media, information, the contemporary
Feature

Call for Applications for Sarai Research Associates

Call for Research Associates

The Sarai Programme at CSDS invites applications for 2 research positions, to work on the subject of `media and information infrastructures’.

The research agenda is historical and contemporary, archive based and ethnographic, and will traverse a variety of media, including radio, gramophone, cassette, photography, film, television, video, and digital forms.

Ongoing research on ‘media and information infrastructures’ is currently looking at the history of media and identification practices, including work on the development of the Unique Identification project; fear and surveillance; genealogies of documentary and information film in colonial and early Independent India; and the circulation of popular cultures of language and music in radio and cinema.

Topics

– The histories of the emergence and circulation of media technology and equipment

– Laws and regulations governing media use, and their contestation.

– State information and media policies, including the development of media and communication infrastructures, in radio and television transmitters, telegraph and telephone networks, satellite and cable technology.

– The deployment of media for identification and surveillance, including topics such as sting journalism.

– The cultivation of media professions, from formal schools in mass communication, radio engineering, film-making, advertising, and computer expertise, as well as more informal networks for the acquisition of such skills.

– Media industry practices, including institutional and technological changes, and the development of human resources in a variety of fields; for example, in the cinema, from camera work and editing to sound design, art direction, costumes, and the composition of lyrics and dialogue.

– Computer culture, from software programming and management to digital compositing.

– Media consumption and circulation, including shops for media goods, photograph studios, exhibition spaces ranging from film halls and video parlours to electronic bulletin boards and ambient television and video experience, including the phenomenon of cellphone image capture and circulation.

– Descriptions of the social and cultural habitus within which media is produced, circulated and consumed.

Application

Applicants should send in:

– CV listing recent works and projects.

– A writing sample from recent work.

– A three-page research note on the research that the applicant would like to pursue.

– Contact details.

Please send the application with to dak[at]sarai.net with the title ‘Research Positions.’

Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed at Sarai-CSDS. Selected candidates will be appointed initially for one year, with the possibility of renewal for a second year. They will receive a stipend of Rs. 30,000/- per month.

The last date of submission is September 20, 2012.

Call for Research Internships in Film Research

Sarai will hire two interns to undertake supervised research, collections and inter-institutional liaison in the area of film studies. The interns will be involved in reviewing existing Sarai archival materials, extracting material for specific research and writing projects, and gathering new collections under the guidance of Sarai research fellows. Interns will also be involved in the liaison work for a year-long programme of academic activities to celebrate a century of Indian cinema. This internship programme, called the Indian Film Century, is coordinated by Sarai and BioScope, the multi-partnered journal of screen studies.

Application

Applicants should send in:

– CV listing recent works and projects.

– A writing sample from recent work.

– Contact details.

Please send the application with to dak[at]sarai.net with the title ‘Research Positions.’

The last date of submission is September 20, 2012.

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