PhD position in International Relations (1.0 FTE)

Fully funded PhD position in International Relations at the Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen (start date: September/October 2025) in the project “Unbounding the Arab World: Anti-colonial geopolitics, transnational territorial imaginations and post-imperial worldmaking, c. 1908-1977”.

This PhD project offers a unique opportunity to work in an international, diverse environment and to acquire valuable research experience at a top-ranked university. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to develop their academic writing skills, undertake archival work, gain teaching experience and develop career skills. The candidate will be embedded in the Chair Group of History and Theory of International Relations and in the Middle Eastern Studies department. The supervision team will be comprised of Dr Karim El Taki and Dr António Ferraz de Oliveira (as daily supervisors) and Dr Benjamin Herborth (as promotor).

The PhD Project
In the early twentieth century, as the Ottoman Empire struggled to reform and was increasingly targeted by European imperial predations, many intellectuals across its provinces were moved to envision new territorial states and post-imperial unions. As the Ottoman Empire disintegrated, and many countries fell under colonial control and trusteeship, Arab intellectuals developed distinctive arguments for a form of anti-colonial geopolitics, with various pan-nationalist visions of international federations fashioning new ideas of territorial reorganisation and postcolonial worldmaking. This PhD project explores this broad context, connecting a transnational intellectual history of pan-movements in the Middle East and North Africa with regards to geopolitical and territorial imaginations. Running from the 1908 Young Turk Revolution to the dissolution of the Federation of Arab Republics in 1977, the project connects and contrasts networked intellectuals from different countries in the region, retracing a severely understudied history of geopolitical imagination. The project examines how various pan-ideologies – including pan-Arabism, pan-Islamism, pan-Africanism, pan-Syrianism, and pan-Maghrebism – competed, overlapped, and influenced each other in their visions of territorial imaginations. This project speaks to recent developments in international relations scholarship, recovering a global history of international thought beyond the West, with particular attention to the anticolonial origins of twentieth-century ideas of self-determination, sovereignty, and world order but also the entangled post-imperial visions of pan-Asianism, pan-Islamism, pan Africanism and other transnational movements (Manela, 2007; Aydin, 2017; Getachew, 2019, Burbank and Cooper, 2024). This project will contribute valuably to this literature by providing a detailed study of how anticolonial pan–nationalist thinkers engaged with the prospect of remaking the region’s territorial order and mobilising forms of subaltern geopolitics against hegemonic pretenders.

The PhD candidate will be able to develop their own research within the framework of the broader project. Specifically, they will be asked to

• Conduct research independently.
• Carry out archival research digital and on-field.
• Present research at academic conferences and prepare publications.
• Carry out teaching duties (0.4 FTE spread over the second, third and fourth year).
• Complete the PhD in the specified timeframe (4 years).

Organisation

Since its foundation in 1614, the University of Groningen has established an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative university offering high-quality teaching and research. Its 34,000 students are encouraged to develop their own individual talents through challenging study and career paths. The University of Groningen is an international centre of knowledge: It belongs to the best research universities in Europe and is allied with prestigious partner universities and networks worldwide.

The Faculty of Arts is a large, dynamic faculty in the heart of the city of Groningen. It has more than 5,000 students and 700 staff members, who are working at the frontiers of knowledge every day. The Faculty offers a wide range of degree programmes: 15 Bachelor's programmes and over 35 Master's specialisations. Our research, which is internationally widely acclaimed, covers Archaeology, Cultural Studies, History, International Relations, Language and Literary Studies, Linguistics and Media and Journalism Studies.

• A Research Master’s or Master’s degree in any area related to the project, such as International Relations, Middle East Studies, History, Geography or cognate subjects.
• Excellent academic writing skills and speaking skills in English.
• (Desirable) advanced reading skills in Arabic or other relevant languages.
• (Desirable) training in intellectual history methods.

In accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, the University of Groningen offers you:

• A salary of € 2,901 gross per month in the first year, up to a maximum of € 3,707 gross per month in the final year, based on a full-time position.
• A holiday allowance of 8% gross annual income.
• An 8.3% end-of-the-year allowance.
• A temporary 1.0 FTE appointment for a specified period of four years. The candidate will first be appointed for twelve months. After six months, an assessment will take place of the candidate’s results and the progress of the PhD project, in order to decide whether employment will be continued. The PhD candidate is expected to conduct a total of 0.4 FTE teaching spread over the second, third and fourth year of their appointment.
• Excellent work-life balance.
• Willingness to move and reside in The Netherlands.

The appointment will commence on 1 September/October 2025 at the very latest. We allow 3 months from selection in case of visa applications.

Applications should be made in English and contain the following materials:

• Motivation Letter (c. 1,000 words) explaining your interest in the project and motivation for applying.
• Research Proposal (c. 1,000 words) outlining your own research plan within the wider frame of this project.
• Curriculum Vitae detailing your academic qualifications and relevant experience.
• Master’s Degree Certificate and list of grades.
• Master’s Thesis, or alternatively, an academic writing samples of up to 8000 words and a written statement by your MA thesis supervisor.
• Contact Details of two academic referees (no letters of recommendation are needed for the application process).
• English Language Certificate (e.g., IELTS, TOEFL) in case your Master’s/Research Master’s degree is not in English.

Please send in your application as two PDF files (one for the Master’s thesis, and one for all other documents). You may apply for this position until 30 April 23:59pm / before 1 May 2025 Dutch local time (CEST) by means of the application form (click on "Apply" below on the advertisement on the university website).

Interviews with selected candidates will be held on 15 May 2025.

The University of Groningen strives to be a university in which students and staff are respected and feel at home, regardless of differences in background, experiences, perspectives, and identities. We believe that working on our core values of inclusion and equality are a joint responsibility and we are constructively working on creating a socially safe environment. Diversity among students and staff members enriches academic debate and contributes to the quality of our teaching and research. We therefore invite applicants from underrepresented groups in particular to apply. For more information, see also our diversity policy webpage: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/policy-and-strategy/diversity-and-inclusion/

Our selection procedure follows the guidelines of the Recruitment code (NVP): https://www.nvp-hrnetwerk.nl/sollicitatiecode/ and European Commission's European Code of Conduct for recruitment of researchers: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/charter/code .

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Maarten Schmaal (for questions on the submission procedure),   gsh-groningen@rug.nl