PhD scholarship in history at the new Center of Excellence “TRANSITION – Changing Urban and Rural lives”

The new Center of Excellence TRANSITION – Changing Urban and Rural lives at the Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics (NorS) of the University of Copenhagen and the National Museum of Denmark, is seeking applicants for a PhD scholarship in transitional lifespan perspectives in the period circa 1870–1945 focusing on the lived experiences of urbanization in Denmark.

We are looking for a talented PhD candidate who will join TRANSITION – Center for Changing Urban and Rural Lives, a new Center of Excellence set to open on February 1, 2025. It is funded for up to 10 years by the Danish National Research Foundation (https://dg.dk/en/) and represents a collaboration between the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Copenhagen and the National Museum of Denmark.

TRANSITION – Changing Urban and Rural lives

Worldwide, the transition from predominantly rural to urban societies marks one of the most significant shifts in human history, with profound implications for culture, language, and identities. This shift has fostered a longstanding narrative of opposition between rural and urban life, influencing social cohesion, democracy, and sustainability.

The aim of the center’s research is to uncover and understand the cultural history and lived experiences of people in Denmark during the long 20th-century transition from agrarian societies to today’s post-industrial world. The research spans the entire period and explores, among other topics, life courses, experiences of living in new contexts, and rural and urban places in transition. This PhD scholarship concerns the topic ‘life courses’ in the period circa 1870–1945.

TRANSITION – Changing Urban and Rural lives is an interdisciplinary center that combines linguistic, literary, and historical studies. Its research draws on extensive cultural-historical archives and collections, among others the National Museum’s Ethnological Surveys (NEU), the Dialect Archive at NorS, and Danish literary history. These sources include autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, and life-story interview recordings.

The successful candidate is expected to design and carry out an empirical study of life courses based on the above mentioned data resources and censuses, parish registers, Copenhagen Burial Records et cetera, provided as digital resources by the Link-Lives (https://link-lives.dk/). The main supervisor will be Professor at the SAXO Institute Anne Løkke, project leader of Link-Lives. Senior Researcher Mikkel Thelle, the National Museum, will act as co-supervisor and anchor to the TRANSITION center. The successful candidate must engage in and actively contribute to the center's interdisciplinary work, including participation in interdisciplinary data sessions.



Anchoring

The candidate will be employed at the National Museum and enrolled at the PhD School in the Humanities at the University of Copenhagen and affiliated with the SAXO institute.

The primary place of employment is The National Museum, the Department of Modern History and World Cultures, Frederiksholms Kanal 12, 1220 København K, but with a workspace at the university as well.

The applicants outline project proposal will be further developed in dialogue with the supervisors and the TRANSITION core team.

For further information about the PhD programme at the Faculty of Humanities, please refer to: https://phd.humanities.ku.dk/phd-programme/

Qualifications

Applicants must have a two-year master’s degree or equivalent in history or historical demography and have demonstrated high academic performance throughout the study.

As a minimum, applicants have submitted their master’s thesis for which they have received pre-approval at the time of application. Furthermore, applicants must have a good knowledge of Danish and/or European social and cultural history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Experience with and knowledge of digital history methods and theory will be an advantage. The candidate is expected to have experience in simple coding in Python or to learn this during the first half year of the employment. Candidates, who demonstrate experience with historical demography, life course analysis and with analyzing people’s lived experiences in society, do also have an advantage. Applicants must possess skills in written and spoken academic English at a high level. The empirical data is in Danish, for this reason, the applicants must hold skills in Danish which allow them to analyze historical texts in Danish.

Application

The National Museum works actively for equality among employees and therefore encourages all qualified people, regardless of personal background, to apply for the position.

The application should contain the following:

• Cover Letter (one page) detailing your motivation and background for applying for this specific PhD project
• Outlined project proposal of a maximum of 6.000 keystrokes with a bibliography which may go beyond this maximum. The outlined project should include title, suggestions for research questions, theory, methods and sources.
• CV containing educational info, work experience, and other relevant information
• List of publications (if any)
• Diplomas of bachelor’s and master’s degree and transcripts of study records including marks for all exams.
• Time schedule with a rough outline of activities within the structure provided by the PhD programme at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen.

The application must be sent via the National Museums electronic recruitment system on our website www.natmus.dk/job and must be received by the Museum no later than 6th of january.

Terms of employment

The PhD scholarship is a time-limited scientific position. The employment period is three years, and the weekly working time is 37 hours a week. Salary and terms of employment are in accordance with the agreement between the Ministry of Finance and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations on Academics in the State. The PhD student has a work obligation of up to 840 hours over the 3-year period without additional pay. The work obligation will be split between the National Museum and the SAXO Institute and can include for instance teaching and archival work.

The place of employment is The National Museum, the Department of Modern History and World Cultures, Frederiksholms Kanal 12, 1220 København K.

Expected starting time is 1st of March 2025, or soon thereafter.

After the deadline, a pre-qualifying assessment committee will assess the qualifications of the applicants in relation to achieving a PhD scholarship. Hereafter, an employment committee will be formed. Selected applicants should expect job interviews before the 1 February 2025.

For further information about the position, please contact one of the following: Head of Research of the Dept. of Modern History and World Cultures, Christian Sune Pedersen, tel. 0045 41206200, [email protected] or Senior Researcher Mikkel Thelle, tel. 0045 41206223, [email protected].




Nationalmuseet er Danmarks kulturhistoriske hovedmuseum og et statsmuseum under Kulturministeriet. Nationalmuseet styrker historiebevidsthed og medborgerskab ved at belyse Danmarks og verdens kulturer og deres indbyrdes afhængighed. Ca. 655 medarbejdere er fordelt på 4 afdelinger: Forskning, Samling og Bevaring, Museer og Slotte, Nationalmuseet København samt Drift og Administration. Se mere om Nationalmuseet på www.natmus.dk