The Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, is seeking applications for one postdoctoral candidate as part of the interdisciplinary project “Home in Crisis” funded under a joint call “Crisis – Perspectives from the Humanities” launched by Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) and the Collaboration of Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe (CHANSE). The position will be supervised by Associate Professor Miriam Cullen, and co-supervised by Associate Prof. Dina Lupin (University of Southampton).
This project is a partnership between the University of Copenhagen, the University of Southampton, the University of Oslo, University College Cork, Preparing Our Home (www.preparingourhome.ca), Empatheatre (www.empatheatre.com) and ClientEarth (www.clientearth.org).
The position is available from 1 July 2025 for two years, full-time.
Introduction
‘Home in Crisis’ uses a humanities-approach-to-law to locate the idea of ‘home’ at the centre of an intimate and experiential understanding of crisis. Its approach allows for a radical shift in legal and policy contexts, where the intimate dimensions of the climate crisis are often overlooked. This project engages with the idea of climate crisis as one that is unfolding inside our homes. In centering the idea of ‘home’, we examine the ways in which the climate crisis is lived and felt at home and we examine what home means in a state of climate crisis, in which one can be unhomed and rehomed, rendered homeless in one’s home, and homesick in one’s homeland.
Using theatre-methodologies as law-making, Home in Crisis will develop a novel and perspective-shifting understanding of the climate crisis in law. Home is used as a lens through which to understand the climate crisis, allows us to better understand the ways in which the crisis is intimate, shaped by gender, location, community, age, Indigeneity, disability, sexuality, and how we know and live in our homes. We will remark and retake law’s objects, imagining a radically inclusive and creative approach to law-making.
Central to the project is a collaboration with Empatheatre, a research-based threatre-making methodology for creating new social spaces, action-based research and true-to-life theatrical experiences. This collaboration will lead to the creation of a new play on home and climate crisis. Empatheatre will, together with the research team, conduct a series of discussions with Indigenous community representatives to co-develop a script based on participant narratives. The script is first performed to participants and partners to check its credibility and iteratively adjusted accordingly including throughout the performance period. There is no “final” version, as iteration is part of the method.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

The position requires a PhD in law and/or humanities. The successful candidate will have proficiency in English as the working language (written and spoken). Successful candidates will demonstrate a clear potential to deliver high quality peer-reviewed research publications.
In the overall assessment, special emphasis will be placed on the applicant’s ambition to develop and implement new research ideas, which may have an international impact. Furthermore, the Faculty places emphasis on the applicant’s interest and preferably, prior experience in working with other researchers to conduct collective research and teaching activities and welcomes the applicant’s proven ability to make a valuable contribution in this regard.

Please refer the Job description for details