The Obermann Center at the University of Iowa welcomes applications for a full-time, twelve-month Postdoctoral Scholar. The one-year residency will begin on August 10, 2016.

The position is funded through the generosity of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and is part of the 2016-2017 Mellon-Sawyer Seminar, “Cultural and Textual Exchanges: The Manuscript Across Pre-Modern Eurasia,” led by co-PIs Timothy Barrett (Center for the Book), Paul Dilley (Religious Studies and Classics), and Katherine Tachau (History).

Our seminar is an interdisciplinary collaboration dedicated to mapping cultural exchanges across Eurasia from roughly 400 CE – ca. 1450 CE, by focusing on the development, distribution and sharing of manuscript technologies. We will convene approximately fifteen times over the course of the 2016-2017 academic year, in dialogue with a series of invited speakers who are internationally recognized experts in the various manuscript cultures of pre-modern Eurasia. Four of the seminar meetings will be followed the next day by hands-on workshops at the University of Iowa’s Center for the Book, in which participants will reproduce historically significant book structures, with their associated materials, under the guidance of conservators. The seminar will also develop an innovative website tracking the development of Eurasian manuscript formats and materials chronologically and geographically.

Candidates in any related field, including Archaeology, Art History, Classics, History, East or South Asian Studies, and Near Eastern Studies, Religious Studies, are encouraged to apply.

Project Management
The Mellon-Sawyer seminar will include a series of lectures, many by visiting speakers from national and international research and cultural heritage institutions. We seek a Postdoctoral Scholar with experience in project management who can help organize visits from scholars and the four “hands-on” workshops at the Center for the Book.

Research
The Postdoctoral Scholar will have office space, a computer, and staff support at the Obermann Center, and will be invited to participate in the Obermann Fellows’ work-in-progress seminar and in other scholarly activities at the Center. The scholar is expected to pursue a research program that incorporates manuscript culture(s) in one or more regions of pre-modern Eurasia.

RESPONSIBILITIES

This one-year Postdoctoral Scholar position is a full-time, twelve-month salaried appointment. The annual salary range is $42,840 – $46,344 plus benefits (described on the University of Iowa Graduate College Office of Postdoctoral Scholars website http://postdoc.grad.uiowa.edu/policies-and-benefits/university-benefits).

40% RESEARCH Conduct research in the history of manuscript culture(s) in one or more regions of pre-modern Eurasia.

40% SEMINAR/WEBSITE SUPPORT Help develop the website in coordination with library staff, through the transfer seminar-generated content, including bibliographies and historical data, to the site; and build connections with related online projects; conduct research to populate the site in areas of own expertise.

20% ADMINSTRATION Coordinate the visits of guest lecturers, help organize the workshops at the UI Center for the Book, contribute to other aspects of planning and programming the Mellon-Sawyer seminar.

Advertising Ends on: Extended Until Position is Filled
Advertising Started on: Thursday, October 15th, 2015

Apply online here