Newcastle University

The School of Modern Languages is offering a full PhD studentship (Graduate Teaching Assistantship) starting in October 2012, to enable a student to carry out doctoral research on a topic in one of the following fields: Chinese and Japanese Studies; French and Francophone Studies; German Studies; Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies; Film Studies; Linguistics; Translating and Interpreting Studies.
As a Graduate Teaching Assistant, the successful candidate will teach up to 6 hours per week and in return will receive:

• An annual stipend of £ 13,000 
• A waiver for UK/EU fees throughout the 3-year period.
• Appropriate training for doctoral research and teaching.

The studentship will commence on 01/10/2012 or as soon thereafter as possible, for a period of 3 years. Informal enquiries can be made to the Director of Postgraduate Studies of the School of Modern Languages, Prof. Henrike Lähnemann, Tel: 0044 191 2227513.

About the School

The School of Modern Languages at Newcastle is one of the leading departments for research in the UK, with particular strengths in Linguistics; History, Politics and Society; Cultural Studies; Film and Visual Media; Literature; Translating and Interpreting. We work as an integrated school in terms of both research and teaching, allowing us to develop true interdisciplinarity within and across our language sections, and with other schools in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS).

There is a vibrant research culture in the School, which also has strong links to a number of Research Groups and Centres in the HASS Faculty, including: Americas Research Group; Centre for Research in Linguistics and Language Sciences (CRiLLS); Early Modern Studies; Postcolonial Studies Group; Research Group in Film and Media; Translating and Interpreting Research Forum.

We run a portfolio of taught Masters Programmes, in addition to Research Masters and Doctoral programmes. We have a lively international postgraduate community within the School and at Faculty level.

Research expertise in the School of Modern Languages

 Chinese and Japanese Studies

• Contemporary Chinese society, especially identity, ethnicity and religion; minority nationalities (e.g. Xinjiang or Uyghur studies); Chinese state or popular nationalism; Islam in China; performing arts, music cultures and popular culture in China (Dr J Smith Finley).
• Japanese literature, Edo-period popular culture, Japanese textual scholarship (Dr L Moretti).
• Contemporary Japanese animation, especially representations of history, nostalgia and Nihonjinron Japanese-ness (Dr S Yoshioka).
• Chinese-language films, East Asian cinema, gender and sexuality in Chinese media, stardom and celebrity study (Dr S Yu).
• Chinese translating and interpreting studies; Chinese numerology and number culture; number and gender in nursery rhymes (Dr V Pellatt).

French Studies

• Algerian cinema; French cinema, especially stardom, genre, film history, cinematic space (Prof G Austin, Dr S Leahy).
• Contemporary women’s writing; Trauma studies; Textual genetics; Modern literature; Francophone studies (Dr K Robson, Dr M El-Maizi, Prof G Austin).
• French linguistics, especially semantics and pragmatics (Dr R Waltereit).
• Historical studies: nineteenth century political ideas; Epistolary studies; gender studies and history of feminist and socialist political movements (Prof M Cross).
• Politics, society, media and popular culture (Dr H Dauncey).

German Studies

• German literature and politics post-1945; comparative literature and literary theory; GDR literature and censorship; Holocaust narratives (Dr B Müller).
• Twentieth-century and contemporary German literature; literature and philosophy; cultural and critical theory; women's writing (Dr T Ludden).
• Medieval to early modern German Literature; Northern German mysticism; Arthurian romance; manuscript transmission and visual culture; comparative medieval literature (Dr E Andersen; Prof. H Lähnemann).
• Morphological theory; morphology, phonology and dialectology of German and Dutch (Dr C Fehringer).
  

Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies

• Anthropology, anthropological linguistics and sociolinguistics of Latin America including Quechua language (Prof. R Howard).
• Basque and Catalan nationalisms (Dr A Davies, Dr Jorge Catalá-Carrasco).
• Discourses of race and identity; participatory politics and democracy (Prof. Rosaleen Howard, Dr Nick Morgan).
• History and politics, anthropology, and sociology of Latin America (19th and 20th centuries) (Prof. J Hentschke, Dr Nick Morgan, Dr P Oliart).
• Linguistics: semantics; philosophy of language; history and spread of Spanish in Latin America; Latin American dialects and Creoles (Prof. I Mackenzie).
• Nineteenth- and twentieth-century Spanish novel (Dr Jorge Catalá-Carrasco).
• Popular culture of contemporary Latin America; cultural studies (Dr Nick Morgan, Dr P Oliart, Dr Jorge Catalá-Carrasco).
• Spanish and Latin American cultural history; graphic humour, caricature, comics (Dr Jorge Catalá-Carrasco).
• Spanish and Latin American film (Dr A Davies).
  

Translating and Interpreting

• History of translation (Prof. H Lähnemann).
• Interpreting, particularly cognitive processing (Dr M Jin; Dr V Pellatt;).
• Translating literature (Dr F Jones).
• Translation and culture; translation and ethics/ideology/power (Dr F Jones).
• Translation strategies (Dr F Jones, Dr V Pellatt).
• Translator training, reflective learning, autonomous learning and educational psychology (Dr Ya-Yun Chen).
  

Linguistics

Newcastle University has the largest concentration of academics in linguistics in the UK (see www.ncl.ac.uk/linguistics), with expertise spanning a wide range of approaches and languages. The considerable cross-linguistic expertise in the School of Modern Languages enables both single language and comparative supervision in linguistics. Our particular research strengths are in: phonology/morphology (Dr C Fehringer); semantics (Prof. I Mackenzie, Dr R Waltereit); pragmatics and historical linguistics (Dr R Waltereit); syntax (Prof. I Mackenzie); sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics (Prof. R Howard).

Film Studies

The School has expertise in the cinemas of Algeria (Prof G Austin), China (Dr Sabrina Yu), France (Prof G Austin, Dr S Leahy), Latin America and Spain (Dr A Davies), and also in Film Studies more generally, with particular interests in issues of national and transnational cinema; star studies; gender and film; audiences; genres (particularly thriller and vampire films); auteurism. Much of our research intersects with aspects of Hollywood and British cinema.

Further information about research at the School of Modern Languages can be found on our website (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sml/) and on the HASS Graduate School website (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/hss/postgrad/).

Further Particulars

One full PhD studentship (Graduate Teaching Assistantship) will be available in the School of Modern Languages at Newcastle University for a period of 3 years from September 2011, to carry out postgraduate research on a topic in one of the following fields: Chinese and Japanese Studies; French and Francophone Studies; German Studies; Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies; Film Studies; Linguistics; Translating and Interpreting Studies.  This award will provide the successful candidate with the following:

• An annual stipend of £ 13,000 
• A waiver for UK/EU fees throughout the 3-year period.
• Appropriate training for doctoral research and teaching.

The Graduate Teaching Assistant will teach up to 6 hours of classes per week to undergraduate students.

Requirements and Applications

The successful candidate will have a good first degree and an MA or equivalent in a relevant area; native or near-native proficiency in the relevant language, as well as in English.

Applications

Your application should include: a letter of application, a research proposal (guidelines) and CV with the names and addresses of two referees. You should also hold an offer of a place to study here at Newcastle (for this you will need to apply via the web portal)

Application deadline: 16 March 2012. Interviews will be held in mid-April. Candidates will be informed whether they have been shortlisted for interview by 24 March.

Please send your application to: Prof. Henrike Lähnemann, Director of Postgraduate Studies, School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE1 7RU, Tel: +44 191 222 7513, Fax: +44 191 222 3496.