PhD student in the cultural study of resistance (digital humanities) Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Belgium

PhD opportunity at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in the cultural study of resistance, with a digital humanities and interdisciplinary focus.

The Faculty of Social Sciences and Solvay Business School and the Faculty of Languages and Humanities are recruiting a PhD student with a doctoral grant as part of the newly created Brussels Centre for Interdisciplinary Resistance Studies (Inter-RESIST). The project is jointly connected to the ECHO research group (Media, Culture & Politics) and CLIC (Centre for Literary & Intermedial Crossings), with a home base at the Brussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus in Elsene, Brussels.

The research investigates how resistance is enacted and mediated across time, places, and media. It combines archival, textual, visual, and digital sources to study changing repertoires of resistance, including everyday resistance, constructive resistance, reverse discourse, and networked dissent. The broader Inter-RESIST agenda examines civilian resistance against dehumanization in Belgium and transnationally across the twentieth century, including resistance to the Holocaust, resistance to post-war racism targeting migrants and descendants, and resistance to the genocide against Palestinians and its historical antecedents.

The PhD project itself uses digital humanities methods such as computational content analysis, discourse analysis, and cultural transfer methodologies to study the discursive and performative dimensions of resistance. Possible corpora include underground literature and clandestine publications, diaries and memoirs, graffiti and street poetry, documentary film and visual testimony, and social media activism and digital campaigns. The project is explicitly interdisciplinary, bringing together literary studies, media studies, translation studies, and digital humanities to understand how resistance is narrated, visualised, translated, archived, remediated, and remembered.

The successful candidate will also contribute to funding acquisition, including possible FWO or European grant applications, and to the collaborative work of the Inter-RESIST teams across history, sociology, literary studies, communication studies, and political science.

Funding and duration: a full-time PhD scholarship is offered for 12 months initially, extendable up to a maximum of 48 months subject to positive evaluation. The scholarship is linked to government scales. Enrolment as a doctorate student is required for the scholarship to take effect.

Eligibility highlights: applicants should hold a relevant master’s degree in digital humanities or social sciences; have strong active command of at least two of English, Dutch, and French; and ideally have additional passive language knowledge relevant to the project (for example German, Arabic, Hebrew, or Russian). Experience with digital humanities tools and methods is expected, and prior interest in resistance, media, literary, or cultural studies topics is an advantage. Applicants must also comply with VUB permit and residence requirements.

Application deadline: 21 September 2026. Apply online via the VUB jobs portal and submit a CV, motivation letter, writing sample, and diploma where applicable.