Postdoctoral position in Law and Humanities

The Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, is seeking applications for one postdoctoral candidate as part of the interdisciplinary project “Home in Crisis” funded under a joint call “Crisis – Perspectives from the Humanities” launched by Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) and the Collaboration of Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe (CHANSE). The position will be supervised by Associate Professor Miriam Cullen, and co-supervised by Associate Prof. Dina Lupin (University of Southampton).

This project is a partnership between the University of Copenhagen, the University of Southampton, the University of Oslo, University College Cork, Preparing Our Home (www.preparingourhome.ca), Empatheatre (www.empatheatre.com) and ClientEarth (www.clientearth.org).

The position is available from 1 July 2025 for two years, full-time.

Introduction
‘Home in Crisis’ uses a humanities-approach-to-law to locate the idea of ‘home’ at the centre of an intimate and experiential understanding of crisis. Its approach allows for a radical shift in legal and policy contexts, where the intimate dimensions of the climate crisis are often overlooked. This project engages with the idea of climate crisis as one that is unfolding inside our homes. In centering the idea of ‘home’, we examine the ways in which the climate crisis is lived and felt at home and we examine what home means in a state of climate crisis, in which one can be unhomed and rehomed, rendered homeless in one’s home, and homesick in one’s homeland.

Using theatre-methodologies as law-making, Home in Crisis will develop a novel and perspective-shifting understanding of the climate crisis in law. Home is used as a lens through which to understand the climate crisis, allows us to better understand the ways in which the crisis is intimate, shaped by gender, location, community, age, Indigeneity, disability, sexuality, and how we know and live in our homes. We will remark and retake law's objects, imagining a radically inclusive and creative approach to law-making.

Central to the project is a collaboration with Empatheatre, a research-based threatre-making methodology for creating new social spaces, action-based research and true-to-life theatrical experiences.  This collaboration will lead to the creation of a new play on home and climate crisis. Empatheatre will, together with the research team, conduct a series of discussions with Indigenous community representatives to co-develop a script based on participant narratives. The script is first performed to participants and partners to check its credibility and iteratively adjusted accordingly including throughout the performance period. There is no “final” version, as iteration is part of the method.

About the position
The postdoc will examine how the practices and resistance of those affected by climate crisis at “home” can shape law and legal processes. The postdoc will both support the work of the investigators and will design their own project that builds on the Empatheatre methodology to uncover and develop creative practices that are themselves processes of law-making and that can resist law’s injustices, including through the creation of legal outputs (which could be, among other things, reimagined case summaries, innovations for legislative drafting, and customary approaches to regulation).

With the support of their supervisors, the postdoc will hold a focus group in Denmark in 2025/2026 and be involved in the organization of a workshop in the UK in the beginning of 2027, as well as participate in processes of theatre-making in South Africa. The postdoc will contribute to at least two scholarly outputs, one broadly centred on approaches to legal reform rooted in the idea of arts-based retaking and making of law’s objects. The other examining the legal dimensions of home which are often overlooked in humanities scholarship, and, potentially, the implications of this for ideas of self, memory, and identity.

The position involves travel, including to South Africa and periods of time in remote parts of the country alongside Empatheatre. In addition, the postdoc will spend time at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom for a period to be determined.

It is a part of employment to contribute to teaching, ideally within subjects offered at the Faculty of Law. Applicants are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the faculty's research areas and education programmes by visiting the Faculty’s website: www.jura.ku.dk.

The Faculty actively supports the effort to learn Danish.

Required qualifications
The position requires a PhD in law and/or humanities. The successful candidate will have proficiency in English as the working language (written and spoken). Successful candidates will demonstrate a clear potential to deliver high quality peer-reviewed research publications.  

In the overall assessment, special emphasis will be placed on the applicant’s ambition to develop and implement new research ideas, which may have an international impact. Furthermore, the Faculty places emphasis on the applicant’s interest and preferably, prior experience in working with other researchers to conduct collective research and teaching activities and welcomes the applicant’s proven ability to make a valuable contribution in this regard.

