Tre doktorander i grekiska eller i semitiska språk inom MSCA-forskarskolan StoryPharm

Om utbildningen

Doktoranden kommer att ingå i forskarskolan StoryPharm. StoryPharm är ett Marie Skłodowska Curie Doctoral Network med medverkan av i allt fem universitet: Cypern, Bamberg, Salerno, Cardiff och Lund. Koordinator för projektet och forskarskolan är professor Stavroula Constantinou (Cypern). Professor Christian Høgel är ansvarig vid Språk- och litteraturcentrum vid Lunds universitet. Projektets grant agreement number är 101169114.

Läs mer om forskarskolan på: https://www.ucy.ac.cy/storypharm/ 

Forskarskolan kommer att anta i allt 19 doktorander, härav 3 vid Språk- och litteraturcentrum, Lunds universitet. De tre doktoranderna kommer att anställas vid Humanistiska och teologiska fakulteterna. Månadslön utgår med 32 600 kronor. Dessutom utgår tillägg för resor och, i förekommande fall, familjetillägg.

Information om forskarutbildningen vid Humanistiska och teologiska fakulteterna finns på https://www.ht.lu.se/utbildning/forskarutbildning/.

Det övergripande gemensamma temat för alla blir berättelser inom förmodern medicinsk litteratur (medicinska verk, olika genrer med berättelser om hälsa och helande, osv.) ur ett litterärt perspektiv. De tre doktoranderna kommer att tillhöra varsitt forskningsprojekt. Se mer information nedan.

Project 1: “The Medical Case Story in the Kitāb al-mujarrabāt and Other Arabic Medical Collections”

This project will examine the medical case story in its use as instruction to other practitioners and its possible function as part of patient treatment. It will focus on the Kitāb al-mujarrabāt of Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Zakarīyā’ al-Rāzī (c. 865–925 CE). Other collections of Arabic medical case stories will also be investigated. Case stories formed an important narrative genre in all early medicine, but they have been studied almost exclusively as conveying information from one doctor to the next. This project will examine the case story’s narrative elements, the strategies promoting the physician’s authority and reliability, and doctor–patient interactions.

The training includes a three-month academic secondment at the University of Bamberg (UNI BA) and a one-month non-academic secondment at David Collection (Copenhagen). 

Objectives: The fellow will aim at achieving the following results: (1) illuminate the rhetorical and narrative strategies employed by Islamic physicians to establish their medical authority and power; (2) show how the doctor-patient interaction is manipulated in these narratives to further confirm the physician’s authority; (3) establish the case story as a literary genre with its own conventions and characteristics.

When composing their text regarding Project 1, the fellow may wish to consider:

• What were the generic features governing tales of doctor-patient interaction in the Greco-Roman medical tradition?
• How did these narratives translate across language and cultural borders?
• How do the stories underpin the authority of physicians (in various ages/regions)?
• Were tales told to convince other physicians or to be reused in clinical situations, either as guidelines or as tales to be retold to patients?

Short Bibliography

Álvarez-Millán, Cristina. 2010. “The Case History in Medieval Islamic Medical Literature: Tajarib and Mujarrabat as Source,” Medical History 54, 195–214.

Bouras-Vallianatos, Petros and Sophia Xenophontos (eds) 2018. Greek Medical Literature and its Readers: From Hippocrates to Islam and Byzantium. London.

Pietrobelli, Antoine and Marie Cronier 2022. “Arabic Galeanism from Antioch to Byzantium: Ibn Butlan and Symeon Seth,” Mediterranea: International Journal on the Transfer of Knowledge 7, 281–315.

Project 2: “The Pictorial Narratives of Herbal Medicine in Dioskorides’ De materia medica”

This project will study the pictorial programmes accompanying the De materia medica of Pedanios Dioskorides (c. 40–90 CE) in its various traditions (mainly Greek and Arabic) in search of their narrative functions. The herbal medicine of Dioskorides (and other early medical writers) often prompted imaginative pictorial representation, including much more than the specific herb that was to be visually identified. Animals would be included in the images or even scenes of human action. These narrative extensions could in many cases reflect stories told and convey treatment or medical explanation. It is this narrative universe that this subproject will attempt to trace.

The training includes a three-month academic secondment at the University of Bamberg (UNI BA) and a one-month non-academic secondment at the Bamberg State Library.

Objectives: The fellow will aim at achieving the following results: (1) reveal continuities and differences among Dioskorides manuscripts from diverse traditions; (2) illustrate the function of images in medieval understanding of herbal medicine; and (3) show the interaction of text and image in medieval medical practices.

