Postdoctoral fellowship in medical humanities and post-conflict studies

The Centre for Culture and the Mind invites applications for one postdoctoral fellowship, starting no later than 1 April 2027. The fellowship will last 24 months.

The position is funded by the DNRF Centre of Excellence, Centre for Culture and the Mind (CULTMIND).

The successful candidate will work closely with the Centre leader Ana Antic and the Centre’s trauma strand. The candidate will join a dynamic international and interdisciplinary research team, based at the Centre.

Introduction
The Centre for Culture and the Mind explores the puzzling relationship between cultural differences and the human psyche from a variety of disciplinary perspectives: historical, anthropological, psychiatric, literary and psychological. It zooms in on the core questions about the universality or otherwise of the human mind, which remain as difficult to answer today as they were a century ago.

The Centre proposes that the issue of culture-mind relationship lays at the core of many social, political and medical debates: within cross-cultural psychiatry/psychotherapy, in trauma studies, and in migration and refugee studies. It explores how the human mind and common humanity have been imagined in different cultural, sociopolitical and disciplinary contexts, examining the assumptions and forces which shaped such definitions. By analyzing how different cross-cultural models of the psyche were formulated and critiqued, the Centre’s interdisciplinary team aims to develop a new framework for understanding cross-cultural interventions and their politics, and to arrive at a more nuanced model of interaction between socio-cultural contexts and ideas of the psyche.

The Centre consists of four interrelated thematic strands: cross-cultural research in human sciences; cross-cultural notions of trauma and resilience; cross-cultural therapeutics and creative mind; and cross-cultural encounters and population movements (migration).

The Centre for Culture and the Mind explores the puzzling relationship between cultural differences and the human psyche from a variety of disciplinary perspectives: historical, anthropological, psychiatric, sociological, literary and psychological. It zooms in on the core questions about the universality or otherwise of the human mind, which remain as difficult to answer today as they were a century ago.

The Centre proposes that the issue of culture-mind relationship lays at the core of many social, political and medical debates: within cross-cultural psychiatry/psychotherapy, in trauma studies, and in migration and refugee studies. It explores how the human mind and common humanity have been imagined in different cultural, sociopolitical and disciplinary contexts, examining the assumptions and forces which shaped such definitions. By analyzing how different cross-cultural models of the psyche were formulated and critiqued, the Centre’s interdisciplinary team aims to develop a new framework for understanding cross-cultural interventions, which pushes beyond the binary of universalism and cultural relativism in order to arrive at a more nuanced model of interaction between socio-cultural contexts and ideas of the psyche.

The Centre consists of four interrelated thematic strands: cross-cultural research in human sciences; cross-cultural notions of trauma and resilience; cross-cultural therapeutics and creative mind; and cross-cultural encounters and population movements (migration).

Qualification requirements
The postdoctoral fellow will be a core member of the Centre’s thematic strand on cross-cultural trauma studies. This strand, informed by multiple disciplines such as anthropology, history, literature and clinical practice, develops a transcultural and comparative framework for understanding varied conceptualizations of human suffering and ‘resilience,’ and for engaging with the ‘pain of others’. It interrogates the universalist paradigm of trauma and explores different ways in which languages of distress have been made intelligible across cultural boundaries. It also explores the complex processes of ‘psychiatrization’ of suffering, their impact in different cultural and political settings, and their capacity to interact with or direct attention away from political, social and economic factors. Finally, the strand analyses the rich interplay between psychiatric conceptualizations of trauma and local (non-medical, culturally and politically specific) vocabularies of psychological pain.

The post-doctoral project focuses on the wars of Yugoslav succession and their aftermath and will explore how local idioms of pain and suffering in post-conflict societies outside the Western world have interacted with both humanitarian psychiatric initiatives and local memory politics. It will rely on medical humanities analysis (anthropological, historical, literary) to understand how psychological pain and loss have been communicated in survivor narratives, and whether the notions of psychological trauma or PTSD played a role in the survivors’ perceptions of the effects of extreme violence on individuals and communities. In parallel, the project will explore mental health initiatives which have been implemented in response to the conflict in former Yugoslavia in order to understand how their discourses of psychological traumatization might have affected the memory, language and interpretations of the wars in the local communities. Candidates are expected to have research background and experience in humanities disciplines (anthropology, history, literature), as well as regional and linguistic expertise in former Yugoslavia.

