Postdoc position: Global History/Material Culture/Violence Studies/Human-Animal Studies
The Department of History at the University of Basel, Switzerland, invites applications for a postdoctoral position in a global history project led by Prof. Dr. Marie Muschalek (principal investigator, PI), to be filled as of April 1st, 2025 or by agreement.
The project Killing to Keep – Violent Field Practices and Natural History in the Age of Empire funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, explores the life-worlds of nature experts who killed animals in order to keep and study them in the long nineteenth century. Team members will research the practices, people, and objects of this endeavor in multiple places in the world:
Case study 1: Birds in the tropical dry and moist forests of Northern South America
Case study 2: Fish and mollusks in the shallow and deep waters of the Southwestern Pacific
Case study 3: Large mammals in the mixed wood and grasslands of Southern Africa
We seek researchers interested in: 1) daily practices in the field, manual skills and techniques of capturing, shooting, skinning, and preserving animals, 2) the men and women, indigenous and intruder alike, involved in the business of collecting animals-turned-specimens, and/or 3) the specimens, trophies, and marketable commodities they produced. Our goal is to account for the complexities of human curiosity and the the many different and culturally specific histories of violence against nonhuman and human life within the broader framework of colonial subjugation and its politics of difference.
Your position
Material Genealogies of Animal Specimens: Science, Art & Craftsmanship
As a postdoctoral researcher you will engage in uncovering naturalist field practices by working closely on the collected artefacts themselves, that is, on a selection of specimens with provenance from one of the geographical foci of the overall project. Paying attention to the different materials, surface textures and interiors, colors, and any traces of handling, you will seek to understand violent practices of humans towards other animals as an activity which connected science with art, material techniques and craftsmanship with intellectual thought processes and knowledge production.
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Your profile
We offer you
Application / Contact
Please submit your complete application documents including a letter of motivation, CV, publications list, relevant diplomas and PhD certificate, sample of writing (max. 10 pages), contact details of two references.
If you have any questions, please contact Prof. Dr. Marie Muschalek. You can also find out more about us at https://dg.philhist.unibas.ch/de/.
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