LITS is currently hiring a Bryn Mawr student for the Fall 2026 semester to work as a Digital Scholarship Project Assistant on an environmental studies project focused on nuclear energy activism in Germany.
Job Description
Project title: Re-imagining Sites of Energy Conflict in Germany: Memory and Reconciliation at the Close of the Nuclear Age
Project director: Carol Hager, Professor of Environmental Studies and Political Science
The German energy transition (Energiewende) is often viewed from abroad as an unqualified success story and an example to other countries. In fact, however, German energy policy has been contested, at times bitterly and violently, for decades. This project addresses the following research question: how is the history of contestation over nuclear power woven into the German story of the Energiewende, and with what consequences, both for the communities that experienced the conflicts and for the broader society? We approach the question of collective memory by studying the evolution of three particular sites of conflict, which have developed different cultural meanings over time. Wyhl, in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, was the site of a proposed nuclear power plant. Kalkar, in North Rhine-Westphalia, was the site of a fast breeder reactor pilot project. Wackersdorf, in Bavaria, was chosen for a nuclear reprocessing facility. Mass protest contributed to the abandonment of these projects at different stages of completion. This project shows how erstwhile opponents in the conflicts over nuclear power have contributed to the evolution of the sites and thus to the collective memory of the conflicts and the interpretation of their meaning in the Energiewende era.
The DSPA will help construct data visualizations regarding different aspects of memory and commemoration in the three case studies. The student will update the existing corpus of articles by conducting keyword searches of three regional German newspapers: Mittelbayerische Zeitung (Wackersdorf), Rheinische Post (Kalkar), and Badische Zeitung (Wyhl). We will use the keyword search data to detect patterns in a) the salience of the conflicts over time, b) the positive or negative valences associated with the conflicts, c) the forms of commemoration over time, and d) the evolving cultural and political meaning of the conflicts. The student will update the existing data visualizations and create new visualizations to be incorporated into publications.
- Required qualifications
- Excellent collaboration skills, good written and oral communication skills, ability to work independently and with a team, and a willingness to learn new technologies
- Intermediate reading knowledge of German
- Interest in data management, corpus analysis, or data visualization
- Preferred qualifications
- Experience with programming in python, data visualization, or corpus analysis
- Data Science coursework or experience
- Environmental studies interest or experience
- Job details
- On-campus position (in person)
- $15/hr
- 5-8 hours per week
- Fall semester 2026
For full consideration, please apply by May 8, 2026 by filling out this form: DSPA Application Form. You will be asked to include:
- 1 paragraph explaining why you would be a good fit
- CV
- Relevant coursework
Questions? Reach out to chager@brynmawr.edu