Ten Paid PhD Positions

Part of the main building complex of the University of Munich, picture by Diego Delso, delso.photo, License CC BY-SA

I am writing this blog post to attract attention to a truly phenomenal opportunity for prospective PhD students. I'm writing this particularly because the diversity of international higher education makes it hard to keep track of and evaluate all your options. Hence, I want to emphasize that if you are interested in philology of any kind, you should definitely read this short blog post. (Also, check out the job advertisement here, the deadline is May 25!)

In my view, Germany is an excellent choice for international students pursuing a PhD. I know that from a US perspective it might seem preferable to get into one of the top-tier PhD programs. This might indeed be true for some premier institutions and certain future job contexts. However, there are many excellent students every year who fail to get into top schools, and be it only because of some stupid GRE results. Many brilliant students end up considering alternative options, such as going to the UK for a PhD. If that option has been on your mind at all, I'd suggest you forget about it immediately and come to Germany right away. This is where you will end up after three to four years in the UK anyway, once you realize that it is much easier to attract third-party funding here and that you'll inevitably need the language in your field. Why not take the shortcut? Especially, since Germany has one big advantage over the UK: You don't pay tuition! In fact, as is typical in the US, you actually get paid to do your PhD work in many contexts. More on that later.

I'll admit that the UK does have one clear advantage over Germany when it comes to doing a PhD: social life among peers at many of these old institutions on the island is simply unrivalled. Also, you might still wonder whether a PhD from even a second-tier US institution might not in the end be preferable to a research-only PhD from either the UK or Germany. And from what I've heard this might in fact reflect the bias of certain hiring institutions in the US. However, not all German PhD programs are created equal. There are some places where these two shortcomings are addressed - and that's precisely the case for the opportunity I want to present to you today.

The International Doctoral Program is funded directly by the Free State of Bavaria, through the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts. Part of that ministry is the so-called Elite Network of Bavaria, which aims at fostering academic excellence in Bavaria. They have different funding schemes, one of them is the establishment of internationally competitive doctoral programs. You can learn more about these doctoral programs here. To learn more about the IDP Philology itself, please take a close look at the program's website. Our own research group - on whose website you are at the moment - is associated with this program. (The funding of some research groups that cooperate with existing IDPs was another funding scheme of the Elite Network of Bavaria; you can read more about our group on the network's website here.) The ten positions that are advertised now are, like most PhD positions in Germany, part time (66%). This means, you get 66% of a full research fellow salary. You can see here under E13, what such a full salary amounts to. A single person can support themself with such an income, but it does not pay for a whole family, especially not in Germany. Note that already having a PhD does not prevent you from applying for this position as doctoral and postdoctoral positions belong to the same salary group in Germany - you'd simply begin on a higher level within that group if you decided to do a second PhD.

The first round of PhD students is currently completing their program. You can see their topics here. And, again, if this option sounds interesting to you, I strongly recommend examining the topics that received funding in the first round. You will see that a great variety of disciplines is represented. And that's exactly the point. The IDP has a very broad perspective on philology, focusing on all kinds of "[p]ractices of pre-modern cultures, global perspectives and future concepts." This includes philological work in biblical studies. Among the PIs who support the doctoral students, there are some world-leading scholars, such as Holger Gzella from the Faculty of Catholic Theology and Loren Stuckenbruck from the Faculty of Protestant Theology. If this opportunity might be for you, I don't need to introduce them and explain what kind of topics they might supervise. But please do take a look at the line-up of PIs that are on the board for this round. Don't be distracted by the fact that I am also among them, as these other scholars are among the best the world has to offer for their respective disciplines. And it is, thus, no wonder that the IDP Philology has quickly established itself as the leading research hub for philology in Germany.

The state of philological disciplines has been debated heavily around the globe, with different emphases in different contexts. You might have heard about more theory-driven critiques of philology and, perhaps, of counter-movements, a return to ("proper") philology ("Rephilologisierung" in German, in case you want to go down that rabbit hole). The IDP Philology contributes productively to this debate by fostering dialogue between philology and cultural and literary studies. This gives you great freedom in the choice of your topic - but also means that you need to be committed to a true dialogue beyond the narrow confines of your discipline. If you love philogical work and if you are interested in these kinds of conversations, there is really nothing that precludes you as a biblical scholar to apply for one of these positions. If you have further questions regarding the IDP or the application process, please get in touch with the person mentioned in the job advert, Laura Noll, who is the administrative coordinator of the program. Of course, if you have any questions that you think I could answer, as someone doing research in Munich, in conjunction with the IDP, feel free to reach out to me. (But, please, first read carefully through the material that I have linked to here.)