Job: Pre-PhD fellow CREATE – Cinema History, University of Amsterdam

The Amsterdam Centre for Cultural Heritage and Identity and the Department of Media Studies of the Faculty of Humanities are looking for a pre-PhD fellow in the area of Cinema History as part of the project Creative Amsterdam: An E-Humanities Perspective (CREATE), supervised by prof. Rens Bod, prof. Lia van Gemert, prof. Joep Leerssen, prof. Julia Noordegraaf, dr. Jaap Kamps, prof. James Symonds and prof. Maarten de Rijke. The Pre-PhD fellow will be appointed in the department of Media Studies and supervised by prof. Julia Noordegraaf and prof. Jaap Boter.

The research priority area Cultural Heritage and Identity, in collaboration with the Centre for Digital Humanities and the Intelligent Systems Lab Amsterdam, has developed a research project that uses large-scale digital data and techniques to investigate how cultural industries have shaped Amsterdam’s unique position as a Creative City in a European and global context, from the 17th century until the present day.

The successful applicant will contribute to the project Mapping Europe’s Cinema Databases (MECCA), which aims to explore the affordances of digital cinema databases and GIS analysis for understanding local cinema markets. The project will combine a geospatial analysis of cinema density in the Netherlands and Flanders (1950-1970) with historical data on pillarization, class and the organization of the industry. As such, it will provide an answer to the core question of how the development of cinema, as a specific cultural industry, interrelates with the social and cultural dimensions of modern public life. The project will be conducted in collaboration with prof. dr. Daniel Biltereyst (Ghent University) and prof. dr. Philippe Meers (University of Antwerp) and will result in a peer reviewed publication as well as a funding application for a larger, thematic research project that compares the cinema markets in The Netherlands and Flanders (1950-1975).

The tasks of the pre-PhD fellow include:

• visualizing the density of Dutch cinema’s (1950-1970) on a map, using the cinema location data from the Cinema Context database;
• geocoding the data on cinema locations in Flanders and including these on the interactive map;
• locating historical data on pillarization, class and the organization of the cinema industry in the Netherlands and Flanders;
• performing GIS analysis of (a selection of) the integrated datasets;
• participating in CREATE’s THATCamp (27 October 2016) and conference Creativity and the City (28-29 October 2016);
• contributing to the publication and funding application.

Requirements

We are looking for a candidate with:

• a research oriented master’s degree (MA) completed before 31 August 2016;
• a strong background or demonstrable interest in the cultural and socio-economic history of cinema (new cinema studies);
• experience with or demonstrable interest in working with historical socio-economic data, as well as digital tools for geographical analysis (GIS);
• research experience, or a track record of project based work, and the ability to function in a multidisciplinary team.

You can apply for this job until May 31, 2016.
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