The Project

This is a project which examines "Interreligious Communication in and between the Latin-Christian and the Arabic-Islamic Sphere: Macro-theories and Micro-settings". It is funded by the AHRC and the DFG (German Research Foundation) from February 2022 to January 2025 and is directed by Dr Theresa Jäckh (Durham/Tübingen) and Prof Daniel König (Konstanz). Dr Chris Bahl (Durham) acts as Co-I of the group.

In the past thirty years, research has done much to refine our understanding of Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations in the wider Mediterranean by analysing political, economic, social, and cultural fields of interaction, by highlighting phenomena of mutual perception, transgression, and hybridity, and also by proposing models of interreligious interaction ranging from conflict to convivencia. Within these frameworks, scholars have formulated a large number of hypotheses to describe various settings and patterns of Jewish-Christian-Muslim communication. In light of the huge variety of interreligious communicative processes documented in the extant primary source evidence, these models and hypotheses have yet to be critically evaluated in terms of their complementary character, inherent contradictions, and plausibility.

Our project engages with the varieties of interreligious communication from a macro-historical and from several micro-historical perspectives. On the macro-historical level, it will collect, juxtapose, and systematize scholarly hypotheses on interreligious communication. On the micro-historical level, four sub-projects – of which this post forms one – will focus on a series of case-studies as a way of critically examining existing models and hypotheses dealing with Jewish-Christian-Muslim communication.

The Role

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Medieval History to work with PI Dr Jäckh as part of "Interreligious Communication in and between the Latin-Christian and the Arabic-Islamic Sphere: Macro-theories and Micro-settings". The post-holder is employed to work on a research project which will be led by another colleague. The expectation is that they will contribute to the advancement of the project through the development of their own research ideas. These ideas should relate to the history of Jewish-Muslim, Jewish-Christian or Jewish-Muslim-Christian relations in the Mediterranean. Researchers with experience of and/or interest in working with medieval legal texts are particularly encouraged to apply. Applicants should submit an outline of their proposed research and identify the corpus of sources which will form the basis for their project. They should also specify which language(s) (e.g. Hebrew, Latin, Arabic) they will use in their research.

Possible topics for projects could include, for example: Jewish communities in Muslim- or Christian-ruled territories; the corpora of surviving legal opinions and how these texts relate to, or provide evidence for, interreligious contact or dialogue; how different legal frameworks were chosen in different contexts; how the living conditions of minority groups differed from those of majority groups; how law functioned as a medium through which religious minority groups communicated, negotiated and arranged their affairs with other parts of society.

The post holder will work towards the publication of two high-quality, peer-reviewed articles, and they will contribute a handful of short articles to the online resource Transmediterranean History, a commented anthology of primary sources edited by the PIs. The post holder will share and discuss their work with the research group in order to present the outcomes of their research. Furthermore, the post holder will support the research group in organising a three-day conference in Durham and work towards the publication of the conference proceedings. The post holder will (optionally) have the opportunity to spend three months of their time in Tübingen, Germany, in order to work more closely with the PI who is based in Germany.

This is a fixed-term post for two years. The funding period of the project ends in January 2025. Successful applicants will, ideally, be in post by October 2022.

How to Apply

For informal enquiries please contact Dr Theresa Jäckh (via theresa.jaeckh@durham.ac.uk). All enquiries will be treated in the strictest confidence. We prefer to receive applications online via the Durham University Vacancies Site: https://www.dur.ac.uk/jobs/.

As part of the application process, you should provide details of 3 (preferably academic/research) referees and the details of your current line manager so that we may seek an employment reference. Applications are particularly welcome from women and black and minority ethnic candidates, who are under-represented in academic posts in the University.

What to Submit:

All applicants are asked to submit:

- an academic CV and covering letter which details your experience, strengths and potential in the requirements set out above
- a 500-word summary of your past and current research
- a 1000-word research proposal outlining the project that you would intend to contribute to the group (with a max two-pages bibliography including suggested source corpora), including anticipated publications

Next Steps

The application deadline is 30 June 2022. Interviews for this post are anticipated to take place in the week commencing 25 July 2022.

For more information on this post and Durham University, please visit https://durham.taleo.net/careersection/du_ext/jobdetail.ftl?job=22000709&tz=GMT%2B01%3A00&tzname=Europe%2FLondon2FLondon.