1 Research Group Leader for Research Area B: Economies of SADs
The successful candidate will lead a Research Group in the BCDSS’ Research Area B “Economies of SAD”, design and conduct independent projects on the history of dependency that closely relate to Research Area B’s research goals. The successful candidate will recruit two doctoral researchers for the research group and collaborate closely with colleagues from the BCDSS, in particular the cluster professor for Economic Anthropology.
Your tasks:
- Developing the research profile of the Research Group on the relationship between coercive exclusion, economic behaviour, and the broader social, cultural, and normative contexts in which they are embedded from a historical perspective.
- Recruiting and supervising two doctoral researchers.
- Providing academic leadership and strategic development of the Research Group.
- Conducting an independent research project leading to a second monograph or equivalent work.
- Developing innovative theoretical and methodological approaches to analyse SAD contextualizing their economic entanglements.
- Organizing and contributing to international workshops, seminars, and conferences.
- Building national and international research networks.
1 Research Group Leader for Research Area C: Power – Violence – Trauma
The successful candidate will lead a Research Group in the BCDSS’ Research Area C “Power – Violence – Trauma”, design and conduct independent projects in the field of Historically Informed Dependency Studies (HIDS) that closely relate to the Research Area’s research goals. The successful candidate will recruit two doctoral researchers for the research group and collaborate closely with colleagues from the BCDSS, in particular the cluster professor for Trauma Studies / History of Violence.
Your tasks:
- Developing the research profile of the Research Group on the historical relationship between violence, trauma, and coercion within the field of Historically Informed Dependency Studies (HIDS).
- Recruiting and supervising two doctoral researchers.
- Providing academic leadership and strategic development of the Research Group and Research Area C.
- Conducting an independent research project leading to a second monograph or equivalent work.
- Developing innovative theoretical and methodological approaches to analyse SAD.
- Organizing and contributing to international workshops, seminars, and conferences.
- Building national and international research networks.
1 Research Group Leader for the Research Group “Computational Dependencies and Cultural Data Studies” (in cooperation with the BCDH)
The successful candidate will lead the Research Group “Computational Dependencies and Cultural Data Studies”, and design and conduct independent projects in the field of Historically Informed Dependency Studies (HIDS) that relate to the BCDSS’ Research Area E “Alternative Archives and Life Writing”. The proposed project may address any issue relevant to the study of Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies, from any discipline respective to the Research Area. The successful candidate will recruit one doctoral researcher and one software developer for the research group.
Your tasks:
- Designing the research and technological profile for the Research Group, focusing on the computational analysis of strong asymmetrical dependencies (SADs) in societies of the past.
- Recruiting and supervising one doctoral researcher and one software developer.
- Conducting an independent research project resulting in a high-impact monograph or substantial digital/computational outputs.
- Developing and implementing custom software pipelines for the processing of historical source materials, utilizing methods such as HTR/OCR, Knowledge Graphs, LLMs, Geospatial Analysis, or Network Analysis as required by your research focus.
- Proactively addressing technical challenges such as algorithmic biases, model reliability, and the identification of marginalized or "invisible" actors in historical sources.
- Leading the Research Group to drive empirical and computational research objectives.
- Organizing hands-on technical workshops, hackathons, and seminars to foster digital competencies within the BCDSS and the Bonn academic community.
- Teaching at least two seminars per year, contributing to the curriculum in Computational Humanities and Data Studies.
Application deadline: 15 September 2026