This is an exciting opportunity for a highly skilled and motivated researcher to join the team of the ERC-funded BODY-POLITICS project based at the School of Archaeology and Ancient History (SAAH), University of Leicester. Read more
here.
You will co-coordinate the work package Body-Language. Drawing on your expertise from Old Norse philology, literature, or cognate disciplines, you will harvest the rich sources of medieval Scandinavian texts, working alongside archaeologists/osteologists to scrutinize personhood and the body from multiple disciplines. You will conduct a review of words, concepts, and literary motifs regarding distinctions of persons across the Old Norse literature and legal texts (e.g. Icelandic, Kings’ and legendary sagas, Snorri-Edda, the poetic Edda, the early medieval laws). Textual sources cannot be taken as direct sources to an Iron or Viking Age reality, but may rather be seen as a medieval echo of and reaction to the proceeding period, containing traces and transformations of a pre-Christian sociality.
You will be responsible for chartering and analysing specific literary concepts and motifs, and for disseminating research findings through publication and at conferences. You will be part of the Body-Politics team consisting of PI Dr Marianne Hem Eriksen, PhD students, a postdoctoral researcher in osteoarchaeology, and an international advisory board.
SAAH has a vibrant and friendly research environment in archaeology and ancient history, and in interdisciplinary medieval studies through The Medieval Research Centre. There will be opportunities to seek experience in organisation of academic conferences, teaching and similar, in alignment with your own aspirations and availability of opportunities.
Please provide a full CV including list of publications, and a three-page personal statement outlining motivation, previous research experience, and demonstrating fit with essential and desired criteria.