The Professorship of Digital History at the Otto Friedrich University of Bamberg has a vacancy for a

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Digital History (m/f/d)

(24-month fixed-term contract, 100% of regular working hours, pay group 13 TV-L)

This is a two-year temporary position starting March 2025 or as soon as possible thereafter.

We are seeking a highly qualified Postdoctoral Research Fellow to join our international research team. The postdoc will contribute to the „data upcycling“ process and its documentation as well as the digital analysis and enhancement of the London Customs Accounts (LCA).

The position is part of the DFG-AHRC-funded project „Unlocking Upcycled Medieval Data: North Sea Networks, People, and Commodities in the London Customs Accounts 1380-1560“, which is carried out in collaboration with the School of Advanced Study at the University of London. The London Customs Accounts (LCA) represent one of Europe’s largest surviving collections of medieval trade documents, comprising thousands of records with details about ships and commodities arriving from across Europe.

Our project aims to transform the recent transcriptions of these vital historical records into a FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) digital dataset while preserving their rich complexity. The project develops the methodological concept of „data upcycling“ to bridge the gap between traditional historical source editing and digital humanities approaches. Through this work, we will advance our understanding of late medieval trade, economy, and material culture, moving beyond monetary analysis to examine networks of people and commodities across national boundaries.

Your area of responsibility and application:

• You will be responsible for producing comprehensive documentation of the historical and contemporary processes of data genesis and information creation that occurred when the LCA were created, when the transcriptions were made, and during data upcycling.
• You will coordinate and contribute to the enrichment of the LCA, focussing on the linking of commodities, weights, and measures to external Linked Open Data resources and thesauri.
• Starting from the upcycled LCA, you will conduct independent research on pre-modern consumer economy in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries
• You will contribute to creating a FAIR digital dataset from the transcribed LCA, to a source guide and tutorial for using the upcycled LCA
• You will disseminate your research results in peer-reviewed publications

Your profile:

• PhD in History or related field
• Demonstrated experience with Digital Humanities tools and methodologies
• Strong capability for self-organized research
• Excellent project management and documentation skills
• Strong academic track-record, evidenced by research publications, grants, awards, and scholarly recognition beyond PhD completion
• Knowledge of medieval or early modern economic history is desired
• Experience with historical data standardization and enrichment is an asset
• Familiarity with FAIR data principles is a plus
• Experience with collaborative research projects

We offer:

• Integration into an international research team
• Opportunity to contribute to a ground-breaking digital history project
• An international work environment with excellent career development opportunities

More information:

https://www.history.ac.uk/research/unlocking-upcycled-medieval-data

https://www.uni-bamberg.de/digihist/

General information

Where candidates are otherwise equally qualified, preference will be given to candidates with disabilities. We particularly welcome applications from under-represented communities and first-generation academics.

The University of Bamberg has been certified by the Hertie Foundation as a family-friendly university and is particularly committed to helping reconcile work and family life. The university promotes gender equality in the workplace and endeavours to increase the proportion of women in research and teaching. In the case of equal aptitude, qualifications and expertise, preference is given to women. The faculty aims to increase the proportion of women in research and teaching and therefore welcomes applications from female scientists.

All appointments will be made based on merit, according to the criteria outlined in this job description.

Application

Please send your application documents (cover letter, CV, copies of degrees) as one PDF document to digihist@uni-bamberg.de.

The application deadline is 07.01.2025.

If you have any questions, please contact Prof. Dr. Werner Scheltjens by e-mail: werner.scheltjens@uni-bamberg.de.

Im Fachbereich Gesellschafts- und Geschichtswissenschaften ist am Institut für Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft zum nächstmöglichen Zeitpunkt die Stelle für eine/einen dem Labor für empirische Rezeptionsforschung (LitLab – Prof. Dr. Thomas Weitin) zugeordnete/n

Wiss. Mitarbeiterin / Wiss. Mitarbeiter (m/w/d) – 100%

in einem für die Dauer von zwei Jahren befristeten Arbeitsverhältnis zu besetzen.

Qualifikation:

• Sie haben eine Promotion im Bereich empirischer Literatur- oder Kulturwissenschaft oder in Cognitive Science
• Sie verfügen Laborerfahrung, idealerweise mit einem Setup aus Eye-Tracking und Peripherphysiologie
• Sie sind statistisch geschult und haben Erfahrung mit Datenauswertung
• Sie arbeiten gerne in einem Forschungsteam
• Sie sprechen fließend Deutsch oder Englisch

Ihre Aufgaben:

• Experimentelle Forschung mit dem Schwerpunkt Leseforschung und Cognitive Humanities
• Entwicklung und Durchführung eines eigenen Forschungsvorhabens
• Labormanagement
• Unterstützung bei administrativen Aufgaben im Rahmen der empirischen Projekte des Fachgebietes

Wir bieten:

• Abwechslungsreiche Arbeit
• Unterstützung bei der Entwicklung und Umsetzung eines eigenen Forschungsprofils
• Ein interdisziplinäres Umfeld und Gelegenheit zum Austausch
• Die Teilnahme an nationalen und internationalen Tagungen

Das Erbringen der Dienstleistung kann zugleich der wissenschaftlichen Weiterqualifizierung der Bewerberin/des Bewerbers dienen.

Die Technische Universität Darmstadt strebt eine Erhöhung des Anteils der Frauen am Personal an und fordert deshalb besonders Frauen auf, sich zu bewerben. Bewerberinnen oder Bewerber mit einem Grad der Behinderung von mindestens 50 oder diesen Gleichgestellte werden bei gleicher Eignung bevorzugt. Die Vergütung erfolgt nach dem Tarifvertrag für die Technische Universität Darmstadt (TV – TU Darmstadt).

Für inhaltliche Rückfragen wenden Sie sich bitte an Prof. Dr. Thomas Weitin: thomas.weitin@tu-darmstadt.de

Schicken Sie bitte Ihre Bewerbung mit den üblichen Unterlagen in Form einer pdf-Datei (maximal 5 MB) bis zum 15.05.2024 an: sprachli@linglit.tu-darmstadt.de

The Early Modern History Research Group at KU Leuven is accepting applications for a postdoctoral position on the European Research Council funded project “Regionalizing Infrastructures in Chinese History.” This project examines how large-scale infrastructures such as roads, city walls, and bridges contributed to regional and empire-wide integration, but equally why and how processes of integration regularly broke down, and how large-scale infrastructure projects contributed to countervailing trends including local tensions, local autonomy, and cross-border regional formations.

The postdoctoral fellow will be mainly responsible for 1) developing named entity recognition for infrastructure in Chinese archaeological reports and historical documents; 2) collaborating with a developer and international partners on the further development of the MARKUS platform , esp. a module for machine learning; 3) (co-)authoring articles on machine learning for NER and platform development ; 4) coordinating research and development with other team members.

Profile of the ideal candidate:

• PhD in the field of computer science, digital archaeology, digital humanities, or related field
• demonstrable advanced knowledge of NLP, machine learning methods, including neural networks
• an interest in archaeological and historical research
• a cooperative attitude and willingness to engage in collaborative research
• good communication skills in English
• Chinese language ability is a plus but not required

The deadline to apply for this position is 31 May 2022. Interviews will take place in August 2022. The starting date for this position is 1 October 2022 (exact date negotiable). For a more detailed description of the vacancy, the desired qualifications and skills, and the application procedure see the full vacancy text.