The Department of Applied Communication, Leadership, and Culture is seeking an undergraduate Research Assistant for the SSHRC Insight Development Grant-funded project, “Halifax's Literary Landmarks: Exploring Atlantic Canada's urban blue/green spaces.” This public engagement, digital humanities project champions little studied Halifax literature (focusing on the period 1750-1918). The project also asserts the important role of blue/green spaces (characterized by salt and freshwater/vegetation) in making Atlantic Canadian cities healthy and livable. The project is committed to public engagement and the project team will create a literary tour of Halifax’s urban blue/green spaces available via a free, publicly accessible website and mobile application.

The successful candidate for this position will work on the already collected primary material (journalism, fiction, poetry, memoir, and travel writing about Halifax green/blue spaces in the period 1750-1918). Using this material, s/he will write scripts for each literary landmark that will be the basis for the literary tour. The successful candidate will have to perform research to provide adequate historical and cultural context for the scripts and training in primary and secondary research skills will be provided. These scripts will appear in both written and oral formats on the website and mobile app and must be accessible to a broad audience. The written material created by the successful candidate will be recorded by actors at a later date. The research assistant will also gain digital skills (e.g., uploading content to the backend of Omeka, our website platform; testing mobile app function); training and supervision will be provided. The successful candidate will work under the supervision of the project’s Principal Investigator, Dr. Kate Scarth.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Write scripts targeted at a general audience
• Analyze and synthesize primary sources from a range of genres
• Perform primary/secondary research as required to provide appropriate historical/cultural context
• Liaise with project team members and other stakeholders
• Create, upload, and test digital content and applications
• Perform other duties as required

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Ability to critically review and make use of library and online sources
• Strong familiarity with literary and/or historical primary sources
• Excellent writing skills  (preferably with creative writing or script writing experience)
• Minimum two years of university experience
• Majoring in a Faculty of Arts program
• Courses in history, English, creative writing, scriptwriting highly desirable
• Interest in Atlantic Canadian history and/or literature an asset
• The ability to work independently and be well organized
• Maturity and ability to exercise sound judgment

Priority is given to University of Prince Edward Island students in accordance with Recruitment, Selection, Hiring and Employment Policies and Procedures manual.