PhD Fellowship on the Project Medieval Self-Commentaries Beyond Europe: A Transcultural Perspective (CML/SDU)

Application deadline: June 25

Application form and further information: https://www.sdu.dk/en/service/ledige_stillinger/1044524

1 PhD fellowship is available at the Department of History, University of Southern Denmark, starting October 1, 2019. The successful candidate will work within the project “Medieval Self-Commentaries Beyond Europe: A Transcultural Perspective” funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark. The fellowship runs for 3 years and candidates are expected to hold an MA in the area of medieval textual culture (literature, philology, history, with emphasis on texts and/or languages) or Classics.

The successful candidate will work on the 12th-century Byzantine polymath John Tzetzes, and in particular on his engagement with the Byzantine core handbook of rhetoric, the so-called Corpus Hermogenianum. The Corpus consists of 4 treatises assembled in the 5th or 6th century. Tzetzes penned a commentary in political verses on the four treatises. The commentary has been only partially edited and is preserved in seven known manuscripts.

The PhD candidate is expected to develop his/her own project, working in close cooperation with project leader Aglae Pizzone, who will prepare the critical edition of the text. A desirable area of research would be a comparative approach with the study of rhetoric and the commentary tradition in the Latin Middle Ages. Other possible directions of research include but are not limited to:

• A study of the work’s compositional and conceptual framework;
• Contextualization within Constantinople’s contemporary’s debates on rhetoric;
• An analysis of Tzetzes’ sources.

As the candidate will also be working from digitized copies of unedited manuscripts, the applicant is expected to have a strong background in Ancient/Byzantine Greek philology and, possibly paleography, with proven expertise in both Ancient/Byzantine Greek and Classical/Medieval Latin.

Application must include:

• A research proposal/description of your approach to the project outlined above (max one page excluding references)
• A letter stating your specific interest, motivation and qualifications for the project in question (max. two pages)
• Detailed CV, including personal contact information

The expected requirements must be clearly documented in the submitted CV, otherwise applications will not be considered. The candidate should be independent, possess good interpersonal skills and able to communicate efficiently in English both orally and in writing (language of the dissertation will be English).

The successful candidate will be attached to the Centre for Medieval Literature (CML). CML is a Danish centre of excellence founded in 2012, based jointly at SDU and at the University of York. The centre’s field of research is European medieval literatures in a broad sense. Its ambition is to propose new theoretical frameworks for the field which is still predominantly divided into national interests and paradigms.

For more information, please contact Assistant Professor Aglae Pizzone, Department of History/Danish Institute for Advanced Study, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense, email: pizzone@sdu.dk.

To apply, please find the full advertisement and application form here.