Offer Description

Conditions

• Postdoctoral fellowship funded as part of the "Contemporary Ecopoetic Issues" Chair of the University of Pau and Pays de l'Adour.
• Field : Environmental Humanities – Science and Technology Studies.
• Contract Duration : 13 months (September 2025-October 2026)
• Place of work: The laureate will be integrated into the scientific staff of the UPPA and the ALTER laboratory, in Pau.
• Amount of the scholarship : €2,500 gross per month.

Project description

The successful candidate will conduct postdoctoral research as part of the project "Literary Anthropocene: Circulations between Experimental Sciences and Literature in the Age of the Environmental Crisis", developed by the Chair "Contemporary Ecopoetic Issues" (holder: Riccardo Barontini).

This project is based on the hypothesis that ecological reflection induces and requires a circulation of ideas and practices between the experimental sciences and literature and that the latter, with its cognitive and aesthetic tools, is capable of enriching scientific discourse to propose new and complementary visions of the ecological crisis. 

The Chair is developing an approach based on three main objectives. It first focuses on how contemporary literature integrates scientific knowledge related to ecology. She then explores the literature's own capacities—both cognitive and aesthetic—to shed light on the ecological crisis in a way that complements scientific perspectives. Finally, it aims to establish synergies between literary and scientific discourse for the ecological transition. The project is structured around five axes, each of which annually addresses a crucial issue of the ecological crisis, at the crossroads of experimental sciences and literature: "Critical Anthropocene", "Energy, Technology and Society", "Scale and Climate Crisis", "Biodiversity", and "Animal Otherness".

To achieve these objectives, the project aims to establish an interdisciplinary dialogue with the experimental sciences and to promote collaboration with scientists, areas in which the postdoc's expertise will be specifically solicited. Various measures are implemented, including a seminar bringing together literary and scientific people, a research-creation project with residencies in places of scientific experimentation, as well as the production of a podcast and a website. For more details, you can visit the project website and watch the recording of the Chair's launch event

Job description

The postdoctoral fellow will bring scientific expertise concerning the conditions of production, representation and reception of science in society, which will complement that in literary studies and ecopoetics of the chairholder.

The postdoctoral fellow will mobilize his/her skills to fulfill two main missions: on the one hand, to develop a personal scientific production, and on the other hand, to coordinate collaboration, dissemination and popularization activities.

Scientific production:

He/she will have to conduct original research around one of the central issues of the project, according to his/her specific skills. This work should result in the writing of at least one article submitted to an international peer-reviewed journal.

Assistance in the coordination and dissemination of science:

He/she will assist the Chairholder in the organization and monitoring of the scientific and popularization activities associated with the Chair. His expertise will be sought for the intellectual aspects of the design of these events. In particular:

1) He/she will be responsible for establishing and maintaining relationships with scientists within and outside the UPPA.

2) He/she will be in charge of organizing a residency of the project team in a science place for the end of 2025 (at IPREM on the Pau campus). 

3) He/she will be co-responsible for the design and implementation of a podcast on the themes of the chair

4) He/she will be co-responsible for the organization of the annual seminar (content, logistics, speakers). 

In addition to these activities, the postdoctoral fellow will be associated with the master's and doctoral courses of the holder of the chair and may intervene on an ad hoc basis.