Teaching Fellow in Visual Studies and French Language
- Durham University
- Full Time
- Durham
- £37,099 per annum
Job Description
Working arrangements: 35 hours per week, Monday-Friday, with some attendance at weekend events, e.g. open days
The University
A globally outstanding centre of teaching and research excellence, a collegiate community of extraordinary people, a unique and historic setting - Durham is a university like no other.
As one of the UK's leading universities, Durham is an incredible place to define your career while enjoying a high-quality work/life balance. We are home to some of the most talented scholars and researchers from around the world who are tackling global issues and making a difference to people's lives.
We believe that inspiring our people to do outstanding things at Durham enables Durham people to do outstanding things in the world.
Our University Strategy is built on three pillars of research, education and wider student experience, but also on our keen sense of community and of inspiring others to achieve their potential.
Find out more about the benefits of working at the University and what it is like to live and work in the Durham area on our Why Join Us? - Information Page
The Role and Department
The School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University seeks to appoint a talented individual to a fixed-term Teaching Fellowship to join the team delivering its innovative BA in Visual Arts and Film and MA in Visual Culture. Both these programmes are dedicated to interdisciplinarity and a global perspective, sharing a commitment to decolonializing approaches which are also being taken up elsewhere in the School. The successful applicant will also be required to contribute to the language curriculum in French Studies, and should have the ability to deliver classes focusing on written and oral language production in the target language.
We welcome applications from those with research and teaching interests in the broad field of the Visual Arts and French, and we are particularly eager to hear from applicants with a focus on the moving image.
The School is one of the largest and most successful Schools of Modern Languages and Cultures in the UK. Over the past two decades, the School has also developed a distinctive profile in the transnational and interdisciplinary study of visual culture, broadly conceived, bringing together visual culture research in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hispanic Studies, Italian, Japanese and Russian Studies.
The School's expertise in visual culture encompasses painting, film, photography, performance studies, urban studies, and book history, and has led to the establishment of an innovative BA programme in Visual Arts and Film as well as an MA in Visual Culture. Research activity extends from the medieval period to the present and embraces a range of theoretical and methodological orientations. The study of visual culture intersects in exciting ways with other areas of research activity in the School: medieval and early modern studies, the relationship between the sciences and the humanities, gender and sexuality studies, critical and cultural theory, the transnational study of literature, and translation. Indeed, translation — understood in its broad sense of transmission, interpretation and sharing of languages, ideas and histories — underpins the School's collective practices, including research into the visual. The School's forward-thinking research agenda was highlighted in its major conference 'Our Uncommon Ground', held in Durham in 2018, and a further conference 'Where Are We Now? The Location of Modern Languages and Cultures' took place in April 2023. These conferences brought together speakers from across the world to articulate and embrace the values of a discipline equipped to study cultures and their interactions in historical perspective. Indicative of the School's ethos and commitment to the interdisciplinary study of visual culture was the invitation of Mieke Bal to give the keynote lecture at the 2023 conference and present a screening of her film About Time.
As part of its commitment to local regeneration through internationalisation, the School is engaged in collaborative activities with The Auckland Project around the Spanish Art in County Durham initiative and the Zurbarân Centre for Spanish and Latin American Art. Colleagues have also worked extensively with local cultural organisations, including the Bowes Museum, No More Nowt!, and New Writing North. At national level, the School initiated and leads Durham University's institutional partnership with the BFI, which delivers numerous benefits to staff and students alike.
The School provides the leadership of the Centre for Visual Arts and Culture, a centre that collaborates regularly with the other centres and institutes in which School staff play a leading role: the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, the Centre for Culture and Ecology, the Institute of Medical Humanities, and the Institute of Advanced Study, which promotes world-class research across the Faculties. Within the School, staff and postgraduates are brought together in interdisciplinary discussions and collaboration through a set of research groups. These currently include Bodies, Texts, Nations; Digital Studies; Performance and Performativity; Living Texts; Translating Languages and Cultures; Decolonisation; and Transnational Cinema. Visual culture scholars are engaged in all of these groups.
Teaching Fellowships offer the opportunity of valuable experience to those early in their academic careers and the University is keen to maximise the benefit to as many people as possible. The post of Teaching Fellow will involve a significant teaching load, which may extend into the summer period, and there may be related scholarship and the opportunity for administrative duties which relate to education and pedagogy.
The post is for a fixed term only, and it is not anticipated that the post will be extended beyond this fixed term.
Successful applicants will, ideally be in post by 15 September 2024
The University provides a working and teaching environment that is inclusive and welcoming and where everyone is treated fairly with dignity and respect. Candidates will be expected to demonstrate these key principles as part of the assessment process.
Key Responsibilities
- Teach modules in appropriate learning environments at undergraduate/postgraduate levels, demonstrating an increasing awareness of different approaches to and methods of teaching and supporting student learning; specifically to contribute teaching to the School's BA programme in Visual Arts and Film and its MA programme in Visual Culture and to deliver French language teaching for the BA in Modern Languages and Cultures;
- Demonstrate the ability to manage own teaching and designing, planning and writing teaching materials;
- Lead some aspects of modules and contribute to modules led by others by collaborating with colleagues on course development;
- Develop and deliver an inclusive curriculum and make an active contribution to an inclusive community in which diversity is embraced and celebrated;
- Seek and take on board feedback on teaching and engage with others in CPD;
- Supervise undergraduate student(s), and where appropriate act as part of a PhD supervisory team;
- Contribute to educational skill of colleagues, e.g. giving a seminar to colleagues or engaging in constructive discussion about a seminar;
- Build internal contacts and participate in networks to exchange information;
- Start to engage in scholarship (the creation, development and maintenance of the intellectual infrastructure of subjects and disciplines) e.g. develop online teaching resources;
- In addition to Board of Studies, membership of some departmental committees and professional body memberships;
- Student support, assessment of academic performance and provision of feedback, dealing with student disciplinary matters and complaints;
- Undertake effectively and efficiently any administrative role allocated by your Head of Department.
- To contribute to fostering a collegial and respectful working environment which is inclusive and welcoming and where everyone is treated fairly with dignity and respect.
- To engage in wider citizenship to support the department and wider discipline.
- To engage in continuing professional development by attending relevant training and development courses.
Working at Durham
A competitive salary is only one part of the many fantastic benefits you will receive if you join the University: you will also receive access to the following fantastic ...
