Cambridge University Library is delighted to have received an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA) and invites applications for PhD studentships, starting in October 2024. The successful PhD candidate will receive funding to work on the Stefan Heym Archive, as part of the Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) with the University of Oxford.
This PhD project aims to make use of Cambridge University Library’s Stefan Heym Archive focusing in particular on the Archive’s untapped audiovisual (AV) material and making it accessible to other researchers. Stefan Heym (1913-2001) was a major literary and political figure in East German and US cultural history. Born into a Jewish family, he settled in America in 1935 and enjoyed early literary success with his bestseller Hostages. He served in the US Army’s Psychological Warfare Division during World War 2 but moved during the McCarthy era to East Germany. Here he had a high profile and his work had considerable influence, but his outspokenness eventually led to his works being banned. He took part in the events of 1989 which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. He was a critical observer of the German unification process and in 1994 he successfully stood for the German parliament and gave the new session’s opening address. He continued to write works of fiction and essays until his death.
Cambridge University Library is proud custodian of the Stefan Heym Archive. It consists of literary manuscripts, interviews, correspondence, press clippings, AV tapes, and miscellaneous material, chiefly in German and English and comprising 410 boxes of manuscript and printed matter alone. The Archive is remarkable for its richness as Heym painstakingly collected material relating to his life and work. It provides an important resource for scholars working on Heym’s own literary output but also on East German cultural life and on US history for the period when Heym lived there.
The student’s doctorate would be based on the Heym Archive and could relate to any of the wide areas of Heym’s work as an author, cultural figure, politician and witness of national and world history. Within this framework, they would spend a portion of their time working on the AV material. This is made up of 465 audio and 146 video tapes plus six reels of 8mm film and is the only part of the archive without full catalogue metadata. These underused materials include recordings of readings, discussions, TV appearances, interviews and speeches at demonstrations, assembled and often recorded by Heym himself. The student would help provide metadata for these materials to make them significantly more accessible.
A pilot digitisation project of the Heym AV archive has recently been completed but only saw a small proportion of material digitised. Based on metadata on the cassette cases and other sources, the student would, with support and guidance from their supervisors, identify a selection of materials of particular relevance to their doctoral research. These would be digitised externally, providing the student as well as other researchers with access to these otherwise inaccessible sources.
The student’s first year would be spent on their literature review and working on metadata for the AV material. They would have the chance to select tapes for digitisation in their first year to inform their research. The student would also undertake external engagement work including blog posts, a public talk, and shaping an exhibition.
With training and extensive support from the CUL’s Department of Archives and Modern Manuscripts (AMM), the Digital Content Unit and Head of Digital Preservation, and the staff of the University Library Research Institute, the successful student would develop expertise in collections-based research methods which would open up career pathways in archival environments in addition to more standard academic pathways.
The lead academic supervisor for the project will be Professor Georgina Paul of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford. Cambridge University Library supervisor will be the Germanic Specialist, Christian Staufenbiel.
Applicants should have excellent German reading knowledge and already have (or currently be studying towards) a Master’s degree in an appropriate subject relative to the collection and its research potential. To know more about the application process, please visit the Doctoral Training Partnership website.
Christian Staufenbiel