The interdisciplinary Research Training Group 1876 “Early Concepts of Humans and Nature: Universal, Specific, Interchanged” established by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz invites applications for 1 doctoral positions (wissenschaftliche/r Mitarbeiter/in, 13 TV-L 65%) starting starting at the earliest opportunity.

Initial appointment will be for two and a half years.

The Research Training Group is directed by scholars from the fields of Egyptology, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Pre- and Protohistorical Archaeology (Pleistocene Archaeology), Near Eastern Archaeology, Classical Archaeology, Classics (Greek and Latin), Byzantine Studies and Medieval German Studies.

In the Research Training Group’s research programme, the object is to record concepts of humans and nature in the Near Eastern, Northeast African and European area in the period from ca. 100.000 years B.C.E. until the Middle Ages – starting out from textual, pictorial and material sources – by means of examples and to study them in culturally immanent as well as transcultural respects. In order to align the spectrum of potential fields of topics in a targeted manner four main focal points of research have been defined:

• Primordial conditions and elements, the origin and the end of the world;
• Natural phenomena, the forces of nature, and natural catastrophes;
• Flora, fauna, and natural environment;
• The conceptualization of the human body, of disease, healing and death.

Topics for PhD theses must be chosen from one of these four areas and belong to one of the academic disciplines mentioned above.

We are looking for dissertation projects that will connect with and complement dissertation projects within the Research Training Group as well as additional dissertation projects belonging to one of the four areas.

Requirements for appointment

• a diploma or master’s degree (or equivalent) with excellent results in one of the disciplines mentioned above and fulfilment of the necessary requirements for enrolment on a doctoral degree in either Faculty (Fachbereich) 05 or 07 of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.