The LAGOOS project (“A Life in Ancient Greek: The ‘Secret’ Diary of Karl Benedikt Hase”, https://lagoos.org/) is looking to recruit a team member at the level of a doctoral student (‘pre-doc’) on a 4-year fixed-term contract to begin in March 2023 or as soon as possible thereafter. 

https://lagoos.org/2022/09/07/hiring-4-year-phd-position/

The LAGOOS project is funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and hosted at the University of Innsbruck’s Institute for Classical Philology and Neo-Latin Studies under PI William M. Barton. The project has as its principle aims: 1) a digital edition of the surviving nine volumes of Hase’s Greek diary and; 2) a series of analytic studies answering questions about the scholar’s use of Greek, his place in the history of Classical and Byzantine scholarship and his role in Europe’s philhellenic movement. 

The following description of the present post’s roles and responsibilities is arranged according to these two principle aims and numbered as such.

ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES

For their work towards the digital edition of the text (1) the doctoral student will be responsible for the transcription of the text of the nine complete volumes of Hase’s diaries, as well as the surviving excerpts. This work will be supported extensively by the Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) tool TRANSKRIBUS. The transcription of the diary will constitute the first part of the editorial work towards the digital edition of the text, which will be conducted as part of a four-person team. The ability to collaborate effectively as part of a team working on the digital edition is thus a key competence for this post.

As part of the project’s analytical work (2), the doctoral student will be responsible for a study of Hase’s use of the Greek language in his diaries. Here attention should be paid, on the one hand, to the linguistic features of Hase’s Greek (with numerous Atticizing features alongside examples of high-Byzantine and occasionally Modern Greek vocabulary, for example), as well as to the socio-linguistic context of Hase’s choice of expression. The work towards this study of Hase’s use of the Greek language in his diaries can be foreseen as material for a PhD thesis.

SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS

Required

– An MA degree (or equivalent) in Classical Philology, Ancient or Byzantine Greek Studies (or similar);

– excellent Ancient Greek reading comprehension;

– evidence of training in palaeography and manuscript studies;

– excellent English, and reading knowledge of German and/or French.

A full description of the post’s roles and responsibilities, the expected qualifications of the post-holder, their remuneration and further details can be found on the project’s website: https://lagoos.org/2022/09/07/hiring-4-year-phd-position/

APPLICATIONS

Applications (consisting of a cover letter, CV, relevant certification, the contact details of a referee and a writing sample) should be sent in PDF format to william.barton@neolatin.lbg.ac.at by 15th November 2022. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to an interview (most probably virtual) in the course of December 2022.