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Lancaster University

 

Professorship (or Senior Lectureship) in Digital Humanities

 

The newly formed Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences at Lancaster wishes to appoint a Professor or Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities. The appointment will be from Summer 2006 and is a permanent position.

 

The appointment should be seen in the context of a longer-term aim to establish a critical mass of researchers interested in the digital humanities. The establishment of this post is the first step towards creating such a grouping.

 

Background

 

At least two major reports have emerged recently that signal a way forward for ICT in the humanities and arts (and social sciences). First, the AHRC Delivery Plan argues the need for greater capacity in ‘grid technologies’, suggesting that research is needed in locating, accessing and integrating distributed resources that take the form of text, images and sound. Humanities Computing is therefore one of the key areas flagged in the Delivery Plan. There is already an ICT Methods Network funded by AHRC (and hosted by King’s College London, in which Lancaster is involved as a partner institution) which aims to preserve and provide access to digital resources and to guide new developments and advanced methodologies. We wish Lancaster to play a leading part in both the Network and in driving forward this initiative more broadly.

 

Second, the British Academy produced in May 2005 a report on ‘E-resources for research in the humanities and social sciences’. Among its recommendations are that Universities ensure that researchers have adequate access to technical support in this field and that such researchers promote the use of ICT where they can.

 

The creation of a new Faculty at Lancaster University provides a platform whereby an initiative in this area can be actively promoted and nurtured. Further, the University is keen to capitalise on the existing research base by establishing itself as a centre of excellence in the North West for ICT in the humanities and arts.

 

Lancaster is involved in the following activities related to Humanities Computing (classified by Department); the list is skeletal and illustrative only:

 

Linguistics – and especially corpus linguistics, lexicography and historical linguistics; use of semantic tagging, applications to dictionary production

Contemporary Arts (Music, Theatre, Art) – the use of new media in experimental performance; digital art installations, music software, computer representations of music

English – applications to mediaeval theatre and manuscript studies, and to handling of material relating to Quakers in the North-West; Ruskinian materials; Chartist poetry; crime fiction

History – digitising of calendar records, recent and contemporary oral history materials

Institute for Cultural Research – cultural memory (oral histories)

 

Technical and equipment support

 

Some dedicated technical support will be provided to the post-holder. The successful candidate will be invited to help determine, in consultation with others, the nature of this technical support and the equipment resources associated with this initiative. We have already been given an equipment grant to set up digitisation facilities. We intend that the successful candidate will develop a plan for the use of such facilities, thereby creating an income stream (from teaching, and from external sources) to help further develop a programme of activity.

 

Departmental affiliation

 

The administrative location of the successful candidate will, initially, be at Faculty level. It is not immediately envisaged that the candidate will be a member of an academic Department. This is to signal that the initiative is seen as a Faculty-wide one in which the post-holder helps to generate momentum across a range of potential stakeholders.

 

Job description

 

The successful candidate will, initially, be directly responsible to the Dean of the Faculty.

 

Key internal contacts will be colleagues working in the host and cognate departments in the Faculty and outside, and in seeking to develop external funding the post-holder will be in close contact with other staff in the Faculty, including the Associate Dean for Research & Enterprise and the Research & Enterprise Support Officer.

 

Externally, we expect the post-holder to develop relationships with appropriate organisations and individuals therein, both regionally and nationally. Examples include the Research Councils (notably AHRC) and regional galleries and museums.

 

Major duties will include:

 

  • Developing a research agenda, including the preparation of significant outputs for RAE2008 in an appropriate Unit of Assessment;
  • working with others to establish new degree schemes, initially at postgraduate level, that are likely to recruit significant numbers of students;
  • submitting applications for research funding to a range of funding agencies;
  • liaising with external stakeholders (including museums, libraries and galleries) over their digitising needs;
  • advising colleagues in humanities and social sciences on advanced research methods using ICT;
  • helping to promote the use of advanced ICT throughout the University;
  • helping to establish an international profile for Lancaster University in this field.

 

The post-holder will have flexibility to scope the development of the initiative. In particular, we would expect the post-holder to explore the possibilities for establishing a digitising service for the wider region as a means of helping to sustain the academic programme.

 

Person specification

 

We seek a dynamic and committed researcher to help develop further the Faculty’s interests in humanities computing.

 

Essential requirements

 

  • A PhD in a relevant research area.  The precise disciplinary background of candidates matters less than a willingness to engage enthusiastically with academics from a range of disciplines, including, inter alia, English, Creative Arts (Theatre Studies, Art, Music), Linguistics, History, and Cultural Research.

 

  • Evidence of the use of advanced ICT, relating to the humanities or arts, in their own research

 

  • A suitable track record of published work, commensurate with an entry to an appropriate Unit of Assessment for the next Research Assessment Exercise (2008)

 

  • Evidence of an ability to take a leadership role for the area of ICT in the social sciences and arts

 

  • Evidence of ability to attract external research funding

 

  • Experience of teaching in higher education, preferably at both undergraduate and postgraduate level

 

·        Evidence of an outward looking perspective, in the sense of an ability to engage both with other Faculties at Lancaster, other Universities, and other public and private sector organisations.

 

  • Effective personal, written and oral communication skills

 

Desirable

 

  • Experience of designing relevant programmes of study.
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