Personal Assistant

The Role and the Department

The School, comprising Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Hispanic Studies, Italian, and Russian Studies, and the Centre for Foreign Language Study, is one of the most successful Schools of Modern Languages and Cultures in the UK. It has a strong research culture, bringing staff and postgraduates from its constituent language areas together in interdisciplinary discussions and collaborations through an evolving structure of research groups currently focusing on Digital Studies, Ecologies and the Arts, Justice and the Arts, Translation and Linguistics, and Transnationalism. These activities are backed by a university-wide research infrastructure which is strategically supportive of interdisciplinary enquiry.

The School is a leading partner in the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience, the Centre for Humanities Innovation, the Centre for Visual Arts and Culture, the Centre for Intercultural Mediation, and the Centre for Medical Humanities. It plays an important role in the University's prestigious Institute of Advanced Study, set up in 2006 to promote worldclass research across the Faculties.

Expertise in the School covers periods from the Middle Ages to the present and a wide range of cultural and linguistic fields, with visual culture and translation enjoying strong growth in recent years. These interests feed into specialist MA programmes in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Translation Studies, Culture and Difference, and Visual Arts and Culture. This is an exciting time in the development of research programmes in the School: further details can be found at http://www.dur.ac.uk/mlac/research and in individual staff profiles for each language area.

The School seeks to foster a culture of outstanding teaching and personal development in both the graduate and undergraduate communities, prescribing in accordance with University strategy that all undergraduate teaching be research based, research-orientated, or research-led, and striving to reinforce and enhance the characteristically strong Durham bond between staff and students.

The Personal Assistant is required to provide specialist assistance to a member of staff in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures (Hispanic Studies).

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