Within the Research Training Group for doctoral students 2304 “Byzantium and the Euro-Mediterranean Cultures of War. Exchange, Differentiation and Reception”, which is financed by the DFG (German Research Foundation), at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz 1 post-doctoral position (wissenschaftliche/r Mitarbeiter/in) is to be filled by 1 April 2019 for a period of up to four years.

Within this span of time an individual research project which is both transcultural and transdisciplinary and dedicated to the topic of the Research Training Group is to be developed and carried out. Participating in this Research Training Group are the disciplines of Ancient History, Antique Church History/Theology, Byzantine Studies, Medieval History, Eastern European History, Early Modern Church History, Classical Archaeology and Byzantine Art History, Early and Prehistorical Archaeology (with a focus on Medieval Archaeology) and Musicology. Particularly desirable are projects that include Islamic history and culture.

The goal of the Research Training Group for doctoral students is to examine the Euro-Mediterranean Cultures of War and the importance of Byzantium for them from a transcultural perspective, from the Roman Imperial Period to the Early Modern Period. With cultures of war are understood to be the forms and practices of war as well as the norms, interpretations, attributions of meaning and reflections referring to war. The mutual processes of exchange, differentiation or reception (from antique influences in Byzantium to Byzantine models in the post-Byzantine Period) will be explored via two fields of inquiry, “Expressional Forms” and “Interpretative Concepts”. The prospective research must address one of these two fields of inquiry.

Duties include:

• Completion of a transcultural and transdisciplinary study
• Organization and management of a regular exchange with the doctoral students
• Co-editorship of a publication of proceedings from an international conference (2021/22), including the composition of an interdisciplinary methodological and theoretical introduction to it
• Support of both the doctoral students in the areas of methodology and theory as well as of the participating researchers in the further development of the program of study
• Regular participation in the events of the Research Training Group. For this reason, presence in Mainz is obligatory.

The Research Training Group offers intensive specialist and interdisciplinary exchange, opportunities to attain further qualifications in the sphere of Digital Humanities, the possibility of teaching and diverse opportunities for international networking.

Requirements for the application include an excellent dissertation in a participating or related field, that as a rule should not have been completed more than six years in the past, as well as experience in interdisciplinary work.