Job Offer for Post Doc

The project DiGa (Digitalisation Concept of Gandhāran Artefacts) financed by the German Ministry of Education and Research and based at the Centre for Religious Studies (CERES), invites applications for the position of a Postdoctoral Researcher from the 01 February 2017 until the 31 October 2017. The salary will be in accordance with TV-L E 13 (75%).

The project aims at developing a concept for the digitalisation of Buddhist sculptures from Gandhāra (present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan) in view of creating a platform for the repository and the analysis of the material. In this respect, the project will evaluate software and metadata standards which will sustainably ensure the storage and the accessibility of the material and provide linkage with other databases on Buddhist textual and visual material. In addition, the juridical framework of the digitalisation will be clarified with partners in Pakistan. The project will thus lay the foundations for a follow-up project which will implement the actual digitalisation of the material. 

On the one hand, the candidate will circumscribe the concrete corpus of Buddhist sculptures (a 3-weeks fieldtrip to the relevant collections in Pakistan is planned in this view). On the other hand he/she will evaluate technical solutions in order to develop a digitalisation concept. In this respect, the collaboration with pertinent institutions in Germany and abroad will be necessary.

A PhD in Indology, South Asian Art History/Archaeology, Religious Studies or related fields is required. Good knowledge of Buddhist iconography and digital humanities, in particular knowledge of relevant data and metadata standards, are expected. Experience in the conception and the implementation of digitalisation projects, particularly in the field of two and three-dimensional visual media, is desirable. 

Applications with the customary documents (cover letter, curriculum vitae, list of publications, diplomas) should be submitted until the 12 December 2016 by email (as one pdf-file) to Dr. Tim Karis at tim.karis@rub.de

Center for Religious Studies (CERES)
Ruhr Universität Bochum
Universitätsstr. 90a
D-44789 Bochum

NB: The legally binding German version of this call can be found here.