Hosting offer for a MSCA Fellow in Early Islamic History and Digital Humanities

Organisation / Company Université de Strasbourg Laboratory Groupe d'études orientales, slaves et néo-helléniques (GEO) – UR 1340 Is the Hosting related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Keywords: Islam; Early Islamic History; Sira; Hadith; Digital Humanities; Textual Database

Offer description:

I am seeking to host a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Arabic Studies at the University of Strasbourg, working in the field of Islamic history, with particular interest in candidates who wish to combine historical inquiry with digital humanities approaches. My research primarily focuses on Islamic narratives between the 1st/7th and 4th/10th centuries, drawing on literary sources alongside epigraphy, papyrology, and historiographical analysis. I have developed innovative methods for dating and contextualising early Islamic traditions, and I have led the BADR research project, which examined the circulation and construction of early Islamic narratives of the Battle of Badr across Arabic, as well as later Turkish and Persian sources, in collaboration with colleagues.

The prospective fellow would be supported in developing an original project related to the political, social, cultural, or intellectual history of the early Islamic period, or to later periods if relevant. Proposals engaging with digital corpora, quantitative methods, network analysis, or computational tools applied to Arabic sources are particularly welcome. I am also interested in collaborations exploring methodological questions at the intersection of Islamic studies and digital humanities, including text encoding, corpus design, or the use of computational models to study transmission, memory, and narrative formation.

The fellow would benefit from a dynamic research environment at the University of Strasbourg, with access to interdisciplinary networks in Islamic studies and digital humanities, as well as from my experience in building and managing international projects, including European-level collaborations. I am committed to providing tailored guidance for the MSCA application and to supporting the candidate’s academic development, publication strategy, and integration within relevant scholarly communities.

Who can apply?

Researchers of any nationality who:

• Have completed a PhD or will complete it at the date of the call deadline (September 2026).
• Have a maximum of 8 years full-time equivalent experience in research at the time of the call deadline.
• Have not resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in France for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the call deadline.

Beware that applicants who have applied to the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship 2025 call and received an evaluation below 80% are not eligible for an application in 2026.

How to apply?

We encourage all motivated and eligible postdoctoral researchers to send their expressions of interest to the supervisor’s e-mail address before 24th April 2026 .

Your application shall include:

• a CV (5 pages max).
• a cover letter outlining your research background and its synergies with the supervisor’s field and/or the proposed research topic.

Estimated timetable:

• Deadline for sending an expression of interest: 24th April 2026
• Selection of the applicant: May 2026 at the latest