Your tasks and responsibilities:
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 was 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.
Your 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.
Benefits:
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 may 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 welcome applications from people of diverse backgrounds and gender identities.
People with disabilities who are equally as qualified as other applicants will receive preferential treatment.
Contact:
To apply, please send your cover letter, CV (max. four pages), an academic-writing sample (max. two pages), and the contact information of two references in a single PDF document to jobs@rcc.lmu.de by September 15, 2023. Interviews will take place in the second week of October, either in person or via Zoom.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact Prof. Dr. Uwe Lübke: uwe.luebken@lmu.de.
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