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Postdoctoral Researcher in political science specializing in intellectual history / nuclear history

Employer
Global Academy Jobs
Location
France
Closing date
May 1, 2018

Job Details

Job description

Professor Benoît Pelopidas is looking for a postdoctoral research scholar to work with the team of his chair of excellence in security studies (www.sciencespo.fr/nk/en) at Sciences Po, Paris (CERI) within the ERC Project NUCLEAR (Governing nuclear weapons choices between past and futures) starting in September 2018, for 2 years.

The successful candidate will contribute to the two following research goals of the NUCLEAR project :

  1. To understand the evolving meaning of the intellectual categories currently used to make sense of nuclear-weapons-related challenges by a) mapping categories used since the interruption of nuclear testing worldwide and b) tracing their original meaning and dependence on their context of emergence in the transnational correspondence of early thinkers on those issues and
  2. To examine and assess the effects of the institutionalization of a nuclear weapon program on the governance of nuclear knowledge by looking at the states with the most advanced programs post-WWII.

During the first year, the successful candidate will collect data (texts) with references to nuclear weapons in the leading newspapers in Russian and Mandarin and combine it with the references to nuclear weapons in diplomatic statements since the end of the era of nuclear testing during the NPT review process. Once the dataset is constituted, (s)he will identify the categories most often associated with nuclear weapons in this corpus (research goal 1) and analyse the past events and imaginaries of possible nuclear futures as opposed to futures deemed impossible which are associated with those categories.

(S)he will co-author an article on the topic with Professor Pelopidas and the other postdoctoral fellow working in Arabic and Hebrew on similar issues (to be submitted to the Journal of Peace Research).

During the second year, (s)he will review the literature of nuclear history and strategy of the first twenty years of the nuclear age in Russian and Mandarin and trace the categories identified above back in the early discussions among those strategists. (S)he may join Professor Pelopidas for archival research and in depth interviews with some of the early nuclear strategists or their relatives.

(S)he will also participate in a 2020 side event at the NPT review conference presenting the results of the project.

 

About the working environment

Since September 2016, Professor Pelopidas and his team have received a Chair of excellence, a four-year ANR research funding, a five-year ERC Starting Grant and two scholarly awards for their publications. In other words, the successful candidate will benefit from a uniquely intense, engaged and collegial intellectual environment striving for academic excellence as well as policy relevance, understood as speaking to the contemporary condition of our fellow citizens and not only the policy elites.

All members of the team, across the ERC and the ANR projects, will be chosen because they agree that peace of mind, mutual support and a welcoming environment are crucial to academic excellence, while understanding that asking hard questions and being challenged are the only ways to achieve it.

The successful candidate alongside all members of the team as well as relevant members of the scientific advisory board of the program will give detailed feedback on the writings of other team members on the basis of one monthly essay discussion.

 

About CERI/Sciences Po

Sciences Po has been ranked 4th best IR and politics department in the world by QS in 2018 for the third year in a row and has been in the top 5 since 2015. It is the leading research university in social sciences in France and has 400 academic partnerships with universities around the world. Based on a multi-disciplinary approach, it associates and combines skills from the different social sciences – in particular economy, history, political science, sociology and the humanities. Established in 1952, the Centre for International Research (CERI) is the most preeminent research centre in France that concentrates on both international/transnational relations and regional studies. It is also the largest of Sciences Po’s research units. CERI’s excellence in scholarship translates into partnerships with sister institutions abroad, such as the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, the Department of International Relations and the European Institute at LSE, Department of War Studies at King’s College, and CERIUM, Montréal.

CERI brings together scholars from several disciplines in the social sciences – first and foremost, political science, but also sociology, anthropology, history and economics. With regard to CERI’s regional expertise, the Muslim world is first (with 13 permanent scholars who specialize on countries stretching from Morocco to the Arabic Peninsula and Iran), followed by Latin American, Asian, East European and African studies. Fieldwork, empirical and comparative methods and knowledge of local languages are essential characteristics of CERI’s approach to area studies. CERI also reaches out to policy makers and government agencies, media outlets, NGOs and corporations. It has a well-established tradition of organizing public events and disseminating knowledge through its many publications.

Gross monthly salary : 3 225 euros

Sciences Po is an equal opportunity employer.

The successful candidate will work on CERI’s premises located 56 rue Jacob, 75006 Paris and will have to reside in Paris for the duration of the contract (two years).

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