MSCA-Doctoral Network STORYPHARM: Storytelling as Pharmakon in Premodernity and Beyond is pleased to announce 19 PhD fellowships, many of which may be of interest to Byzantinists. Employment begins between June and August 2025.

The focus of the project will be on premodern narratives and images involving medicine, health, and healing. These will be studied from a transdisciplinary and comparative perspective, across linguistic and cultural borders. 

Positions

StoryPharm Fellow 3:  “The Medical Case Story in the Kitāb al-mujarrabāt and Other Arabic Medical Collections”
Recruiting Organisation: University of Lund, Sweden (UNI LUND)

StoryPharm Fellow 6: “Pain and Suffering in Byzantine Hagiography (4th–10th c. CE)”
Recruiting Organisation: University of Cyprus (UCY)

StoryPharm Fellow 8: “Byzantine Imperial Women in Narratives of Illness and Healing”
Recruiting Organisation: Cardiff University (CARDIFF UNI)

StoryPharm Fellow 9: “Pathography and Autopathography in the Later Byzantine World (11th–15th c. CE)”
Recruiting Organisation: University of Cyprus (UCY)

StoryPharm Fellow 11: “The Pictorial Narratives of Herbal Medicine in Dioskorides’ De materia medica”
Recruiting Organisation: University of Lund, Sweden (UNI LUND)

StoryPharm Fellow 12: “The Kyranides and the Tradition of Medical Magic”
Recruiting Organisation: Lund University (ULUND)

StoryPharm Fellow 13: “Early Byzantine Literature as Pharmakon: A Narratological Approach to Medical Writings”
Recruiting Organisation: Cardiff University (CARDIFF UNI)

StoryPharm Fellow 14: “Ecologies of Healing: Visual Storytelling in Medieval Medical Manuscripts and Herbals”
Recruiting Organisation: University of Bamberg, Germany (UNI BA)

StoryPharm Fellow 15: “The Healthy Place: Architecture and Images for Healing Devotional Experiences in Southern Italy in a Mediterranean Context”
Recruiting Organisation: University of Salerno, Italy (UNI SALERNO)

StoryPharm Fellow 16: “Female Melancholia in Komnene and Kristeva”
Recruiting Organisation: University of Cyprus (UCY)

StoryPharm Fellow 17: “Monastic Medicine: Postmedieval Iatrosophia from Cyprus”
Recruiting Organisation: University of Cyprus (UCY)

These positions are among 19 PhD fellowships available within the training programme “Storytelling as Pharmakon in Premodernity and Beyond: Training the New Generation of Researchers in Health Humanities”. The fellowships are funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action – Doctoral Networks, Grant Agreement 101169114.

All recruited doctoral fellows will become highly skilled cultural historians specialising in premodern intellectual and healthcare worlds. At the same time, they will acquire transferable skills allowing them to use, develop, and deploy cutting-edge approaches to storytelling and its ethical ramifications for scientific, professional, business, healthcare, and social purposes. After the offered doctoral training, the fellows will be ideally positioned to (1) achieve ground-breaking research results; (2) meet current trends and needs in the job market; (3) work towards establishing a human-centred medical system; and (4) create better and more resilient societies.

StoryPharm welcomes highly-motivated applicants. Depending on the position, applicants will be employed at the University of Cyprus (Cyprus), University of Bamberg (Germany), Lund University (Sweden), University of Salerno (Italy), and Cardiff University (UK).