Salary and terms of employment
The appointment is temporary and will be made in accordance with the agreement between the Danish Ministry of Finance and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (Akademikernes Centralorganisation, AC). In addition to the basic salary, the successful candidate will receive an annual supplement per month and a total contribution to your pension fund equal 17,1 % of salary and annual supplement is paid. It is possible to negotiate further salary supplements. 

Application
Letter of motivation, appendices and the submitted research publications (including papers, articles and books), must be written in English. The application will be rejected if all of the required documents are not submitted.

It is essential that you fill out all the mandatory fields in the electronic application even though the information might repeat what is in CV or other materials. The fields in the online form will be used for the shortlisting and assessment process and in order to generate your final assessment, which we will send to you after the assessment work is finalized.

The application MUST include the following eight (8) attachments, although the co-author statement is necessary only for any publication submitted for assessment that is co-authored:

1. Letter of motivation (a one-page document explaining the reasons for applying)
2. Curriculum vitae
3. Research project. Applications should include a proposal for a research project to be completed during the post-doctoral period. Proposals should be no more than four pages in length and should demonstrate the capacity to develop, undertake and conclude a postdoctoral project, identifying the relevant methodological tools to achieve the outlined project. This research project must align with the research goals of the project ‘Home in Crisis’. Integrating collaboration with Empatheatre and/or other of the project’s Associated Partners into the project design is encouraged.
4. Diplomas, Masters and PhD or evidence that the applicant submitted or will submit a PhD dissertation  
5. Publication list. A complete, numbered list of publications.
6. Teaching portfolio. There is a teaching obligation as part of the postdoctoral position. The teaching portfolio should showcase teaching qualifications as well as a brief statement of the applicant's teaching visions within the research area. For more information regarding the teaching portfolio, please see the related guidelines
7. A maximum of five (5) scientific publications that the applicant wishes to have included in the assessment, of which no more than one (1) may be a monograph. Applicants, who have written a PhD or JSD thesis or equivalent, must always submit the complete thesis (if the thesis is written in Danish, English, Swedish or Norwegian) and the written assessment of the thesis as a part of submitted publications.
8. A co-author declaration (if applicable) If citing work where the applicant has been a co-author a co-author declaration which addresses the applicant's share of these works, must be submitted. Material that has not yet been published can be submitted. However, please indicate if this is the case.

Application procedure
Upload letter of motivation, appendices and the research publications electronically using the link below. We advise you to have the above-mentioned documents ready before you begin to complete the online application. Again, it is essential that all required documents are enclosed.

Applications must be addressed to the Associate Dean of Research and uploaded electronically.

An automatically generated message is sent out acknowledging receipt of the uploaded application.

Applicants will be kept informed about the process of the application procedure on a regular basis via email.

Following the application deadline, the Associate Dean of Research selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the Appointments Committee. Applicants are selected on the basis of an overall assessment of the applicants that best match the recruitment needs as described in this advertisement for the post. This is compared with the applicant's research and teaching profile as set out in the application, CV including list of publications, teaching portfolio and any research/development plan.  All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been passed for assessment by an expert Assessment Committee. Selected applicants are notified of the composition of the committee and when the committee has completed its assessment, each applicant has the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicants themselves.

University of Copenhagen wishes to reflect the surrounding society and therefore encourages all interested parties regardless of personal background to apply for the position.

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: For international researchers at the University of Copenhagen – University of Copenhagen (ku.dk)

Contact information
Questions about the project is available from Miriam Cullen, Miriam.Cullen@jur.ku.dk.

Further information about the recruitment process is available from HR, e-mail: hrsc@hrsc.ku.dk. Please refer to ID number 211-2126/25-2I #2.

The application deadline is 27 April 2025, 23:59 CEST.

Applications and further documents received after the deadline has expired will not be accepted.