Tenure-track Assistant Professorship at the Hans Christian Andersen Centre

Tenure-track Assistant Professorship at the Hans Christian Andersen Centre with a Focus on Digital Humanities, Textual Genesis and Nineteenth-Century Literature, Odense M, Denmark.

A five-year tenure-track assistant professorship is available at the Hans Christian Andersen Centre, Department for the Study of Culture and Language, University of Southern Denmark, with appointment from 1 January 2027 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The Hans Christian Andersen Centre is an internationally leading research environment within Andersen studies. Its research encompasses literary, cultural and public dissemination-oriented approaches to Andersen’s works, life and cultural significance. The Centre conducts research at the highest international level with the aim of developing new literary, cultural and dissemination-oriented perspectives on Andersen’s complete artistic oeuvre. The Centre provides a framework for collaboration with Danish and international researchers, cultural mediators and other actors in the field.

The assistant professorship is a tenure-track position with a view to obtaining a permanent appointment as associate professor following a positive academic assessment. The position is affiliated with the project Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales and Stories – the Digital Manuscript Edition and will, in close interaction with the project’s existing research activities, contribute to integrating digital, philological and literary approaches.

The assistant professor will be part of the Centre’s research environment and collaborate with the project’s editorial group, with responsibility for developing research at the intersection of digital humanities, textual genesis and literary-historical analysis.

The position includes:

• Research based on Hans Christian Andersen’s authorship, including the study of writing processes, the materiality of the text and versioning from a digital humanities perspective
• Peer-reviewed publications at an international level
• Active participation in and further development of the digital manuscript edition, including work on digital representations of manuscripts, genetic variants and collation
• Contributions to the development and curation of research data, such as text corpora and annotated datasets, related to the project
• Collaboration with the Centre’s researchers on the integration of digital methods, philological practice and literary-analytical issues
• Active participation in the Centre’s research activities, seminars and international collaborations
• Teaching and supervision within Danish/Nordic studies, literary studies and digital humanities
• Contributions to the development of research applications and international project collaborations

We are seeking an assistant professor with a strong and integrated profile in digital humanities and literary studies with relevance to Hans Christian Andersen studies and nineteenth-century literature.

The applicant is expected to be able to combine:

• research in literary genesis, writing processes and literary history
• experience with or strong competences in digital scholarly editing and data-oriented approaches
• a solid grounding in philology, genetic textual criticism and literary-historical analysis

Emphasis will be placed on the applicant’s ability to:

• work with digital representations of complex textual phenomena, such as multiple textual stages characterized by a high degree of internal and external variation and parallel writing processes
• develop and curate research data of high academic quality
• translate literary and philological issues into explicit, formal or modelable structures

The assistant professor is expected to contribute to developing new methodological connections between digital humanities and classical literary studies.

• PhD degree in literary studies, Danish, philology or a related field
• Documented research potential within both digital humanities and literary studies
• Experience with or strong potential for work with digital scholarly editing, text encoding and/or data analysis
• Documented ability in philological analysis, textual criticism and the study of writing processes
• Experience with or potential for developing curated datasets and digital research resources
• Experience with or potential for publication in international peer-reviewed journals
• Good collaborative skills and the ability to participate in a committed research environment

The Centre is based at the Department for the Study of Culture and Language, University of Southern Denmark, and has established a significant international profile within Hans Christian Andersen studies, literary history, world literature and cultural heritage research. The Centre combines philological, cultural and dissemination-related expertise and works both research-based and practice-oriented in collaboration with museums, foundations and international partners.

In recent years, the Centre has prioritised the development of digital research infrastructure. This includes:

• Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales and Stories – the Digital Manuscript Edition
• A new online translation of all Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales and stories into English
• A complete digital edition of the entire published authorship

Together with the Centre’s researchers, the new assistant professor will contribute to developing an integrated research environment in which digital, philological and cultural-analytical approaches mutually inform one another.

The Department for the Study of Culture and Language is a broad humanities department at the University of Southern Denmark, with research and teaching activities in areas including literature, language, history, culture, media and area studies. The department comprises a number of strong academic environments and centres and places emphasis on international research collaboration, research-based teaching, and close interaction between classical humanities disciplines and new interdisciplinary methods and societal issues.

The International Staff Office (ISO) at SDU provides a variety of services for new employees, guests and people who consider applying for a job at the University of Southern Denmark. International staff in tenured positions will be offered Danish language training in connection with the employment and are expected to achieve Danish language competences at CEFR B2-level within 5 years from being appointed.

The Department of Culture and Language is located on the island of Funen at the university's campus in Odense – the third-largest city in Denmark with 180,000 inhabitants. Odense provides family-friendly living conditions in a historic city with an urban feel where nature and other recreational areas are never far away. The city has excellent connections with public transportation to Aarhus and Copenhagen.

The University is signatory of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA). We wish our staff to reflect the diversity of society and thus welcomes applications from all qualified candidates regardless of personal background.

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