Annual grant of £13,590 and fees (up to UK or EU level) will be waived throughout the 3-year period

Applications are invited for three Teaching Assistantships in Modern Languages (one in French, one in Spanish, or Latin American Studies, and one in German), Faculty of Humanities at the University of Southampton for a fixed period of 3 years from September 2011 (subject to satisfactory annual reports). The successful candidates will be expected to complete a PhD in any aspect of Hispanic and German Studies, respectively. They will receive an annual grant of £13,590 (about €16,000) and fees (up to UK or EU level) will be waived throughout the 3-year period. In return, they will be expected to teach up to 6 hours of Spanish or German language classes per week in the term time (approximately 26 weeks a year).

In recognition of the high proportion of our staff carrying out world-leading research, Modern Languages was ranked in the top 2 UK universities for European Studies in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and we are amongst the top 4 in the Guardian's University Guide 2009 for undergraduate teaching quality, staff-student ratios and job prospects.

The department has particular research strengths in linguistic, history, socio-political and in ethnographic and cultural studies (e.g. identity and migration research) in German, French and Spanish.  For the research expertise of staff members and their research students please see our website www.soton.ac.uk/ml/. The emphasis in research and teaching is on interdisciplinarity, and research activities are focused on two Research Centres: the Centre for Transnational Studies and the Centre for Applied Language Research. Both Centres run Masters programmes from which it will be possible to take individual modules.  There is also a Centre for Mexico-Southampton Collaboration (MeXsu) which promotes, amongst other things, research in Mexican studies (see www.southampton.ac.uk/mexsu)

There are also close links to the Faculty of Humanities' Parkes Centre for Jewish and Non-Jewish Relations, which provides opportunities for contact with scholars and students in History and English Literature (for information on these Centres, see http://www.soton.ac.uk/ml/).

The Faculty of Humanities organises annual conferences, which provide postgraduate students with a platform for their research projects. Further information on Modern Languages can be found on the ML website: www.lang.soton.ac.uk.

Requirements: A good undergraduate degree in a relevant area and an MA or equivalent; native or near-native proficiency in French, Spanish or German as well as English. Doctoral theses are normally written and defended in English. Experience in teaching French, Spanish or German as a Foreign Language would be an advantage.

Applications: Please complete an online postgraduate-studies application form and a funding application form and submit both by 25 February 2011.

For informal enquiries please contact Dr Jackie Clarke for French (j.r.clarke@soton.ac.uk), Ms Marta Crosby for Spanish (mc5@soton.ac.uk) and Mrs Kirsten Söntgens for German (ks5@soton.ac.uk). For general enquiries about doing a PhD in Modern Languages at Southampton please contact Dr Andrea Reiter (air@soton.ac.uk).

Please visit www.jobs.soton.ac.uk for further opportunities at the University of Southampton.