Call for Applications: Funded DFG Doctoral Position

The Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC) is looking for a doctoral candidate in environmental and North American history to work on a project about the history of Vanport, Oregon. The position will start on 1 January 2024 and will run for 30 months. The RCC is the largest center for advanced study in the environmental humanities worldwide and hosts numerous international scholars working on environmental topics. Its working language is English. The dissertation project will be supervised by Prof. Dr. Uwe Lübken (uwe.luebken@lmu.de).

Vanport was a WWII housing project built to accommodate thousands of workers who had come to Portland, Oregon, to contribute to wartime industries, most importantly the Kaiser Shipbuilding Corporation. During the war, Vanport reached a population of 40,000. Built within a few months on reclaimed bottomlands of the Columbia River, Vanport was entirely inundated by a flood in 1948 and never rebuilt. At that time, some 18,000 people still lived in Vanport, many of them Black Americans.

The dissertation project will be an analysis of everyday life in a city where almost everything seemed to be temporary and ephemeral. It interrogates questions of environmental (in)justice and displacement by tracing the fate of the flood victims, especially in Portland’s Albina neighborhood, where many Black flood refugees ended up. The project also deals with issues of disaster memory and the question of why the history of Vanport had been forgotten for so long, and only recently rediscovered. Furthermore, it will focus on the geographic site of Vanport—its Indigenous dimensions, its environmental challenges, and its history after the flood event of 1948.

Qualifications

• MA in history, anthropology, geography, or a related discipline;
• Fluency in English, with exceptionally strong English writing skills;
• Ability to work well in a team;
• Commitment to archival research, mostly in Portland, Oregon (travel money is available);
• Ideally a background in North American history.

The RCC offers an attractive compensation package, based on the tariff contracts for public service (65% of level E13, commensurate with experience) and 30 days paid vacation. Working hours are flexible, and the RCC offers a family-friendly working environment. The RCC can also assist, if necessary, with work permits and visas. As the candidate will be a state employee, they are required to have German health insurance and make contributions to the German tax and social welfare system. We especially seek applications from qualified individuals with disabilities, and we welcome applications from people of diverse backgrounds and gender identities.

To apply, please send your cover letter, CV (max. 4 pages), an academic-writing sample (max. 2 pages), and the contact information of two references in a single PDF document to jobs@rcc.lmu.de by 15 September 2023. Interviews will take place in the second week of October, either in person or via Zoom.