Join the Project Team of the ERC-Consolidator Grant project, "Entangled Freedoms: Decolonial Modernisms as Transnational Relations of Resistance, 1940s-1980s," located within the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis and the Department of Arts and Culture at the University of Amsterdam. Led by Dr. Sanjukta Sunderason, "EntangledFreedoms" is studying how artists and cultural thinkers from the decolonizing worlds of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East interacted with – and transformed – ideas of “freedom” during 20th-century decolonization and Cold War.
Join our project!
How did visual artists in decolonizing African nations visualize, entangle, and transform ideas of freedom via socialist thought, both within their own locational contexts and those of the socialist Second word? What new formations of African socialist aesthetics emerged thereby? With a postdoctoral project profile on "Visual Art and Socialist Thought in 20th-Century African Liberation Movements," you will be joining the "EntangledFreedoms" Project Team that has 2 PhDs and will welcome 3 Postdoctoral scholars. Alongside Pan-Africanism and African Socialism, you are free to bring in specialisation in at least one or any two of the following contexts between 1950s-80s: Senegal (west Africa), Tanzania (east Africa), Angola and Mozambique (Southern Africa).
This is what you will do
"Entangled Freedoms" foregrounds visual art and artistic discourse from the Global South as archives to understand plural, contesting ideas of freedom that could be found between 1940s-1980s, as retreating European colonial empires intersected with new Cold War geopolitics. Such ideas of freedom included, for instance, western ‘First World’ ideas of universalism and freedom from ideology; Socialist ‘Second World’ visions of freedom as utopian horizons of continued, revolutionary class struggles; and emerging ‘Third World’ visions of anti-colonial, anti-imperial liberation. Studying entanglements of such ideas via artistic forms and thought in the decolonizing worlds can generate new intellectual histories of 20th-century decolonization. As a member of the EntangledFreedoms Project Team, you will be working with 20th-century (visual) art from the Global South with a particular alertness to locational/vernacular archives (of art and cultural imagination), wider transnational cultural and intellectual discourses, and formations of political thought and cultural resistance.
While the two PhDs scholars in the Project Team are working with hitherto-disconnected artistic/cultural archives of Pakistan (West and East until 1971) and East Pakistan/Bangladesh between 1940s-1980s, the three Postdoc scholars will study imaginaries of freedom via artistic internationalisms from Middle Eastern, African, and (Southeast) Asian contexts. This particular call is for the Postdoctoral Fellow 2 who will study archives of visual art and African socialism during 20th-century African liberation movements.
Your tasks:
- designing and conducting research under the guidance of the project leader (PI), resulting in at least two peer-reviewed academic publications in international scientific journals;
- coordinating, along with the PI, and contributing to the publication of the project edited volume;
- co-organizing, with the Project Team, expert meetings and workshops tied to the project edited volume;
- contributing to the documentation process of the project that will be developed via the project’s website Optional:
- participating in committees and working groups, as well as performing administrative tasks;
- occasional guest lectures;
- working on book project, if that is preferred over publishing articles.
This is what we ask of you
Required:
- a PhD in art history or cultural history or African Studies, with significant component of visual art and socialism;
- specialization on themes of 20th-century art and socialist print cultures and forms/forums of cultural resistance;
- interest in working on discursive and intellectual histories of African socialism using visual art/periodical press/graphic arts/cultural discourse as key primary sources;
- specialization in Pan-Africanism and African Socialism with a particular focus on at least one or any two of the following contexts between 1950s-80s: Senegal (west Africa), Ethiopia (Eastern Africa), Tanzania and Mozambique (Eastern and Southern Africa);
- knowledge of vernacular archives, alongside those in French/Portuguese and English.
Optional:
- demonstrable postdoctoral experience in publishing in leading international scientific journals;
- demonstrable postdoctoral experience in presenting scientific results at international conferences;
- a strong cooperative attitude and willingness to engage in collaborative research;
- enthusiasm for communicating academic research to non-academic audiences;
- excellent social, communication, and organizational skills.
This is what we offer you
- a two year onderzoeker 4 (postdoc) contract starting on August, 2026, for 1 FTE; excellent possibilities for further professional development and education;
- an enthusiastic and professional academic team;
- an inspiring academic and international work environment in the heart of Amsterdam;
- the opportunity to collaborate with leading researchers at research institutes that - partly as a result of their interdisciplinary approach - are world renowned.
