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State University (Czech Republic), Browse similar opportunities
Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University announces an open competition for:
Full-time research fellowship for a computational linguist or NLP specialist in an ERC-funded digital research project on medieval heresy and inquisition
Department: 213850 Centre for the Digital Research of Religion, Department for the Study of Religions, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University
Position: researcher
Work time: 100%
Number of open positions: 1
Expected start: 1 September 2021 (negotiable)
Duration: 31 August 2022 (first contract), 31 August 2026 (very probable extension based on performance review)
Deadline for applications: 31 April 2021 23:59 CET (UTC+1)
The Dissident Networks Project (DISSINET, https://dissinet.cz/ ) - an ERC Consolidator Grant-funded research initiative based at Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic) - offers a full-time postdoctoral or senior research fellowship in computational text analysis. The research of the successful applicant will focus on discursive patterns in medieval inquisitorial records, with the aim of shining a new light on the textual practices of inquisition notaries, the interaction at trial, the discourse of inquisition texts, and religious dissidence.
We are searching for a research fellow with one of the following types of profile:
(a) computational linguist, NLP specialist or text mining specialist, with a strong interest in history and ancient languages;
(b) digital humanist, with a strong competence in Latin and experienced in historical research, programming, and the analysis of textual corpora; or
(c) another kind of mixed/interdisciplinary profile, with some of the previously mentioned competencies and strong interest in working on a historical research project.
The successful candidate will develop their own research direction in consultation with the Principal Investigator (Dr. David Zbíral), focusing on the computational text processing and analysis of medieval inquisitorial records, e.g. building and maintaining NLP pipeline, stylometric and semantic analysis (word frequency and word co-occurrence, word embeddings, lexical dispersion, measures of lexical richness, measures of distance of texts, text reuse analysis, semantic distribution models) etc. The broader team also works extensively on the manual coding of inquisitorial material, offering a close-reading layer to be compared and contrasted with the distant-reading analysis of the textual corpus provided by NLP techniques. DISSINET at large focuses on various computational approaches to Christian dissent and inquisition, also including social network analysis and geographic information science: the successful candidate will have the opportunity to produce mixed-methodology work in this collaborative context. The ERC-funded position thus represents a unique opportunity for building a truly cutting-edge research profile.
The position is residential (although with reasonable flexibility for the duration of the pandemic). We are open to applications from those who have already completed their doctorates, and those who have submitted their thesis and are only awaiting the award of their degree. The successful candidates will be expected to have had their doctoral degree awarded prior to joining the project.
Requirements:
Other competencies of interest to the project:
We do not expect candidates to possess all of these “other competencies of interest”, and recognise there may be other skills beyond this list that could enhance DISSINET’s research profile.
We offer:
Responsibilities:
Attachments to the application:
The selection procedure has three rounds. The first will be based on the submitted attachments. In the second, the short-listed applicants will receive a corpus of plain texts in Latin and will demonstrate their skills and their approaches to research by processing those texts and submitting a proof-of-concept report with text and visuals. In the third, they will discuss with the PI their possible research focus within the larger DISSINET project, turn the topic into a written research project proposal, and participate in an interview via videoconference.
The candidate’s Ph.D. degree does not need to be recent for this position. Career breaks do not pose any problem: we are very open to those seeking to return to academia, provided their skills and interests are suited to the role. Applications from female candidates are particularly encouraged.
How to apply...?
Application with all required documents should be sent by e-application available below. Electronic application deadline is: April 30, 2021.
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