Three fulltime Assistant Professors in Comparative Literature at Utrecht University (1.0 FTE)

The Department of Languages, Literature, and Communication is seeking to appoint three assistant professors in Comparative Literature, starting from the academic year 2022-2023. Utrecht University strives towards enhancing the diversity amongst its staff and students. We explicitly welcome applications from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives.

With 70% teaching and 30% research time, the assistant professors will be involved in high-quality teaching in all related programmes (BA Literary Studies, BA Liberal Arts at University College Utrecht, MA Literature Today, and Research MA Comparative Literary Studies). Their research will be embedded in the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON), and in one or more of the university's research hubs and strategic research themes (the Hub Gender and Diversity within the Strategic Theme Institutions for Open Societies, or the Strategic Theme Dynamics of Youth) or focus areas such as Game Research, Higher Education Research, or Migration and Societal Change. Research in Comparative Literature at Utrecht University ranges widely. It comprises postcoloniality and decoloniality, utopia studies, social activism and cultural memory, creativity and media studies, perpetrator studies, animal studies, experimental literature, life writing, (early modern) book history and cultures, history of science and of education, narratology and emotions in medieval literature, and classical rhetoric. Our research extends from literatures and cultures in Europe, the Anglophone and Francophone worlds to Asia and the Middle East.

The Comparative Literature section at Utrecht University is an international and dynamic, growing community of researchers and students. We operate with a broad understanding of the literary medium and value innovative, theoretical, interdisciplinary, and transcultural approaches to literature. Our BA in Literary Studies offers a module-package on literary history from Antiquity to the 21st century (European and global literatures); a module-package on literary theory and methodology; an advanced module-package on literature as a site of societal debate; and an advanced module-package on world literature and postcoloniality. Our multilingual (Dutch, French, German, Spanish, English) MA programme Literature Today focusses on literary criticism and the literary field (such as publishing in Europe). Our international, English-spoken, Research MA programme Comparative Literary Studies zooms in on literature as a cultural medium from a comparative, theoretical perspective in the modern and contemporary age. For years, our programs have rated very highly in the Dutch BA and R/MA Selection Guides. Staff in the Comparative Literature section co-operates closely with colleagues in the language sections of the department, both in teaching and research (Dutch, English, German, French, Celtic&Classics, Italian, Spanish).