The French Studies Seminar at the University of Basel is looking for a self-sufficient and motivated IT technician (50%) to join the group « Le Rire des vers – Mining the Comic Verse » led by Anne-Sophie Bories and funded for 5 years by a PRIMA grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) .

Profile

Essential :

• Master’s Degree (or equivalent) in IT,

• Thorough knowledge of XML and related technologies (XSL, XPATH, XQUERY), as well as web development, both backend (e.g. SQL, eXist-db) and frontend (HTML, CSS, javascript),

• Excellent ability to find practical and creative solutions,

• Ability to learn new programming languages to fit needs,

• Genuine curiosity for social sciences, literature or linguistics,

• highly self-sufficient,

• team worker with an inclination for initiative.

Desirable:

• basic knowledge of python and of NLP,

• interest for machine-learning, machine-reasoning, RDF, web ontologies,

• ability to share their knowledge.

Language skills:

• EITHER excellent mastery of English as working language and some knowledge of French,

• OR excellent mastery of French as working language and some knowledge of English.

Responsibilities

• assist team members in developing and maintaining tailored processes for efficient text- mining,

• maintain the team’s databases and guarantee their remote access,

• interact with other scientific teams in the context of collaborations,

• guide team members in the acquisition of new IT skills,

• create and maintain the project’s website.

Conditions

One-year contract, renewable for 4 years,
part-time: 50% (21 hours/week, flexible work hours),
5 weeks of paid holiday per year,
Salary in the region of 42’000 Swiss francs per year.

Project

The research project “Le Rire des vers – Mining the Comic Verse” is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation through a 5 year PRIMA grant awarded to Anne-Sophie Bories. Beside the latter leader, the team will count 2 doctoral candidates and 1 IT technician (50%), and will form part of the French Studies Seminar at the University of Basel. The group will focus on the mapping, analysis and interpretation of both humour and versification in a corpus of modern texts, combining literary analyses with digital humanities methods.

Application

Complete applications should be sent as one single pdf file to Anne-Sophie Bories (a.bories@unibas.ch) and should include:

• - cover letter,

• -  cv,

• -  copy of Master’s Degree,

• -  1-2 samples of code, or link to a realisation (mention precisely which part or parts of the code were written by the candidate),

• -  identity document,

• -  recommendation letter, or certificate from previous employer.

Applications can be submitted in French or English. Candidates still in the final stages of their studies may apply if they can present their official degree by the end of 2019.

Start of contract: as soon as possible
Contact : Dr. Anne-Sophie Bories (a.bories@unibas.ch).