The Postdoctoral Researcher will work on the Irish Research Council-funded project, `Imperial Minerals: Reading Mineral Extraction in the Anglophone Literary Cultures of the British Southern Settler Colonies, 1842-1910', led by the Principal Investigator, Dr Sarah Comyn. The position will research the literary cultures and representations of the infrastructure regimes supporting copper, diamond, and gold mining in the settler colonies of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. A key focus of this position will be examining the racialised imperial and national narratives and the demarcation of a global colour line that characterises extractive infrastructures, their literatures, and their reading communities.

You will participate in a research team undertaking the first transnational, mineral commodity-comparative study of the nineteenth-century literary cultures of the settler colonial extractive industries of copper, diamonds, and gold in colonial Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. This project will provide a new literary corpus of the southern settler colonies that expands traditional literary geographies, uncovers extractive cultures and subcultures, challenges the categories of literary authorship and readership of the nineteenth century, and examines different forms of environmental, cultural, social, and economic displacement.

In this role, you will be guided by Dr Sarah Comyn and will be expected to take the lead in developing research on the literary cultures of the infrastructure regimes of mineral extraction. This research will need to be targeted at top international journals. You will also be contributing to the continuous development of the project's literary corpus and database. You will also be expected to disseminate research at international conferences and workshops, and to co-organise the international seminar series and a symposium at UCD. The project has received funding from the Irish Research Council (IRC) under the Laureate scheme. Interested applicants are welcome to contact the PI informally at the email address given below.

Post Doc level 1 Fixed Salary: €42,033 per annum.

Closing date: 17:00hrs (local Irish time) on 31st May 2023

Applications must be submitted by the closing date and time specified. Any applications which are still in progress at the closing time of 17:00hrs (Local Irish Time) on the specified closing date will be cancelled automatically by the system. UCD are unable to accept late applications.

UCD do not require assistance from Recruitment Agencies. Any CV's submitted by Recruitment Agencies will be returned.

The PD1 position is intended for early stage researchers, either just after completion of a PhD or for someone entering a new area for the first time. If you have already completed your PD1 stage in UCD or will soon complete a PD1, or you are an external applicant whose total Postdoctoral experience, inclusive of the duration of the advertised post, would exceed 4 years, you should not apply and should refer to PD2 posts instead.