[Commlist] Postdoctoral Position: The Sociability of Sleep: Careful Design for Collective Conditions

____Call for Applications – Postdoctoral Fellowship____

“The Sociability of Sleep: Careful Design for Collective Conditions”

Université de Montréal and McGill University, Montreal, Canada

DEADLINE: June 15, 2021

https://bricolab.org/2021/05/25/sleep-postdoc/ 
<https://bricolab.org/2021/05/25/sleep-postdoc/>

We are seeking a postdoctoral fellow for a 10-month position to work on 
the new interdisciplinary research-creation project “The Sociability of 
Sleep.” The candidate will work directly with Professors Aleksandra 
Kaminska (Director of the Bricolab, Université de Montréal, 
Communications) and Alanna Thain (Director of the Moving Image Research 
Lab, McGill University, English) and have the opportunity to work 
with project collaborators. These include researchers and practitioners 
from communication and media studies, media arts, cinema and 
performance, psychiatry, psychology, and clinical medicine across 
Montreal’s universities.

The Sociability of Sleep is funded through a special initiative to 
support interdisciplinary, experimental, and intensive projects. We 
explore exceptional and everyday experiences of sleep and its problems 
to generate new knowledge and empathies for sleep conditions, defined as 
a disordered and debilitating relation between sleep and 
wakefulness (including, but not limited to somnambulism, insomnia, 
narcolepsy, parasomnias, dreams and nightmares, sleep apnea, 
chronodiversity, etc.). Through collaboration between artists, 
scientists, and media studies scholars, we aim to generate novel sleep 
situations that make perceptible, and thus actionable, our key 
intuition: that sleep is much more social than it might seem. In 
sleep, we become radically vulnerable in a way that requires social 
forms of care: individuals are experts of their somatic experience, and 
yet access to the sleeping self relies on the perception of human and 
technological others. How might exploring a sleeper subjectivity—the 
quotidian ways we navigate time, space, ourselves, and others—help us 
rethink and reanimate the sociability of sleep itself?

We engage these questions by working on 1) developing interdisciplinary 
approaches to sleep research taking advantage of the tools, methods, and 
insights of arts, humanities and social sciences; 2) thinking critically 
and historically about technologies of sleep, including biometrics and 
sleep tracking apps; and 3) identifying, analysing, and producing 
artistic interventions into sleep in design, media, and performance, to 
see how they might enrich normative treatment of sleep conditions. 
Our approach is rooted in art-science experimentation, collaboration, 
prototyping, and various forms of “critical making” that integrate and 
engage with qualitative or quantitative research data. Over the two 
years of the project, we have planned a series of experimental events, 
including Sleep Salons, maker labs and prototyping workshops, artist 
residencies, pedagogical videos, a summer school, and a final exhibition.

We are looking for a critical and engaged researcher with an established 
interest and expertise in sleep. We are open to a variety of 
(inter)disciplinary backgrounds, including: media 
studies, communications, cinema studies, performance studies, science 
and technology studies, media arts, visual and sound arts, disability 
studies, design, urban planning, architecture, Indigenous studies, 
gender, feminist and sexuality studies, critical race studies, 
visual and material culture, information science, history of science, 
neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, research-creation, 
curation, critical making, etc.

The fellow’s primary responsibilities will be to facilitate the 
collaborative activities across the team, while also developing their 
own research within the project. They will have the opportunity to be 
implicated in all aspects of the project with specific responsibilities 
to be determined according to their particular interests and profile. 
These may include curation, programming, medical or public 
outreach, publishing collaborations, workshop design, prototyping, 
exhibition design, etc. The position is best suited for someone with 
strong organizational and communication skills, experience working 
collaboratively, and an enthusiastic approach to interdisciplinary teams 
and research.
The fellow will have a workspace and access to equipment, mentoring, and 
support through the project headquarters at the Bricolab and the MIRL, 
as well as the opportunity to access partner resources and expertise, 
including the Topological Media Lab (Concordia), the Visualisation 
Laboratory and Screen (UdeM), Artefact Lab (UdeM), Hexagram, GRAFIM, the 
Dream & Nightmare Laboratory within the Center for Advanced Research in 
Sleep Medicine (UdeM, Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur), and the Sleep Lab (McGill 
Health University Centre), among others.
Eligibility: Candidates must have received a PhD within the past 5 
years, or have a doctoral defence scheduled prior to Sept. 15, 
2021.  Regardless of field or discpline, they must have demonstrated 
expertise in a relevant area of sleep-related research. The fellowship 
is open to both national and international scholars. Fluency in English 
is essential; working knowledge of French is an asset.
We welcome and encourage applications from racialized persons/visible 
minorities, women, Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, ethnic 
minorities, and persons of minority sexual orientations and gender 
identities, as well as from all qualified candidates with the skills and 
knowledge to engage productively with diverse communities.
Start date and duration: The position is from Sept. 1, 2021 to June 
2022, with the possibility of a renewal for a second 10-month term (July 
2023-April 2023).
Salary: The salary is $35,000 CAD for 10 months, plus 17% in benefits. 
The fellow will also have access to a research stipend for materials and 
research dissemination.
* * TO APPLY * *
Documents required: 1) a current CV, 2) a cover letter describing your 
training, relevant research interests and a brief description of the 
work you would like to pursue in relation to the project including, if 
relevant, any anticipated material needs (max 2 pages), and 3) contact 
information for 2 referees.

Please send your application as a single PDF file to both 
(a.kaminska /at/ umontreal.ca) <mailto:(a.kaminska /at/ umontreal.ca)> and 
(alanna.thain /at/ mcgill.ca) <mailto:(alanna.thain /at/ mcgill.ca)>. Zoom interviews 
for shortlisted candidates will be held on June 17-18.

Deadline: June 15, 2021**

https://bricolab.org/2021/05/25/sleep-postdoc/ 
<https://bricolab.org/2021/05/25/sleep-postdoc/>


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