The South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership announces an opportunity for PhD funding in Late Antiquity from the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The universities within the DTP have a particular research strength in the study of the culture, history, literature and archaeology of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, including the later Roman empire and its successor states, early Islam, and contacts between these territories and the wider world. We are therefore keen to encourage excellent applicants whose research interests fall within, or range across, a variety of academic disciplines, including Classics and Ancient History, Archaeology, Theology and Religion, Medieval History, Arab and Islamic Studies, and Celtic Studies.
The DTP as a whole will be offering up to 60 PhD studentships across all subjects in the Arts and Humanities for entry in September 2018. Eligible students from the UK/EU will be required to identify two potential supervisors from different universities within the consortium.
Potential Supervisors
Dr Nic Baker-Brian (Cardiff) Religion and society in Late Antiquity; Greek and Latin Patristic Literature; Gnostic and Manichaean Literature
Dr Fanny Bessard (Bristol) early Islam, especially economic history; the Caucasus in Late Antiquity
Professor Siam Bhayro (Exeter) Early Jewish studies; Syriac language and literature; medical history; Jewish and Christian magic
Professor Barbara Borg (Exeter) Greek and Roman art and iconography; Topography of Rome; Roman tombs and burial customs; art and text; Roman Egypt; relationship between Christians and non-Christians in Late Antiquity
Dr John P. Cooper (Exeter) Islamic archaeology; maritime archaeology; Islamic material culture and history of the medieval Arab world
Dr Ken Dark (Reading) Late Antiquity; the Byzantine world; early Christianity; Celtic Studies; social and economic organization and dynamics; archaeology; history
Professor Max Deeg (Cardiff) Buddhist history; religious interactions in Asia in Late Antiquity
Dr Richard Flower (Exeter) Roman and late Roman history; religious identity; late-antique and Christian ‘patristic’ literature, especially panegyric, invective and heresiology; authority in its many forms
Dr Alison Gascoigne (Southampton) Islamic archaeology; ceramics; cultural change; urban archaeology; household archaeology
Dr Christa Gray (Reading) Jerome of Stridon; Latin hagiography; Latin linguistics
Dr Peter Guest (Cardiff) Archaeology of Roman Britain and the Roman army; numismatics; the later Roman world; funerary archaeology
Dr Hajnalka Herold (Exeter) Late antique and early medieval archaeology (AD 400-1100); archaeometric analysis of ceramic finds from any geographical and chronological background; experimental archaeology of pottery
Professor Timothy Insoll (Exeter) Later African archaeology (Iron Age) and Global Islamic archaeology; ceramic and bead studies
Dr István Kristó-Nagy (Exeter) Late Antiquity and early Islam; ‘Abbasid culture; social and intellectual history; art history; literature;political thought (mirrors for princes and advice literature); comparative studies between the early and classical Islam and other civilisations; Zandaqa (Manicheism and other forms of dualist thought)
Professor Dan Levene (Southampton) Jewish Aramaic and Hebrew dialects in antiquity; Jewish magic; late antique Jewish and Christian Mesopotamia; Ethiopian popular beliefs
Professor Emma Loosley (Exeter) Oriental Christianity; Middle Eastern Christianity; inter-religious and cultural exchange; Eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus in Late Antiquity; material culture of Late Antiquity and Early Islam; special interest in Syrian Christianity
Professor Josef Lössl (Cardiff) Early Christianity; Greek and Latin Patristics; History of biblical and philosophical exegesis and commentaries; intellectual history; Augustine of Hippo; Jerome of Stridon
Professor Morwenna Ludlow (Exeter) Patristic theology, especially Gregory of Nyssa and the 'Cappadocians'; rhetoric in late antique Christianity
Dr Eve MacDonald (Cardiff) Sasanid Persia; ethnicity; material culture
Dr Arietta Papaconstantinou (Reading) Late Antiquity; early Islam; Byzantium; economy and society; ethnic identity; ancient multilingualism; Egypt; papyrology; Greek epigraphy
Professor Karla Pollmann (Reading) Classical literature and culture; late antique, early Christian, and partistic literature, especially early Christian poetry, Augustine; reception of classical and early Christian thought in later periods; intermediality; ancient exegesis and hermeneutics
Dr Alan Ross (Southampton) Late antique ‘pagan’ literature, particularly historiography and panegyric; the sons of Constantine and Julian the Apostate; political and intellectual history.
Dr Bella Sandwell (Bristol) Late antique religion; early Christianity; preaching
Dr Emily Selove (Exeter) Medieval Arabic banquet and comic literature; sexuality; medicine; magic; and the influence of ancient Greek and Roman literature on these traditions
Dr Helen Spurling (Southampton) Religion in Late Antiquity; Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations; Midrash and Rabbinics; apocalyptic literature; reception history of the Bible
Dr Gabor Thomas (Reading) Early medieval settlements and rural landscapes; the archaeology of early medieval monasticism and Christian conversion; material culture and identity in Anglo-Saxon England and the Viking west
Dr Shaun Tougher (Cardiff) Late antique and Byzantine politics and culture; Julian the Apostate; gender