Doctoral Research Assistant position: Holocaust Ghettos Project: Reintegrating Victims and Perpetrators Through Places and Events (PI Anne Kelly Knowles)

The University of Maine invites applications for a doctoral Research Assistantship leading to a PhD in History or an Interdisciplinary PhD. The 2.5-year Research Assistantship will start January 1, 2019 or September 1, 2019, depending on the selected candidate’s availability. The Assistantship provides an annual stipend of approximately $21,000 and covers tuition and student health insurance, contingent upon continued satisfactory performance in the PhD program and project duties. Expectations include completion of necessary course work for the PhD during the term of the Assistantship. The doctoral RA will devote approximately 20 hours per week to project responsibilities.

We seek a highly self-motivated researcher who will bring key skills to the Holocaust Ghettos Project while pursuing their own doctoral research on the Holocaust or a related historical-geographical topic. The doctoral RA will have significant responsibility for developing an historical GIS of 1,500 Jewish ghettos in Eastern Europe, a digital gazetteer of ghettos, and geovisualizations of ghettoization, forced labor, involuntary transport, and mass murder. The project also includes linguistic analysis of 1,800 interviews with Holocaust survivors. The doctoral RA will work closely with the project team, including PI Anne Kelly Knowles and Co-PIs Paul B. Jaskot (Duke University) and Anika Walke (Washington University at St. Louis), undergraduate and graduate RAs, other members of the Holocaust Geographies Collaborative, and colleagues at the project’s institutional partners, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington, DC) and the USC Shoah Foundation (Los Angeles).

Requirements: A completed masters in History, Geography, or a closely related discipline (e.g. Anthropology, Computer/Data Science, Digital Humanities, International Studies, or Spatial Informatics). The ideal candidate will have strong technical skills in geovisualization (GIS, cartography, and/or spatial information design) and an interest in the expressive capacity of visual story-telling and spatial narrative. Preference will be given to applicants with experience on digital team projects, knowledge of early 20th-century European history, and/or one or more European languages, particularly German, Polish, Russian, Yiddish or Hebrew.

For informal inquiries about this position, please contact Anne Kelly Knowles, anne.knowles@maine.edu. For information about the Holocaust Geographies Collaborative, see https://holocaustgeographies.geo.txstate.edu/.

Your application package should be sent (as a PDF) to Wendy Morrill in the UMaine History Department, morrill@maine.edu. Applications must include: Letter of application that explains the applicant’s interest in and qualifications for the position; a statement of possible research topics for the PhD; personal CV, including technical skills and language(s); graduate and undergraduate transcripts; GRE scores; and samples of previous digital work. Three letters of recommendation should be sent separately. Review of applications will begin November 1, 2018, and continue until the position is filled.