Here is an annotated guide to some European positions that have been announced this spring.
- First, there are two very good jobs being advertised in France, one at Paris-I and one at Strasbourg. The details can be seen at Pariscope médiéval.
My informant on such matters, Jacob Schmutz, explains to me that these are both “maître de conferences” positions, which means that they are open both to new PhDs and to scholars at the associate level in the North American system. Must you speak French to be a plausible candidate? Yes, you must, fluently. Unlike in much of northern Europe, where monolingual Americans are increasingly being hired, you won’t get a job teaching philosophy in France without very good French. (It’s interesting that neither of these jobs are posted at philjobs — indeed, so far as I can see, there are no French jobs listed there at all.)
- Second, there are also various French doctoral and post-doctoral positions advertised at Pariscope médiéval.
- And another doctoral student position in Gothenburg, for medieval Latin philosophy, connected with the Representation and Reality program there.
These doctoral student positions are a strange thing from the North American perspective, where we are used to every graduate program having open positions every spring for every area of philosophy. Everyone applies, and the best candidates get the positions, regardless of area. In Continental Europe, in contrast, at least in many cases, one has to find a place that happens to have funding, and then one has to take up a research project in the advertised area. The process looks more like finding a job than like enrolling in a university.
In medias PHIL 