Arabic-L:GEN:Leiden University Job for PhD student

[Dilworth Parkinson]

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabic-L: Thu 09 Oct 2008
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
[To post messages to the list, send them to arabic-l at byu.edu]
[To unsubscribe, send message from same address you subscribed from to
listserv at byu.edu with first line reading:
            unsubscribe arabic-l                                      ]

-------------------------Directory------------------------------------

1) Subject:Leiden University Job for PhD student

-------------------------Messages-----------------------------------
1)
Date: 09 Oct 2008
From:"Sijpesteijn, P.M." <p.m.sijpesteijn at hum.leidenuniv.nl>
Subject:Leiden University Job for PhD student

Ph.D. Position, Faculty of Humanities (8-186)Faculty of  
HumanitiesLeiden University , Faculty of Humanities

ONE PHD POSITION (38 hours a week)
Application number:  8-186

Starting between January and September 2009 the Leiden Institute for  
Area Studies and the School of Middle Eastern Studies has a vacancy  
for one PhD student to work on part 3 of the research project “The  
Formation of Islam. The View from Below” (see below).

Project description :
“The Formation of Islam. The View from Below” is a five-year research  
project (January 1 2009 - December 31 2013) funded by the European  
Research Council to write a history of the formation of Islam using  
the vastly important but largely neglected papyri from Egypt. Until  
the introduction of paper in the 10th C., papyrus was the  
Mediterranean world’s primary writing material. Thousands of papyrus  
documents survive, preserving a minutely detailed transcription of  
daily life, as well as the only contemporary records of Islam’s rise  
and first wave of conquests. The prevailing model of Islam’s formation  
is based on sources composed by a literary élite some 150 years after  
the events they describe. The distortions this entails are especially  
problematic since it was in these first two centuries that Islam’s  
institutional, social and religious framework developed and  
stabilised. To form a meaningful understanding of this development  
requires tackling the contemporary documentary record, as preserved in  
the papyri and combining the information they offer with that from  
literary and other primary sources. Yet the technical difficulties  
presented by these mostly unpublished and uncatalogued documents have  
largely barred their use by historians. This project is a systematic  
attempt to address this critical problem. The project has three  
stages: 1) a stocktaking of unedited Arabic, Coptic and Greek papyri;  
2) the editing of a corpus of the most significant papyri; 3) the  
presentation of a synthetic historical analysis through scholarly  
publications. By examining the impact of Islam on the daily life of  
those living under its rule, the goal of this project is to understand  
the striking newness of Islamic society and its debt to the diverse  
cultures it superseded. Questions will be the extent, character and  
ambition of Muslim state competency at the time of the Islamic  
conquest; the steps – military, administrative and religious – by  
which it extended its reach; and what this tells us about the origins  
and evolution of Muslim ideas of rulership, religion and power.

Tasks:

		• The writing of a PhD dissertation on a topic of the history of  
early Islamic Egypt (CE 600-900);
		• publishing research results in the form of an article;
		• presenting papers at (international) conferences;
		• participation in local research meetings and PhD teaching;
		• organising roundtable meetings and conferences in the framework of  
the research project.
Requirements:

		• an MA, M.Phil or ‘doctoraal’ degree in history, Arabic language,  
Near Eastern Studies or an equivalent education in a comparative field;
		• research knowledge of Arabic;
		• fluent in English (spoken and written) as well as being able to  
use academic literature in other modern European languages;
		• ability to work independently;
		• good organizational and contactual skills;
		• interested in doing interdisciplinary research;
		• willingness to work in a research team.

Conditions of employment

The successful applicant will be appointed for eighteen months and  
after a positive evaluation followed by a fixed- term period. The  
total period will be four years. Gross salary will be € 2000,- per  
month during the first year, gradually rising, also depending upon  
evaluation, to € 2612,- per months in the final year, conform the  
Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities.

Applications
Please send your application (in Dutch or English) by November 15,  
including a cover letter stating your motivation for this position, a  
CV, and two references. Please send the letter, indicating the  
application number on letter and envelope to: De afdeling P&O, t.a.v.  
E.M. Bakker,  Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Postbus 9515 2300 RA  
Leiden
The Netherlands

publicatiedatum: 6-10-2008

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Arabic-L:  09 Oct 2008