CfA: Fellowships for Outstanding Doctoral Candidates
The European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant project: The Wall: People and Ecology in Medieval Mongolia and China, is offering Doctoral scholarships beginning in October 2021. The program is located at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is under the direction of Prof. Gideon Shelach-Lavi.
Successful candidates will be part of a unique interdisciplinary team. The project combines archaeological, historic and paleo-climatic research. It focuses on what is, perhaps, the most enigmatic episode of ‘Great Wall’ construction in China and Mongolia: A wall system located in North China and Mongolia that covers a distance of over 3,500 km. The construction of this complex system, which includes long earthen walls and accompanying ditches, auxiliary structures and roads, is dated roughly to the 10th to 13th centuries CE, but it is unclear who built it, for what purposes and how it functioned. Through the understanding of this monumental wall-system our project aims to understand the context, ambitions and administration of long-wall construction in Chinese and world history. To learn more about The Wall: People and Ecology in Medieval Mongolia and China project, visit our web site: https://thewall.huji.ac.il/
Scholarships are offered in the three disciplines that make up this project: Archaeology – our team will perform surveys, excavations, artifact analysis, spatial analysis (GIS and drone research), and ecology-based modeling.
History – our team of historical analysis will systematically ‘mine’ the historical records (in Chinese and other languages) for concrete data that are relevant to the understanding of the wall-system, such as frontier diplomacy, defense, taxation and trade policies, and of extreme climatic anomalies and their effects (food shortages and large-scale migrations, etc.). We will map and analyze this data using qualitative and quantitative tools.
Paleo-climate – our team will participate in the archaeological expedition to Mongolia and China and will conduct paleo-limnological, geomorphological and pedological work, including chronology construction, stable isotopes (organic and inorganic) analysis and hydrological and isotopic modeling. This team is headed by Dr. Yonatan Goldsmith from the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University.
Knowledge of relevant languages – Chinese (modern and medieval) and Mongolian – is an advantage and so is the knowledge of relevant methods of data recovery and analysis.
Potential candidates are welcome to contact us in advance of their application with questions and inquiries. Write us to this address: TheWall@mail.huji.ac.il
Doctoral fellowship for four academic years in Jerusalem:*
Fellows will receive a monthly stipend of approximately 6,000 NIS, tuition waiver, and travel expenses to Israel. They will be given offices and research facilities at the Hebrew University. Travel money to participate in conferences is available on a competitive basis. The fellows will participate in the project’s seminar and its other activities, including our field expeditions. They are expected to write their dissertation on topics related to our project under the supervision of the project’s PI or of one of the affiliated team members (students in the field of paleo-climatic research will work with Dr. Yonatan Goldsmith).
Interested individuals are requested to submit the following documents (in one PDF file):
- Cover letter describing your academic experience and motivation for participating in the project (2-3 pages);
- Curriculum vitae;
- Abstract of your MA thesis;
- A writing sample: thesis chapter, seminar paper or a paper that has been published or accepted for publication (no more than 30 pages);
- Two letters of recommendation to be sent directly to TheWall@mail.huji.ac.il
Deadline for submission of application materials: March 31st, 2021. Please send the requested materials electronically, as one PDF file, to TheWall@mail.huji.ac.il
- Annual renewal of the scholarship will be dependent on the demonstrated progress of the fellows and on continued recommendations from their thesis supervisors. To pass from the first to the second year, Ph.D. students will have to successfully write at least one seminar paper, complete their Ph.D. proposal which will be approved by their advisor(s), and successfully advance from stage A to stage B in their Ph.D. program.