Dr. Jan Söhlke

Commercial Photography, specializing in Product, Corporate/Industrial and Portrait

Coaching of Master-Students, PhD candidates, and Post-Docs at Siegen University.

Main tasks were researching and writing my PhD thesis. Other duties included the organisation of an international academic conference and regularly delivering progress reports to the board of professors. From December 2014 to April 2015 I received a scholarship for highly qualified PhD students.

As the responsible coordinator (part-time) I oversaw the deployment of a new introductory stage for 1200 first year students of German (StEOP). My responsibilities included gathering requirements, scheduling and planning the implementation, general time management for the team, logistics, preparation of presentations given by professors to students as well as general communication between academic and support staff. In the following semesters I continued supporting the German Department with these tasks.

After significant contributions to the initial set-up of the company’s corporate communication department, I managed the team of four. From February 2010 I worked part time and became project coordinator for corporate communications. My tasks entailed developing a new online portal for corporate clients. The portal received the Association of Support Professionals’ award twice (2012 and 2013). From June 2011 to May 2012 I took a year of paid leave (»Bildungskarenz«) to concentrate on my PhD thesis.

As a self-employed web developer I collaborated with Freeman Hospital Newcastle, Tübingen University, Forum Junge Romanistik and a variety of medium sized enterprises. During this time I also helped develop an open source content management system.

I lectured the weekly module German History 1871-1945 for 40 first year students in German; the teaching language was partly German and partly English.

Working as part of the editorial team that managed the creation of an encyclopedia on the reception of mythology in the arts, I was responsible for all technical aspects of the editing process.

I compiled and annotated a list on virtual museums and drafted a storyboard for an introductory film to the Museum of Modern Literature.

My PhD project »verderben, verführen, verwüsten, bestechen« explores the theme of corruption in German literature from the end of the 18th century. I am a member of Munich University’s Graduate School Language and Literature where my thesis is being supervisesd.

Member of the Germanic Studies Research Colloquium

I co-organised the international, interdisciplinary academic conference »Simmel und die Kulturwissenschaften« (Blaubeuren, December 2005) and was a member of Prof Wunberg's the research colloquium »Literaturwissenschaft – Kulturwissenschaft«.