Liebe alle,

bei mir im Forschungsprojekt an der Uni Maastricht (NL) ist eine ganze Stelle zur Promotion fuer 4 Jahre zu besetzen. Hier der Ausschreibungstext. Bei Fragen bitte bei mir melden. Die Dissertation muss auf Englisch verfasst werden. Die Lehre wird in Englisch (und wenn dies moeglich ist auch in Niederlaendisch angeboten. Von den Ph.D. Kandidaten wird aber keine Beherrschung des Niederlaendischen erwartet). Viel Erfolg bei der Bewerbung und lieben Gruss, Karin

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Vacancy PhD (m/f), 1.0 fte

Project: Narrative Fan Practices

Reference number: AT2011.11

Maastricht University
Maastricht University (UM) is the youngest university in the Netherlands and renowned for its unique, innovative, problem-based learning system, which is characterized by a small-scale, student-oriented approach. Research at the UM is multidisciplinary and deals mainly with contemporary issues. Currently the UM has around 11,500 students and 3,000 employees. Reflecting the university’s strong international profile, a considerable number of both students and staff are from abroad.

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS) is a rapidly growing faculty with 200 employees and 1600 students. All programmes are (also) offered in English. Its students come from all over the world. FASoS offers two 3-year bachelors programmes: Arts and Culture, and European Studies, six different 1-year masters courses and two 2-year research masters programmes. It has a Graduate School with an intake of about 10 PhD students each year. Research is organized across three programmes: Politics and Culture in Europe; Science, Technology and Society Studies; and Cultural Memory and Diversity. Additionally, the faculty has a Globalization and Development Initiative, which clusters various multi-year, inter-disciplinary collaborative research programs conducted on themes of Globalization and Development.  The faculty is also home to the Maastricht Virtual Knowledge Studio, a collaboration with the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is located in several recently renovated, 18^th century buildings in the historic city-centre of Maastricht.

Research theme

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Maastricht is looking for a PhD candidate to work on a project that investigates fan practices as a key for investigating cultural dynamics. Our research is based on the following concepts:

(1) media literacy and cultural heritage: Does cultural participation by fans lead to media literacy? How can we describe the coexistence of and interaction between a critically acclaimed canon and a new, transformative one?

(2) intermediality: What source texts are used? Can we describe an inclusion and exclusion of source texts? What canon plays a role?

(3) cultural citizenship: What is the impact of active participation of fans on our culture? Is it possible to speak of a new form of cultural citizenship?

This PhD project is one of the subprojects within the NWO research programme Cultural Dynamics and the affiliated project on Narrative Fan Practices. In the following the three subprojects will be described. Project 1 and 2 will focus on narrative fan practices based on closed respectively open source texts. The term “closed source texts” seems to be a contradiction to the concept of intermediality, which is per definition based on an understanding of texts as open. In our case “closed” stands for closure in the sense that there is an end to the process of storytelling. A novel can be finished; the viewing of a movie has an end – even though this might not be closure in a narrative sense. All media described in project 1 are closed in this sense.  Project 2 on the opposite will investigate fan narratives based on open source texts, which are persistent worlds. The openness here refers to the dynamics and constant change of these worlds and not to the openness of storylines. The two complementary projects will cover contemporary fan cultures. Project 3 will be a synthesis as well as a theoretical abstraction based on the 2 Ph.D. projects outlined.

This research will contribute to an emerging discussion of fan cultures in media studies. Narrative fan practices offer a unique intersection between digital cultures, studies on cultural heritage and intermediality. This study will thus add momentum, substantiation and specificity to a vital debate about new narrative fan practices as an example for cultural dynamics.

Tasks

PhD project

The project will analyze fan practices based on classic role-playing games, tabletop war-games and Massive Multiplayer Online Games (and LARP). These form persistent game-worlds, as they contain a changing and expanding game-world, game-play and game-structure as defined by Aarseth (2001). All three categories include popular games with rich narratives on which the fan practices are based. Recent research in games (Krzywinska 2006, Langer, Corneliussen & Rettberg, 2008) has focused on examining the game-world as a complete virtual world. We seek to expand on this body of work by performing a relational text analysis on the corpus of fan practices based on persistent game-worlds to analyze how these practices relate to the source text.

This project will offer valuable insight in the cultural participation of a new generation. While there are complaints concerning the lack of literacy and knowledge of cultural heritage among the youth, fans are actively creating videos, blogs and art, to name a few, regarding their interests. However, some critical questions can be raised here. Are fans actually developing their own literacy? Can we even call this literacy if they are only focused on their favourite game? And are they then taking into account the established canons, are they rather creating their own canons or ignoring canons altogether? The intermedial relations of the narrative fan practices will provide an answer to these questions.

Persistent game-worlds offer an environment not only for narrative exploration, yet also for social interaction and community building on which the fan products are based. How does this community influence the fan products? This project will add to recent research on games by examining the culture of the player and specifically the narrative fan practices they engage in.

The final choice of these the games and the fan practices investigated will be postponed until the precise background of the PhD-candidate is known.

The PhD-candidate will be enrolled in one of the Netherlands Graduate Research Schools, and supervised by Prof. Dr. Sally Wyatt (Maastricht University) and Dr. Karin Wenz (Maastricht University). The PhD student will be based at Maastricht University.

Qualifications:
We are looking for a prospective PhD candidate with:

• Background in Science and Technology Studies (STS), or Game Studies, or Media Studies.  
• A Masters degree in Science and Technology Studies, or Game Studies, or Media Studies. Preference is given to candidates who have completed a 2-year Research MA program
• Experience in conducting (virtual) ethnographic research (including doing qualitative interviews) on issues concerning games and/or online communities 
• Affinity with the history of computers/media
• Interest in (digital) games
• Strong analytical capacity
• Fluency in spoken English and excellent writing skills in English. Knowledge of Dutch and German is desirable, but not a precondition for the project
• Willingness and proven ability to work in a team, and to execute a research project in concordance with the two other subprojects in the NWO programme Narrative Fan Practices and a third affiliated project on music fans.

Appointment
We offer a 4-year full-time PhD contract. (The first year will be a probation period, after a positive assessment the position will be extended with another three years.) Compensation will be according to standard salary levels for PhD students starting with a salary of € 2042,- with a yearly growth to € 2612,- gross a month (based on a full-time appointment). The gross yearly salary, according to standard salary levels for PhD students, is about € 28.498,- during the first year, with a yearly growth to about € 36.453,- during the fourth year (based on a full-time appointment). If you do not already live in Maastricht (or its direct surroundings) you will be eligible for an allowance for removal costs.  
You will be provided with shared office space and a PC.

Starting date: June 1^st or as soon as possible

Information:
A more extensive description of the project and of the NWO program is available on request. For further information, please contact: Dr. Karin Wenz at k.wenz@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Further information on the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is available on our website:

www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/fasos

Application:
Candidates are invited to submit their application, Applicants should send:

1.      proposal in which you suggest an approach to investigate the topic and name case studies you would choose (the format of the proposal can be downloaded here: http://www.fdcw.org/phdprogram/admission/)

2.      CV

3.      transcript of grades from MA education

4.      the names and addresses of two references

5.      (digital) copies of written work

The deadline for submitting your application is April 1st. Please send your application to the Secretariat of the Faculty Office, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. Applications can also be submitted electronically at: Pzfdcwvacatures@maastrichtuniversity.nl