The Greek Section of the Departments of Literary Studies and Linguistics at Ghent University (Belgium) is seeking two well-qualified collaborators for the “Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams” (DBBE). They will be part of a team of pre- and postdoctoral scholars within the project “Poetry from the Margins. Literary, linguistic, philological and cultural-historical analysis of a new corpus of Byzantine book epigrams (800-1453)”, related to DBBE. The director of this project is Professor Kristoffel Demoen and the project is generously supported by the Research Fund of Ghent University (within the “Concerted Research Actions” program).

The successful applicants will start employment at their earliest convenience. Candidates who are only eligible or available after the current academic year (i.e. after the summer of 2018) are also encouraged to apply.

We expect the successful applicants:

• to create and maintain the textual records that form the core of the digital database, relying on primary sources and existing publications;
• to consult Greek manuscripts, both online and in situ, by visiting important libraries and research institutions that preserve medieval Greek manuscripts;
• to contribute to the scholarly activities of the research group (e.g. by organizing events in collaboration with the other members of the team and participating in co-publications);
• to come and live in Belgium, work closely together with the other team members, and contribute to a pleasant and stimulating atmosphere.

Envisaged profile: the successful candidates will have

• an MA degree in classical languages (with an emphasis on Greek) or in Byzantine philology. In order to be eligible, candidates must have obtained their MA degree at the time of application or demonstrate convincingly that they will have that degree in hand by the summer of 2018;
• excellent knowledge of classical Greek, and at least good notions of medieval Greek;
• very good knowledge of Greek paleography and editorial techniques as evidenced by their curriculum studiorum (courses, subject of papers and dissertations, summer schools, etc.);
• very good knowledge of English and at least good reading skills of several other languages relevant to the field (primarily German, Italian, French, Modern Greek);
• the attitude to contribute to a research team.

We offer:

• a contract for one year of full-time employment (renewable) with a status equivalent to that of a doctoral bursary;
• a competitive salary that corresponds to the salary scales for PhD students as established by the Flemish government (ca 2,000€ net / month);
• a substantial allowance for travel and other research purposes in addition to the salary;
• office space at the University, full membership of both the Department of Literary Studies and the DBBE research team and a solid and engaging academic working environment with a strong international profile.