Position of a doctoral research fellow
The Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin invites applications for the position of a doctoral research fellow with a 3-year contract, starting 01.01.2021. The successful candidate will work in the European Research Council funded Consolidator Grant project, Timely Histories: A Social History of Time in South Asia, which will run at ZMO for five years. The project, led by Nitin Sinha (principal investigator), will comprise two doctoral, two postdoctoral, and one research assistant positions. The salary grade for the advertised position corresponds to the standard German scheme of employment in the public sector (TVöD E13, 65%). Additional funds for research travel, conference participation, and publications are available. The successful candidate will be required to be based in Berlin.

General outline of the project:
TIMEHIST – Timely Histories: A Social History of Time in South Asia aims to write a history of time and temporal cultures in South Asia between the 1500s and the 1950s on a practice- and process-based understanding of the past. The details of the project can be found here.
https://www.zmo.de/en/research/timely-histories

Advertised position:
We seek to hire a doctoral researcher working on the unit ‘time of the future’. The unit will explore the everyday forms of managing, organising, and ‘fixing’ the future in the late nineteenth and twentieth century. With the expansion of wage economy and setting up of formalised spaces of offices, we find different types of people – from clerks to servants and coolies to peons – petitioning their masters and employers for pension. New ventures of business, based upon speculative life expectancy such as that of the life insurance, emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century. Systems of provident fund related to employment grew stronger in the twentieth century. Thus, pension, life insurance, and other employment-related saving funds emerged as forms of future security. Did a-literate subalterns use the money-based techniques of organising the future in the same way as middle-class elites did? One of the premises of this unit is that the expansion of money and growth in using bank savings, life insurances, and other forms of monetised resources to shape the future went hand in hand with the proliferation in both organised and diffused forms of religious diviners, fortune- and time-tellers. The successful candidate will conduct the research on these different ways in which the cross-section of society secured their future in which the temporal markers related to age and generation played a key role. A society investing in life insurance, or in opening a saving account, must have also invested in thinking about intimacy and responsibility, about the future well-being of the kin and family. How did people shape their future through the use of different resources is one aspect of the research done under this unit. The unit will also conceptually and empirically explore how new, specific means and resources ranging from money to divinity, shaped a new idea of the future, if it did, in 19th and 20th century India.

Essentials and desirables:
- Development and elaboration of a doctoral research project along the key points of this unit;
- M.A. or M.Phil degree in History with a focus on modern history of South Asia;
- Applications from other fields, particularly Anthropology/Sociology, is highly welcome;
- Preference will be given to those who show the potential to combine historical and anthropological approaches, with a commitment to generate ethnography (for instance, around shrines and religious places to understand ‘social concerns’ around time when people approach time- and fortune-tellers);
- Preference will be given to those who propose to work on colonial metropolitan cities (such as Bombay, Calcutta, Lahore) using relevant vernacular language popular in the chosen region; proposals on other regions are indeed highly welcome;
- Great command over English and a South Asian language in which the literary sources will be used;
- Proven ability to work with archival and/or other types of materials;
- Proven ability to work both independently and as part of a team;
- Tested disposition to finish work in a time-bound manner;
- To interact actively with other relevant research clusters at ZMO.

Key responsibilities:
- Conducting research on the proposed theme and producing a finished thesis within three years;
- Writing at least 1 peer-review journal article or book chapter;
- Proactively interacting with other units and themes of the project;
- Participation in TIMEHIST programmes (internal meetings, reading sessions, workshops, conferences, and other events);
- Assistance in meeting the publication/outreach plans of the project (special issues and edited books).

What we offer:
The Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) is the only research institution in Germany that deals with the Middle East, Africa, Eurasia, South and Southeast Asia in an interdisciplinary and historically comparative perspective. We offer a vibrant and interdisciplinary work environment in Berlin as well as a motivating and a friendly working atmosphere. Our centre provides opportunities to connect widely with other institutes and networks in Berlin and outside. While being based at ZMO, the successful candidate will be registered with a leading university in Berlin and would be required to work with a carefully chosen team of supervisors. The primary oversight and guidance of their work will be provided by the principal investigator of this project.

Application:
Please collate all materials in one single PDF file and send it to Dr Silke Nagel (zmo@zmo.de) by 10 August with the subject ERC-TIMEHIST-FUTURE. Please copy your application to timely.histories@gmail.com
- Cover letter (not exceeding two pages);
- Outline of your proposed research, with direct reference to sources (including vernacular) and region of research, and in alignment with the key features of the unit (maximum three pages);
- Curriculum Vitae with publications (including those under review), if any;
- Copy of certificates (B.A, M.A/M.Phil);
- One sample writing (an M.A. research paper or chapter from your M.Phil thesis) which shows the use and analysis of primary sources/ethnographic data;
- List of two referees (names, affiliations, email addresses, and telephone numbers).

Diversity:
ZMO is committed to maintaining diversity, inclusivity, and equality of opportunity within its community and therefore encourages applications from members of all underrepresented groups.

Further information:
Relevant informal enquiries regarding the project and the advertised job can be made to Nitin Sinha, nitin.sinha@zmo.de, cc also to timely.histories@gmail.com

Selection:
Candidates will be shortlisted for the interview on the basis of the received application. Due to Covid-19 crisis, we will refrain from putting out an interview date right now. We will keep the selected candidates informed and work out a mutually agreeable date. Chosen candidates should be well prepared to appear for the interview using digital/virtual medium.