Job Information
- Organisation/Company: Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań
- Department: Centre for Ius Commune
- Research Field: All
- Researcher Profile: Recognised Researcher (R2)
- Positions: Postdoc Positions
- Application Deadline: 30 Sep 2026 - 23:00 (Europe/Warsaw)
- Country: Poland
- Type of Contract: Temporary
- Job Status: Full-time
- Hours Per Week: 40
- Offer Starting Date: 1 Dec 2026
- Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?: Horizon Europe - ERC
Offer Description
Postdoc 4 in the Research Project PetrIUS: Petrification of ius commune through printed paratexts
Full-time position, temporary contract with the first contract for 6 months, 36 months in total
The responsibilities of this position will include in general:
- Researching the printed legal paratexts.
- Development of digital tools for the study of paratexts using, among other methods, natural language processing techniques and deep learning.
- Contributing to the preparation of scholarly articles.
- Presenting research findings at conferences and academic seminars.
- Organizing seminars focused on the themes of the project.
- Cooperation within a research team (preference is given to on-site work; remote working arrangements are possible, provided that regular in-person attendance is maintained).
In particular, the Postdoc 4 will implement WP4 under the supervision of principal investigator.
WP4 Large-scale research of paratexts variants and their use in scholarly literature. This experimental part of the PetrIUS will use the possibilities offered by the natural language processing techniques to analyze the paratexts and their actual relevance through an automated largescale database survey. This type of research on incunabula is innovative and it requires that the specificity of the legal texts with multiple allegations and abbreviations be addressed. The gain stemming out of the successful implementation of this WP outweighs these risks as it may constitute a contribution not only to our knowledge about the legal paratexts (their types, variants, and functions) but also to the methodological premises for further research on other marginalia in very different corpora of sources, natural processing of Latin, and using natural processing techniques for digitization of cultural heritage. The implementation of this WP will rely on cuttingedge scholarship and the expertise of Postdoc 4. In terms of methods, it is very likely that at the date of the implementation of this WP, there will be new methods available. In this case, we will follow the upto-date methodology. At this moment, the methods which seem particularly tailored for this WP are latent 4 semantic analysis (Landauer et al. 2007), latent Dirichlet allocation and topic modeling (Heibi et al. 2020), N-gram models (Arts et al. 2021), named entity recognition (Monroc et al. 2022), and large language models (Bamman and Burns 2020; Bonnell 2023). We might need to employ some additional digitizing and OCR-ing tasks (with tools provided by EMOP – https://emop.tamu.edu), because not all editions relevant to PetrIUS are digitized. The implementation of the tasks will be preceded by the pilot implementations on the small subsets of data used for a quality check to guarantee the high efficiency of the outcomes.
There are three main tasks which are planned for this WP:
- There will be trained algorithm(s) that will be able to distinguish between various types of paratexts based on their visual and spatial characteristics (Springmann and Lüdeling 2016; Reul, et al. 2017; Hill and Hengchen 2019). This task will require close cooperation between all team members to make sure that the algorithm will be efficient and effective. It will be necessary to provide some preliminary criteria inspired by the research on the printed paratexts and out of these intuitive guidelines to create the commands for the computational approach. Ideally, the algorithm will be able to automatically indicate which parts of the OCR-ed page are paratexts with delimitation of their beginning and end. Surely, there will be some refinement needed, especially with the incunabula, which are more difficult to successfully OCR, but according to the current state-of-the-art technology, this task is both innovative and feasible. The algorithms will have to be modified to effectively apply to various types of fonts and page layouts.
- This will open up the path to further research dedicated to the variants of printed paratexts. With the algorithm, it will be possible to automatically list the paratexts present in the analyzed editions of corpora iuris. It will make it possible to determine the variants of paratexts in general to supplement the detailed case studies. This will be achieved by the creation of an OCR-ed corpus of early modern editions of ius commune sources, which will be further scanned by the application utilizing natural language processing techniques to compare the variants of paratexts and determine the deviations (Moretti 2013). The key point in this task will be the last one – the analysis of the variants and deviations of paratexts. It will not be our objective to measure the marginal deviations caused by some misprints but rather to determine what the variants of paratexts were on the basis of this 5 comparative analysis. This will demonstrate the popularity of certain variants and, indirectly, which authors, editors, and printers were most successful in introducing changes to the world of legal paratexts.
- Finally, PetrIUS will look for references to the paratexts in early modern legal literature. The various variants of paratexts will be used as a close reading corpus and will be juxtaposed with the distant reading corpus consisting of all legal books related to ius commune available in the open databases of digitized early modern books (Digitale Sammlungen of the Bavarian State Library, Gallica, Europeana). These libraries enable access to their resources via APIs, thus allowing us to bypass the visual images of the books in order to work directly on the OCR-ed texts (Karsdorp et al. 2021). The books of the highest relevance will be the legal commentaries, treatises, and introductory and educational literature; however, legal pragmatic literature will also be taken into account. This task will contribute to PetrIUS with two outcomes. It will be determined which variants of paratexts were most often recorded in scholarly legal literature, and it will be assessed to what extent the references to paratexts were meaningful argumentative resources. The latter assessment especially will be crucial for the clarification of what the actual functions of paratexts were, how they were used by legal authors, whether they were treated as useful tools in legal education, etc. Nevertheless, even the negative results (i.e., proving that in the learned legal literature, the references to the paratexts were scarce and the role of paratexts as argumentative resources was limited) will also constitute a valuable conclusion. Such a conclusion will prove that some claims on the interpretative or educational functions of paratexts expressed in the literature are incorrect.
