Research Assistant Position for Prof. James Robinson
Opportunity Description:
The aim of this project is to construct a database on the presence and importance of females in the creation myths, religions and foundational charters of different societies for as broad a cross-cultural sample as is possible. We will also collect information on the presence, roles and importance of female deities. The main source for this is the Human Relations Area Files are large digitized ethnographic archive. We will merge this dataset with existing cross-cultural data and use it to test the hypothesis that a significant determinant of contemporary female empowerment is the mythical and religious representation of females.
The researcher will be part of a team of research assistants and graduate students and two pre-docs who I am working with on various projects. Most relevant, several of these are using archival and ethnographic material. The researcher will also need to master various software packages and learn how to merge data from different sources and analyze it. Ultimately, we are interested in testing causal hypotheses about the relationship between the representation of females in comparative mythology and religion. I hope that by the end of this project the researcher will have mastered at least the elements of how to think about data and hypothesis testing in modern social science.
Application Process:
James Robinson