Postdoctoral fellows
The SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies supports both graduate and postgraduate work on a variety of Hellenic topics and themes, and is pleased to nurture the next generation of scholars of Greece's history, language and culture.
Hellenisms Past and Present, Local and Global Postdoctoral Fellows
The SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies solicited applications for a one-year Post-doctoral Fellowship focused on Hellenisms Past and Present, Local and Global. The search committee welcomed proposals that spanned disciplinary boundaries from candidates working on comparative approaches to the fellowship theme. Applicants from all fields of the humanities and the social sciences were encouraged to apply.
Aytek Soner Alpan (2023/24)
Aytek Soner Alpan is a historian. Broadly, his research examines ethnic and linguistic minorities in the framework of the transition from empire to nation-state, forced displacement, and the formation of refugee identity, agency, and memory subsequent to involuntary population movements. His research concentrates primarily on modern Greece and Turkey, particularly on the experience of the 1923 Greco-Turkish population exchange.
Jake Ronsohoff (2022/2023)
Jake Ransohoff holds a BA from the University of Chicago, and defended his PhD dissertation in History at Harvard University in June, 2022. His current research focuses on the intersection between power, political legitimacy, and attitudes toward the body in the Byzantine world—especially the disfigured and disabled body. He is editor (with Nathanael Aschenbrenner) of The Invention of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe, published by Dumbarton Oaks Press in 2021, and co-editor of the forthcoming web resource “The Justinianic Pandemic (541–c. 750 CE): The Historical, Archaeological, Geospatial and Genetic Evidence.”
Danai Thomaidis (2021/22)
Danai Thomaidis studied Cultural heritage at Statale University of Milan and gained her MA in Medieval and Byzantine Art History at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. For her PhD (Ca’ Foscari - Fribourg University), she analyzed the introduction, cult and exposition of Byzantine icons in the churches, streets and houses of Venice and of the Venetian-ruled colonies of the Mediterranean. During her time at the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies she will be finalizing her book manuscript, The Life of icons in Venice, as well as working on another project, "Iconic Montages as Bearers of Meaning from Constantinople to Venice (13th-15th centuries)," in which she will explore the techniques utilized for the exhibition of icons in Byzantium and Venice to understand how these visual ensembles created new meanings for their viewers.
Sergio Basso (2020/21)
Sergio Basso has degrees from Venice University, Oriental Languages Department (MA, 1999); the University of Milan, in Classics (MA, 2011); and the Università Roma 3 (PhD, 2018); and lived in China pursuing his academic studies in Oriental Art and Literature. Over the past fifteen years, he has honed his communication strategies, developing crossmedia platforms for the web, broadcasting radio programs and shooting documentaries. He is a member of the Italian Association of Byzantine Studies; the International Association of Manichaean Studies; the European Academy of Religion; the Multiculturalism, Race & Ethnicity in Classics Consortium (MRECC); and the Centro di Ricerca sulle Minoranze (CERM) Università degli Studi dell’Insubria. During his time at the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies, Basso will finalize his book manuscript on the transmission of the “Barlaam and Ioasaph'' saga.
Andreas Avgousti (2019/20)
Andreas Avgousti studied political science at Columbia University, where he received his PhD in 2015 and holds a BSc (First Class) and an MSc (Merit) from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Portland State University and has previously held the post of Lecturer in Core Curriculum at Columbia University. During his time at the Centre, Dr. Avgousti will finalize his book manuscript, entitled Recovering Reputation: Plato and Demotic Power for Oxford University Press.