Monthly salary:
a. 7 600 PLN before taxation/monthly
b. Other remuneration components (based on AMU Remuneration Regulations)
• ca 5 017 PLN before taxation/monthly supplementary (project) remuneration for team member (defending a doctoral thesis up to 5 years before the current recruitment)
• ca 6 450 PLN before taxation/monthly supplementary (project) remuneration for an experienced team member
Where to apply
E-mail: karolina.pelka-gawlik@amu.edu.pl
Requirements
Research Field: All
Education Level: PhD or equivalent
Skills/Qualifications
The call is open to individuals who meet the requirements specified in Article 113 of the Act of July 20, 2018, Law on Higher Education and Science (Journal of Laws 2024, item 1571 as amended), and who also meet the following requirements:
- PhD in the humanities, social sciences, information technology or other related discipline (preferably in digital humanities), obtained no later than before the commencement of employment.
- Interest in digital humanities confirmed by earlier research and research outputs.
- Knowledge of research methods and tools necessary for the implementation of the postdoctoral 6 project tasks (e.g. natural language processing techniques, machine learning, including deep learning, programming languages). Familiarity with topics related to the project's subject matter (e.g., legal history, book history, or literary theory) will be considered an asset.
- Experience in conducting research with the application of methods and tools mentioned above (confirmed by research outputs).
- Excellent command of English and at least good command of one of the following languages: Italian, German, French, or Spanish. Additionally, knowledge of Latin will be considered a significant asset.
- Excellent skills in project management and work organization (both individually and in coordinating others).
- Ability to collaborate effectively within a research team.
Specific Requirements
Experience in research and international collaboration are necessary. Contributions to other research projects will be considered a significant advantage. Teaching experience is not required.
Languages: ENGLISH Level: Excellent
Languages: OTHER Level: Good
Research Field: All
Additional Information
Benefits
- an atmosphere of respect and cooperation
- supporting employees with disabilities
- flexible working hours
- funding for language learning
- co-financing of training and courses
- additional days off for education
- life insurance
- pension plan
- savings and investment fund
- preferential loans
- additional social benefits
- leisure-time funding
- subsidizing children's vacations
- "13th" salary
- healthcare package
Eligibility criteria
- Academic achievements, in particular publications (20%):
- 5 pts – outstanding
- 4 pts – very good
- 3 pts – good
- 2 pts – average
- 1 pt – poor
- 0 pts – no academic achievements
- Achievements resulting from conducting scientific research, including participation in research projects, international cooperation, research fellowships, awards and distinctions, teaching achievements, organizational achievements and other (20%):
- 5 pts – outstanding
- 4 pts – very good
- 3 pts – good
- 2 pts – average
- 1 pt – poor
- 0 pts – no achievements
- Competence to carry out specific tasks in the research project, assessed e.g. during the interview (60%):
- 5 pts – excellent
- 4 pts – very good
- 3 pts – good
- 2 pts – average
- 1 pt – poor
- 0 pts – no competence
Selection process
- Competition committee begins working no later than 14 days after the deadline for submission of documents.
- Formal evaluation of submitted proposals.
- Call to provide additional or missing documents if necessary.
- Selection of candidates to proceed to the interview stage and provision of additional materials and detailed information regarding the scope of the interview, including the tasks that candidates should prepare before the interview.
- Online interview. The interview with selected candidates will include candidates’ responses to questions related to the postdoctoral position and its responsibilities, a discussion of the source materials provided, and a review of the tasks assigned in advance.
- The committee has the right to request external reviews of candidates' work.
- The chair of the competition committee announces the results and informs the candidates. This information will include justification with a reference to ca
Additional comments
Please include the suffix "Postdoc 4" in the subject line of your email.
Prospects for professional development
The Centre for Ius Commune at Adam Mickiewicz University based at the Faculty of Law and Administration is a dynamic hub for advanced legal history research. Extensive international cooperation and the implementation of both national and international research projects provide excellent conditions for the development of scholarly activity. Regularly organized academic seminars offer opportunities for meaningful and intensive teambased research. A key advantage of working here is the collegial and supportive team environment, set in friendly and stable conditions. Moreover, the Legal History Journal (Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne), published by the Faculty, serves as an important forum for academic discussion among legal historians. The Department, Faculty, and University also provide support for applying for research funding at both national and international levels.
Website for additional job details: https://bip.amu.edu.pl/__data/assets/pdf_file/0028/674452/Postdoc-4-zal-1_26_konkurs-NA-ogloszenie_EN.pdf
Work Location(s)
Number of offers available: 1
Company/Institute: Centre for Ius Commune, Faculty of Law and Administration
Country: Poland
State/Province: Greater Poland Voivodeship
City: Poznań
Postal Code: 61-714
Street: Al. Niepodległości 53
Contact
State/Province: Wielkopolska
City: Poznań
Website: http://www.amu.edu.pl
Street: Wieniawskiego 1
Postal Code: 61-712
E-Mail: klinke@amu.edu.pl
This is a Preview Listing…
You must sign in to see the full job description, and to apply.
Manage / Upgrade this job to a Full Job Listing.
Find Your Best Opportunity
Tell them AcademicJobs.com sent you!