Junior Chaire in "Computational Analysis of Written Cultures in Western Space" (Middle Ages – first XXth c.") - École Nationale des Chartes - PSL Université

General context

The École nationale des chartes - PSL is calling for applications for a Chaire Junior in "Computational Analysis of Written Cultures in Western Space (Middle Ages – first XXth c.". This is a tenure track position with a reduced teaching load leading to a full professor position in four years. The position will start on January 1st, 2024.
Candidates must have held a doctorate or PhD degree and have a well-established research record, including publications in areas relevant to the job profile and in top international journals.
The annual gross salary will be EUR 41,328 for the four years of the tenure period (salary negotiation possible).
The selected candidate will have a reduced teaching load (between 64h and 96h of directed working equivalent or between 42h and 64h of lectures, or any other equivalent combination). No additional courses or assignments may be carried out during this period, which must be mainly devoted to research.

Teaching mission

Master Digital Humanities and master Digital Technologies applied to History at Ecole nationale des chartes - PSL

Teaching project

The chairholder will teach in the framework of the digital masters operated by the École nationale des chartes-PSL: master Digital Humanities and master Digital Technologies applied to History, in the field of the implementation of artificial intelligence methods (neural networks,...) and quantitative methods in the humanities. This teaching will have a practical and applied dimension (learning the technical implementation), while also including more theoretical demonstrations concerning the interest of each method and a reflection on the methodological paradigm changes induced by computational methods in SHS (changes in quantity or granularity of data, supervision, transparency or not, role of human expertise...). He/she will take part in a research seminar open to master and doctoral students in his/her field of specialisation.
He/she will also be responsible for supporting the École nationale des chartes-PSL in proposing a continuing education programme in the field of computational methods applied to the sciences of writing. He/she will be called upon to design a proposal in this field for the year n+1 of his/her contract.
He/she may also be involved in PSL's Digital Humanities Meets Artificial Intelligence continuing education courses and in teaching on the theme of "AI and SHS", as part of PSL's preparatory cycles for higher education (CPES).

Financial support

The Junior Professorship will benefit from a support budget of €200,000 for the 4-year period. This sum will notably allow the funding of research assistantships, post-doctoral positions, participation in conferences, and access to databases.

Research mission

Centre Jean Mabillon - équipe d’accueil 3624

Research project

The Chairholder's research is at the intersection of computational methods (artificial intelligence, data mining, modelling, etc.) and the sciences of scholarship and written heritage. He/she is capable of developing a personal research programme that is ambitious and original, with an approach based on strong hypotheses, with risk-taking and significant impacts in terms of knowledge and method. This programme will be situated in the field of the study of the written cultures of Western space from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the XXth century, in their materiality and textuality. Its approach includes the study of vast corpora of texts in the long term, the constitution of corpora of ancient documents thanks to artificial intelligence, automatic language processing and computational philology. Familiar with these methods, and comforted by the necessary support, he/she is able to exploit, within the framework of individual or collective research projects, the full potential of vast digital data repositories (digital libraries such as Gallica; digital archives; museum collections).
To do this, he/she uses methods from automatic language processing, textual data analysis (stylometry, literometry, computational palaeography, etc.), data science and complex systems. He/she uses text mining techniques on vast collections of handwritten, epigraphic or printed documents, and is able to extract and analyse information automatically for large-scale processing and analysis. This approach enables him/her to test his/her research hypotheses on issues such as the processes of transmission of cultural objects, the evolution of the literary canon, semantic transformations over time, social processes, the attribution of works or the interactions between material culture and textuality.
With a profile as a researcher in the humanities, the chairholder will have direct experience of computational methods, programming and quantitative processing, as well as the ability to deploy them on a large scale, to coordinate projects and to train a team. The ÉNC-PSL already has a great deal of experience in this field, thanks in particular to its Masters programmes and the involvement of its researchers in digital projects, often involving heritage institutions (Biblissima+, BnF's Datalab projects, projects supported by the DIM MAP/PAMIR, etc.). It also benefits from centuries of expertise in the field of textual sciences (philology, palaeography, diplomacy, codicology, etc.), and already
employs lecturers and engineers who are able to collaborate with the chairholder in teaching and research programmes.
The chairholder will be attached to the Centre Jean Mabillon (Laboratory EA 3624) and will be expected to contribute to its scientific dynamics. This research laboratory, attached to the École nationale des chartes-PSL, embodies the collective, interdisciplinary and international dimension of the École's research activities in the field of historical sciences. It contributes to the methodological renewal of historical and philological sciences through an inclusive approach to sources and heritage objects, their materiality, status and uses. To this end, it uses innovative tools, backed by digital technology resources. It is unique in that its researchers include many library and heritage curators.
The chairholder is expected to share the ideas arising from his or her field of research at various levels: within PSL programmes, in particular DATA and Translitterae, and in close collaboration with the Observatoire des Humanités numériques; in collaboration with the major partners of the École nationale des chartes-PSL in the field of heritage (BnF, INHA, Archives nationales, FSP, etc.), with a view to opening up the perspective to the treatment of written heritage from pre-modern periods. Attention will be paid to the candidate's ability to carry out projects for the general public, in connection with the Fondation de l'École des Chartes which is currently being set up.
The candidate is expected to enable the École nationale des chartes-PSL and PSL to develop international partnerships with the most important institutions in this field, on the basis of a network that he/she has already built up, in particular through the submission of responses to calls for European projects (ERC starting grant or Marie Curie, in particular). The objective will be, in particular, to win an ERC during the four years of the tenure period.
Publications, particularly in English and well referenced in terms of bibliometrics, are also part of the expectations of the profile, the long-term objective being that the researcher recruited should be among the most highly cited scientists in his or her field at international level (HCR).