application letter/cover letter.
- Curriculum vitae (with the applicant’s email address, telephone number).
- Documentation of qualifications (examination certificates/PhD diploma, etc.).
- Complete and numbered list of publications. The enclosed publications must be marked with star*.
- Research plan, including a short description of previous research
and a plan for the coming years that includes an account of involvement
in organising research, establishment of research seminars, symposia and
congresses, etc.
- Teaching portfolio. Documentation of teaching qualifications and
research dissemination (organisation of classes, materials, courses and
other forms of teaching).
- Publications. Applicants may choose a maximum of five publications
for assessment, of which at least two must have been published within
the five years immediately preceding the deadline for applications. At
least two of these publications must have been published in
internationally recognized, peer-reviewed journals or in comparable
high-ranking series published with internationally recognized publishing
houses. Publication dates must be clearly marked on the publication
list. The publications selected must be uploaded as attachments and
listed from 1 to 5.
Should any material submitted consist of work with named co-authors,
or work that is otherwise the result of collective academic endeavours,
the extent of the applicant’s contribution to the work must be clearly
stipulated. The Faculty may ask for a signed statement from the
co-authors stipulating the extent and nature of each individual’s
contribution.
The core application materials (CV, cover letter, research plan and
teaching portfolio) should be submitted in English. The publications can
be submitted in English, German, French, Italian or Spanish. The
committee encourages applicants to submit at least one publication in
English.
Appointment procedure
After the application deadline, the Head of the Department selects
applicants for assessment on the advice of the Appointment
Committee. All applicants are then immediately notified whether their
application has been accepted for assessment. The Dean subsequently
appoints an expert assessment committee tasked with carrying out an
assessment of the selected applicants for the specific post. Selected
applicants are notified of the composition of the committee. Applicants
are ultimately offered the opportunity of commenting on the part of the
assessment relating to themselves before the appointment is finalized.
Further information about the application procedure is available from HR, e-mail: hrsc@hrsc.ku.dk. Please refer to ID number 211-0127/22-2N #1.
Salary and conditions of employment
Terms of appointment and salary will be in
accordance with an agreement between the Ministry of Finance and The
Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (AC). The salary range
starts at DKK 35,700, (EUR 4,800) + a 17,1 % contribution to the pension scheme. It is possible to negotiate salary supplements on an annual basis.
The Faculty of Humanities offer a starting package for tenure-track assistant professors, please read more here: https://humanities.ku.dk/about/tenuretrack/
A special tax scheme is offered to researchers recruited abroad, please see: https://ism.ku.dk/salary-tax-pension/tax/
If you consider applying from abroad, you may find useful information on how it is to work in Denmark and at UCPH here:
New to Denmark (nyidanmark.dk)
Workindenmark
For international researchers at the University of Copenhagen – University of Copenhagen (ku.dk)
The UCPH wishes to encourage everyone interested in this post to apply, regardless of personal background.
The closing date for applications is 15 January 2023 at 23:59 CET.
Applications or supplementary material received thereafter will not be considered.
