Research projects in Research Area D

Canon formation in traditional China

Department: Sinology
Job Vacancy: 1x PhD-Position (65% E13)
Project Description: While much has been written about the compilation of the venerable scriptures of ancient China into a canon that changed and grew over the centuries, we know much less about the canonization, glossing, and anthologization of the historical literature and belles-lettres of ancient China. This project will therefore examine the processes of canon formation in ancient China, both in general and through specific examples. Such examples could include the canonical scriptures of Confucianism; the early dynastic histories that became the canon of the “Three or Four Standard Histories”; “The Selection of Literature” (Wenxuan), which served as a model for elegant writing for centuries to come; or the canonical writings in languages other than Chinese that were in use in China for long periods of time.
Responsible PI: Prof. Dr. Hans van Ess
Research Area: D (Texts and Commentaries, Canon Formation, and Censorship)

Department: New Testament and Second Temple Judaism
Job Vacancy: 1x PhD-Position (65% E13)
Project Description: Until now, a study of the rich commentary tradition of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) in the Horn of Africa has not been undertaken. The reception of 1 Enoch, which occupies a unique position among the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible scriptures in Ethiopian Christianity and Judaism (Beta Israel), shall be undertaken on the basis of several sources of evidence: (1) the Andǝmta (available in print, alongside several manuscripts); (2) paratexts and marginal notes that exhibit commentary to the text in selected manuscripts of the earlier recension of the book; and (3) discrete traditions preserved by traditional scholars of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church (Ethiopia) and Beta Israel (Israel).
Responsible PI: Prof. Dr. Loren Stuckenbruck
Research Area: D (Texts and Commentaries, Canon Formation, and Censorship)

Department: Computational Humanities; Computational Literary Studies; German Studies
Job Vacancy: 1x Postdoc (100% E13)
Project Description: While canonization has mostly been investigated as a stable result or outcome and with regard to a limited number of canonized works, this project will instead explore canon formation as a dynamic process and place special focus on ‘patterns of canon formation’. The aim of the project is to achieve the following objectives: (a) Detecting relevant patterns of canon formation as part of social practices; (b) establishing a framework for the temporality of such patterns; and (c) connecting the processes of canon formation as social practice with those of retextualization.
Responsible PI: Prof. Dr. Julian Schröter
Research Area: D (Texts and Commentaries, Canon Formation, and Censorship)

Department: Slavic Philology
Job Vacancy: 1x PhD-Position (65% E13)
Project Description: Storytelling contributes to the establishment and coherence of social communities, their integration into or differentiation within larger cultural spheres. Focusing on the Slavic linguistic and cultural area and its larger embedding, this project aims to model the dissemination of topics and concepts, their adaptation and stabilisation within and across languages, and to understand the sociocultural circumstances that helped to promote – or inhibit – the transmission of ideas.
The project will explore the diachronic and distributional dynamics of cultural transmission on the example of selected case studies, for instance 1) the construction of history following the example of the Kievan Rus’ in Old East Slavic Chronicles and folk epic, or 2) the translation, adaption and transmission of cultural concepts in the Alexander Romance.
Responsible PI: Prof. Dr. Barbara Sonnenhauser
Research Area: D (Texts and Commentaries, Canon Formation, and Censorship)