When composing their text regarding Project 2, the fellow may wish to consider:

• What may be known about the interchange of Dioskorides illumination traditions between Greek, Arabic, and other traditions?
• What narrative features do we observe in the illumination tradition of Dioskorides, and what changes through time?
• To which narrative worlds and genres do the Dioskorides illuminations refer to?

Short Bibliography

Saliba, George and Linda Komaroff. 2008. “Illustrated Books May Be Hazardous to Your Health: A New Reading of the Arabic Reception and Rendition of the ‘Materia Medica’ of Dioscorides,” Ars Orientalis 35, 6–65.

Gutas, Dimitri. 2012. “The Arabic Transmission of Dioskurides: Philology Triumphant,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 132 (3), 457–462.

Mavroudi, Maria. 2015. “Translations from Greek into Latin and Arabic during the Middle Ages: Searching for the Classical Tradition,” Speculum 90 (1), 25–59.

Project 3: “The Kyranides and the Tradition of Medical Magic”

This project concerns magic texts which operate as healing means including a multitude of voices. Sometimes numinous powers are voicing the therapeutic knowledge, other times it is a science-like voice speaking, referring to the knowledge of all and imparting empirically based recipes. The recipient is equally a blend of general “you” and a more particular “soul”, also imparting the reader or listener a status within semi-divine categories. The subproject will try to understand the function of magic as pharmakon by analysing the authoritative voices and exalted recipients, the narrators and narratees, of the Kyranides (probably 4th c. CE) and other similar magic texts. The Kyranides will be studied both in its Greek original, in its various editions, and in a selection of its Latin and Arabic translations and reworkings.

The training includes a three-month academic secondment at the University of Cyprus (UCY) and a one-month non-academic secondment at Dr. Pfleger.

Objectives: The fellow will aim at achieving the following results: (1) give a more blended understanding of the vast popularity of magic and its literary modes; (2) a first rhetorical and narrative analysis of influential magic texts; (3) contribute to a better understanding of the ways in which practitioners of magic crafted their words and recipes as healing artefacts; (4) show the similarities and differences between different linguistic traditions of Kyranides.

When composing their text regarding Project 3, the fellow may wish to consider:

• What narrative features characterize magical texts and practices, and which are particular to the Greek and Arabic traditions?
• What place do texts like the Kyranides hold in the transmission and practice of magic?
• Is it possible to develop a literary history of the Kyranides or similar medieval magical texts, based on its narrative or other features?

Short Bibliography

Magdalino, Paul and Maria Mavroudi (eds) 2006. The Occult Sciences in Byzantium, Geneva.

Ullmann, Manfred. 2020. “Die arabischen Fragmente der Bücher II bis IV der Kyraniden,” Studia Graeco-arabica 10, 49–58.

Bain, David. 1995. “π........... as a Medical Term and a Conjecture in the Cyranides,” in Donald Andrew Russell et al. (eds), Ethics and Rhetoric: Classical Essays for Donald Russell on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday. Oxford, 281–286.

Arbetsuppgifter

Forskarutbildning. Institutionstjänstgöring, såsom undervisning och administrativa uppgifter, kan förekomma.

Behörighet

Behörighet för respektive ämnes utbildning på forskarnivå framgår av de allmänna studieplanerna, se https://www.ht.lu.se/utbildning/forskarutbildning/for-antagna-doktorander/dina-doktorandstudier/allmanna-studieplaner/.

For this positions the candidate must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies etc.) in the country of the recruiting organisation for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately before the recruitment date (mobility rule). Any time spent as part of a procedure for obtaining refugee status under the Geneva convention (1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol), compulsory national service and/or short stays such as holidays do not count towards the total.

Bedömningsgrund

Vid tillsättningen ska avseende främst fästas vid graden av förmåga att tillgodogöra sig utbildningen på forskarnivå. Denna bedöms utifrån kriterierna kvalitet, kvantitet, progression och relevans.

Ansökan

Anvisningar för ansökan till doktorandplats finns här: https://www.ht.lu.se/utbildning/forskarutbildning/bli-doktorand-vid-ht-fakulteterna/ansokan-och-antagning/.

Till ansökan ska bifogas:

• CV/meritförteckning inklusive relevanta meriter av pedagogisk och administrativ art
• personligt brev
• dokumentation av studier på grundnivå och avancerad nivå (Ladok-utdrag eller motsvarande)
• uppsatser/examensarbeten på grundnivå och avancerad nivå
• eventuella vetenskapliga publikationer som har relevans för ämnet
• dokumentation av språkkunskaper relevanta för den sökta utbildningen
• projektplan (max 1 500 ord exklusive referenser).

OBS! Alla dokument ska laddas upp i ansökningssystemet i pdf-format.

Villkor

Tidsbegränsad anställning fyra år enligt HF 5 kap 7§.