This five-year ERC-funded project examines how avant-garde art contributed to the formation of a workers\u2019 movement counterculture in East Central Europe after 1918. It argues that socialist and avant-garde periodicals, groups, and figures shaped both avant-garde culture and transnational workers\u2019 movements. Focusing on the successor states of the Austro\u2013Hungarian Empire and related diasporas, the project highlights shared imperial legacies and their influence on interwar counter-hegemonic movements between 1918 and 1939.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Postdoctoral research positions \/ ProletGard ERC Starting Grant project, Kass\u00e1k Foundation (Budapest, Hungary)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Project description:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This five-year ERC-funded research project examines how avant-garde art contributed to the formation of a workers\u2019 movement counterculture in East Central Europe and beyond. This project argues that East Central European socialist, including avant-garde periodicals, groups, and figures were instrumental both in shaping the avant-garde and the local branches of transnational workers\u2019 movements. Focusing on the newly formed nation-states after the dissolution of the Austro\u2013Hungarian Empire, including Austrian, Hungarian, Czechoslovakian, Yugoslavian, and Romanian lands, as well as parts of Poland and Italy, and related diasporas, the project highlights the shared imperial history that influenced subsequent counter-hegemonic tendencies and ongoing changes and departures in the interwar period, including avant-garde and socialist movements. A multidisciplinary and multilingual team of researchers (composed by the PI, postdoctoral researchers, a PhD student, and a museum curator) converges methodologies spanning from labor, social, media and literary history to museology to grasp how avant-garde techniques were absorbed and transformed by workers\u2019 movements, creating a counterculture in East Central Europe between 1918 and 1939.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The successful candidates will be members of the project team of the ERC research project ProletGard. Applicants with a background in one or more of the following interdisciplinary fields of study are invited to apply: labor history, media history, gender history, literary history, or art history. The motivation letter should also outline briefly the applicant\u2019s original, autonomous research project and relate it directly to all three thematic components of the ProletGard project outlined below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The primary working language of the postdocs must be either Romanian, Czech, Slovak, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Slovene, Polish, Yiddish, or Ukrainian, in addition to an excellent command of English. Candidates combining more than one of the local languages are encouraged to apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You will work under the guidance of the PI as a member of a team of six researchers. The three thematic components are the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1) the transnational circulation of avant-garde, and socialist press that transgressed administrative, cultural, and linguistic borders;<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2) the reading and performing practices related to East Central European socialist, especially avant-garde journals that established new forms of collective interpretation of social reality within working-class milieus, both in theory and practice; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3) avant-garde periodicals as sites of negotiation between conventional and innovative cultural techniques within workers\u2019 movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The project goes through the themes in this sequence, one year is dedicated to each. The final year is dedicated to the elaboration of the research outputs. You are expected to participate at project meetings and workshops, in-person and online, and present your findings, help with organizing project events, editing project publications and contribute to the maintenance of the project website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The research project and the postdoctoral positions are managed by the Kass\u00e1k Foundation, Budapest. Postdoctoral team members may choose either to relocate to Budapest or to fulfil the project requirement of regular on-site presence (i.e., several days per month, based on a pre-arranged schedule through which all team members are brought together at the Kass\u00e1k Foundation\u2019s office in Budapest). Moderate financial support for relocation or, alternatively, for regular travel to Budapest is foreseen. The successful candidate will be employed in accordance with the Hungarian Labor Code. Employment conditions, including taxation and social security obligations, will be governed by applicable Hungarian legislation and relevant international agreements. Specific arrangements may depend on the candidate\u2019s individual circumstances, including tax residence and nationality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What we offer:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We offer two full-time (40 hours per week) positions with a two-year employment contract (1 January 2027 to 31 December 2028), renewable for two years (1 January 2029 to 31 December 2030), after an interim evaluation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The gross salary is set at \u20ac 49,000 per year corresponding with a 100% position. The starting date is 1 January 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Funding for research trips, participation in conferences and workshops, and open access fees will be provided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your qualifications:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Applicants are required to hold a PhD, preferably related to one of the earlier mentioned research fields, by 1 January 2027. Proficiency in English and in at least one of the local languages of the region is required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How to apply:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Send us by 1 May 2026 the latest to the following email address: dobo@kassakfoundation.org<\/a>, and csejdy@kassakfoundation.org<\/a>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n – CV and a list of publications<\/p>\n\n\n\n – a motivation letter, also indicating which focus language(s) the applicant wants to study and why (max. 1500 words)<\/p>\n\n\n\n – a writing sample (no longer than 7000 words)<\/p>\n\n\n\n – contact details (name, address, phone number, email) of two referees. (Please, do not send letters of reference.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contact<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n dobo@kassakfoundation.org<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n