Researcher in Historical Linguistics

The Faculty of Classics invites applications for a Researcher on the ERC Advanced Grant (885040) “Crossreads” reporting to the Principal Investigator Professor Jonathan Prag. This full-time post is fixed-term, running for six months from May 2024 to November 2024.

‘Crossreads: Text, materiality, and multiculturalism at the crossroads of the ancient Mediterranean’ (https://crossreads.web.ox.ac.uk/) is a 5-year ERC funded project. Developing and analysing a comprehensive corpus of all the written (epigraphic) documents from the island, the project will offer the first coherent account of the interactions and interplay of linguistic and textual material culture in ancient Sicily over a period of 1,500 years. Crossreads builds upon the initial work of the I.Sicily project (http://sicily.classics.ox.ac.uk and https://isicily.org/) and exploits a variety of digital humanities tools and methods for both data publishing and data analysis.

This post is integral to the historical linguistic work-package. A researcher with a background in historical linguistics will spend 6 months investigating the development and interaction of languages in use on the island in antiquity and will be responsible for completing the linguistic annotation of the I.Sicily corpus. The successful candidate will have, or be close to completion of, a doctorate in a related field; a high level of linguistic competence in both Ancient Greek and Latin; a background in Greek and/or Latin linguistics, including an understanding of the principles of dependency grammar; and experience of, or demonstrable ability to work with, digital linguistic corpora and associated digital research tools and methods.

This is a unique opportunity to develop and work with an original and substantial corpus of material in the study of the linguistic and cultural history of a key region of the ancient Mediterranean, developing independent research as part of a larger, multidisciplinary team.

About you

The successful candidate will have, or be close to completion of, a doctorate in a related field; high level competency in ancient Greek and Latin; a background in Greek and Latin linguistics; an understanding of the principles of dependency grammar; and experience of, or demonstrable ability to work with, digital linguistic corpora and associated digital research tools and methods.

The duties and skills required are described in further detail in the job description.

Application process

For your online application, you will be required to upload your curriculum vitae and a supporting statement, setting out how you meet the selection criteria for the post, using examples of your skills and experience. As part of your application you will be asked to provide details of two referees and indicate whether we can contact them now.

For further details, please refer to the How to Apply section of the job description. Any further enquires may be directed to [email protected].

The closing date for applications is 12.00 noon on Friday 12 April 2024. Only applications received before this time can be considered.

Shortlisting is expected to take place the following week and interviews later in April.

Please quote Vacancy ID 171821 on all correspondence.

Committed to equality and valuing diversity