The medieval body of texts known as ‘canon law’ not only regulates strictly religious or ecclesiastical issues but also communicates social and moral ideas about the inner life of society. With a combination of traditional philological study and advanced digital humanities methods, the SOLEMNE project aims to chart how such ideas are transmitted, appropriated, altered, and promoted in canonical collections. As a postdoctoral researcher, you will contribute to this project by researching the spread of thoughts and ideas on social norms through clusters of authoritative statements within these collections.
This three-year position is part of the project ‘The Social Life of Early Medieval Normative Texts’ (SOLEMNE), funded through the ERC Consolidator Grant awarded to Dr Sven Meeder. A fuller description of the project can be found here. The SOLEMNE project aims to describe and contextualise the spread of social norms as articulated in specific combinations of canons in a bottom-up approach starting from the vast corpus of manuscript witnesses of canonical collections in every shape and form (4th-12th centuries). A dynamic database forms an essential element of the project, combined with an innovative digital tool that allows for queries of shared content in canonical collections or manuscripts and of levels of affinity based on combinations of authoritative statements.
Your postdoctoral research will contribute to the main objectives of the project. Studying the rich textual source material and its reception in different social and cultural contexts, you will investigate the ways in which developing social norms and values are manifested in the changes of particularly unstable texts, characterised by numerous ‘recensions’, variant readings and ‘contaminations’.
You will use the project’s dataset, as well as contribute research results to it. Your findings should be presented in at least three major articles in international scientific journals, and you are also expected to contribute to wider communication of the project’s results. Furthermore, you will cooperate closely with all other subprojects and participate in the project’s programme of meetings as a speaker and organiser.
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The position is supervised by Dr Sven Meeder (PI), but you will work closely with all current and future team members of the SOLEMNE project. The research is embedded in the Radboud Institute for Culture & History (RICH).
Radboud University
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Additional employment conditions
Work and science require good employment practices. Radboud University’s primary and secondary employment conditions reflect this. You can make arrangements for the best possible work-life balance with flexible working hours, various leave arrangements and working from home. You are also able to compose part of your employment conditions yourself. For example, exchange income for extra leave days and receive a reimbursement for your sports membership. And, of course, we offer a good pension plan. We also give you plenty of room and responsibility to develop your talents and realise your ambitions. Therefore, we provide various training and development schemes.
Practical information and applying
You can apply only via the button below. Address your letter of application to Sven Meeder. In the application form, you will find which documents you need to include with your application.
The first interviews will take place on Monday 18 November. You will preferably start your employment on 1 January 2025.
We can imagine you’re curious about our application procedure. It describes what you can expect during the application procedure and how we handle your personal data and internal and external candidates. If you wish to apply for a non-scientific position with a non-EU nationality, please take notice of the following information.
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