Assistant Professor (Post-Doc) – The Contractor Of A Research Project

The Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute History of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Organisation/Company The Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute History of the Polish Academy of Sciences Research Field History » Modern history Researcher Profile Recognised Researcher (R2) Positions Postdoc Positions Final date to receive applications 3 Sep 2026 - 16:00 (Europe/Warsaw) Country Poland Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Full-time Hours Per Week 40 Offer Starting Date 1 Oct 2026 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?

Not funded by a EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

The Post-doc position is offered within the research project titled Faith in exile:
Socinian archives and the struggle over identity and memory in Early Modern Europe funded by the National Science Centre of Poland (SONATA /59/D/HS3/02750), led by Dr. Anna Maria Laskowska.

Abstract of the research project

The project is about the dispersed manuscript heritage of the Socinians, also known as the Polish Brethren or Arians, a religious community regarded by many contemporaries as one of the most radical and heretical confessions of Christian Europe. Its point of departure is a fundamental paradox: the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the birthplace and the main religious and intellectual centre of Socinianism, however only a small part of its manuscript heritage has survived in Poland.

Many more traces have been preserved in Transylvania and the Netherlands. The project asks why this happened. Who saved Socinian manuscripts, and who contributed to their dispersal or destruction? Which texts were considered worth copying, preserving and transmitting? What does the fate of these manuscripts tell us about memory, identity and the experience of exile among a persecuted religious minority?

The research will reconstruct the corpus of Socinian manuscripts and analyse their provenance, circulation, material features and practices of preservation. These materials will be treated not only as textual sources, but also as traces of concrete decisions: to copy, hide, transmit, order, reinterpret or forget. The result of the project will be a critical catalogue of Socinian manuscripts that have survived in European collections to the present day, together with studies devoted to the ways in which the archives of a persecuted community become instruments of memory, continuity and the struggle for its own voice in history.

The tasks of the Post-doc will include:

• conducting archival and library research in Transylvania and Hungary;
• identifying and describing Socinian manuscripts, including the reconstruction of their provenance;
• contributing to the preparation of the catalogue of Socinian manuscripts as a co-author;
• preparing at least two scholarly articles and participating in conferences;
• attending weekly team meetings and taking part in the ongoing work of the project.

Research Field History » Modern history Education Level PhD or equivalent

Skills/Qualifications

Applicants should:

• hold a PhD degree in history or a related humanities discipline, obtained before the start of employment;
• meet the formal requirements of the National Science Centre, Poland (NCN, https://(Use the "Apply for this Job" box below). ), for a post-doc position, i.e. hold a PhD degree obtained in the year of employment in the project or within 12 years before 1 January of the year of employment in the project, with the possibility of extending this period in accordance with NCN rules; and hold a PhD degree obtained at an institution other than the Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences, or have completed at least a 9-month continuous and documented research stay at an institution other than the Institute of History PAS and in a country other than the country in which the PhD degree was obtained;
• have knowledge of Hungarian sufficient for independent work with sources, catalogues and scholarly literature;
• have experience in working with manuscripts, archival materials or early modern library collections;
• have knowledge of English sufficient for participation in international conferences and the preparation of…