The successful candidate is expected to work both independently and in collaboration with the Centre’s research team.

Qualification
Applicants must have qualifications corresponding to PhD level related to the subject area of the project.

Within the Centre’s research team, the candidate will take part in broader intellectual and methodological discussions around the project’s goals and general directions. Experience with collaborative and interdisciplinary work will be an asset.

Applicants must possess skills in written and spoken academic English at a high level. If deemed necessary, the department may request that applicants document their English skills.

Application
All applications must be submitted online, in PDF or Microsoft Word format, via the link “Apply now” at the bottom of the page.

The application must include:

• Application letter/cover letter (max 1 page).
• Curriculum vitae (with applicant’s e-mail & telephone number).
• Documentation of qualifications (examination certificates/PhD diploma, etc.).
• Complete and numbered list of publications. The enclosed publications must be marked with *.
• Research plan, including a short description of previous research and a plan for the coming years that includes an account of how the applicant will contribute to the deliverables in the project description (no longer than 3 pages).
• Documentations of teaching qualifications and research dissemination, if any
• Publications. Applicants may choose a maximum of three publications for assessment. Publication dates must be clearly marked on the publication list. The publications selected must be uploaded as attachments and listed from 1 to 3.

Should any material submitted consist of work with named co-authors, or work that is otherwise the result of collective academic endeavours, the extent of the applicant’s contribution to the work must be clearly stipulated. The faculty may ask for a signed statement from the co-authors stipulating the extent and nature of each individual’s contribution.

Only material in English can be expected to be assessed.

Assessment criteria
The following criteria are applied when assessing applications:

• The quality, originality and feasibility of the proposed project
• Research qualifications, as reflected in the attached CV and project description
• Competencies and knowledge of relevant fields of academic research
• Level (grades obtained) of PhD studies

The recruitment process 
After the deadline for applications, the Head of Department considers advice from the Appointment Committee and then selects applicants for assessment. All applicants will be notified whether they have been shortlisted. After this, the Head of Department sets up an expert Assessment Committee to assess the shortlisted applications. The selected applicants will be informed who is serving on the committee. Individual applicants will be offered the opportunity to comment on the committee’s assessment of their application before the appointment is announced.

For further information about the application procedure, please refer to the University of Copenhagen website: https://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/.

Salary and terms of employment
Terms of appointment and salary will be in accordance with an agreement between the Ministry of Finance and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (AC). The salary range starts at DKK 39.993,75 + an 18.07% contribution to the pension scheme.

An equal opportunity workplace
University of Copenhagen wishes to reflect the diversity of society, and welcomes applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of their personal backgrounds. For more information on the diverse working place environment at the university and the university’s participation in the HRS4R, please see: https://employment.ku.dk/working-at-ucph/eu-charter-for-researchers/.

International applicant?
The University of Copenhagen offers a broad variety of services for international researchers and accompanying families, including support before and during your relocation and career counselling to expat partners. Please find more information about these services as well as information on entering and working in Denmark here: https://ism.ku.dk/.

Contact
Further information about the application procedure is available from HR at hr-soendre@adm.ku.dk. Please refer to ID number 211-2638/26-2I.

For further information, including more details on the Centre for Culture and the Mind, please contact Ana Antic at ana.antic@hum.ku.dk

If you have any questions about the academic content of the PhD programme, please e-mail the PhD coordinator at the Department of English, Germanic and Romance studies, Martyn Bone at bone@hum.ku.dk.

The deadline for applications is 15 September 2026 at 23:59 [CEST]

Any applications or additional material submitted after the deadline will not be considered. However, changes may be made to the submitted application right up until the deadline.