Yale University seeks to appoint a Postdoctoral Associate in ancient and pre-modern cultures and civilizations. This is a two-year position beginning in the academic year 2025-2026 and attached to Archaia: the Yale Program for the Study of Ancient and Premodern Cultures and Societies. Archaia is a collaborative forum that brings together scholars and graduate students working on early and pre-modern cultures and civilizations at Yale in the Humanities and Social Sciences in addition to the Divinity and Law Schools and various University collections and libraries, including the Yale University Art Gallery, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Peabody Museum of Natural History, and the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage. Participating departments and disciplines include Classics, East Asian Languages and Literatures, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, History, Religious Studies, Archaeology and Anthropology, History of Art, and the Divinity School. In addition to hosting conferences and colloquia, the year-long Ancient Societies Workshop (ASW), and faculty-led study tours, Archaia offers a graduate qualification for students interested in research beyond departmental lines.
Past Archaia seminars and ASW topics have included ancient music, comparative linguistics in pre-modern languages, ancient comparative law, ancient ritual, antiquity through the digital humanities, and the archaeology of Dura Europos. Anticipated upcoming topics include environmental determinism, constructions of the human body and race and how these ideas travel cross culturally, and the archaeology of Gerasa; we are also open to other innovative and cross-disciplinary proposals for future workshops and core seminars. We especially welcome applicants working in areas beyond the ancient Mediterranean world.
The postdoctoral associate is expected to take an active role in Archaia programming while pursuing research in their own area of expertise. Additionally, the associate’s duties include: (1) participating in the Archaia Steering Committee, coordinating the graduate certification program, and participating in the graduate forum as a mentor; (2) offering, in the first year, a graduate seminar and/or a study tour (the seminar may be connected with the tour); (3) in the second year of the appointment, co-teaching the Archaia core seminar with a Yale faculty member and/or co-organizing the Archaia Study Tour. The postdoctoral associate will receive guidance from and report to the Archaia co-chairs and will also be provided with at least one mentor from a field/department close to their area of training and expertise.
A Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Classics, East Asian Studies, South Asian Studies, History, Religious Studies, Archaeology, Anthropology, History of Art, or a related field is required.