VDS of Historical and Cultural Studies
The Doctoral School of Historical and Cultural Studies, the largest graduate school at the University of Vienna, brings together researchers from diverse backgrounds to explore the full breadth of human experience, from the ancient past to the unfolding future. In the heart of Europe, in one of the most liveable cities of the world, we foster an open, diverse, and globally connected community. Spanning 16 departments and 9 fields of doctoral study we are dedicated to innovative research in historical and cultural studies. Grounded in a strong tradition of intellectual curiosity and scholarly rigor, our mission is to train emerging researchers who think boldly across boundaries and engage actively with the challenges of their fields and beyond. We offer a structured program, dedicated supervision and interdisciplinary training, and empower our doctoral candidates to make meaningful and responsible contributions to knowledge, culture, and society.
Application language: Applications to this doctoral school may be submitted in English or German.
Update: The application deadline was 2 March, 14:00 CET.
You can still access your submitted application via the Application Portal.
Please do not inquire about the status of your application. All candidates will be informed of the outcome of the selection process as soon as possible.
Supervisor / Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
I am a cultural anthropologist and historian of everday life from the perspective of European Ethnology (originating in folklore studies and critically engaging with this tradition). My main research interests lie in material culture studies, affect and emotions, bodies, senses, experiences, and gender – with a particular focus on the fields of sport, technology and more broadly everyday life.
I am more than happy to supervise doctoral theses from other connected fields as well, provided we share a common understanding of the specific perspective (culture theory and methodology) on everyday life (such as e. g. emotions as practices, technology as cultural…). If you think about applying, please do get in touch!
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
- (post-)colonial history of the planetarium
- historical and/or ethnographic studies of emotions, affects and gender in sports in relation to material or textile culture
- historical and contemporary practices of fancy dress
- studies of touch as an emotional-material practice (e.g. in museums, sports fields, technological surfaces ...)
- anthropology of outer space and emotions
- ...
Weblink for further information: https://euroethnologie.univie.ac.at/en/department/staff/reseachers/helen-ahner/
Email: helen.ahner(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Digital Humanities applied to the study of medieval history (c. 500–1400 CE). Special emphasis on the history of the Christian Near East (the Caucasus, Byzantium, Syria, etc.) but topics on other geographical areas are also accepted.
Weblink for further information: https://ifg.univie.ac.at/en/about-us/staff/academic-staff/tara-l-andrews/
Email: tara.andrews(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
East European and Eurasian Studies: Relations between the Habsburgs and Eastern Europe in the early modern period; research on the Galician-Polish border region; cultural history of Poland; social history of Poland (and Lithuania) with a special focus on Jews; images and stereotypes of Eastern Europe (belief in vampires and vampirism); history of historiography (concepts of Eastern Central Europe).
Weblink for further information: https://iog.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/personal/professorinnen/augustynowicz-christoph/
Email: christoph.augustynowicz(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
19th and 20th-centuries European history, transnational history, cultural history, history of political mobilization and repression, history of humanitarianism.
Additional doctoral position linked to the Department of History, Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies
Within the framework of this pooled call, I also offer a specific doctoral position situated at the Department of History.
This additional position should be based on a dissertation project examining transnational history during the Age of Revolutions and/or the Long Nineteenth Century (c. 1770s–1914), with a particular focus on political and/or cultural dynamics. Projects that explore themes of political repression or forms of transnational political mobilisation would be especially welcome.
Alongside this position, I remain open to supervising varied dissertation projects across the fields described above.
Weblink for further information: https://ifg.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/mitarbeiterinnen/wissenschaftliche-mitarbeiterinnen/elena-bacchin/
Email: elena.bacchin(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Central European History of the 19th and early 20th entries; History of crime and policing; History of criminology; History of Public Administration and State Building; History of the League of Nations
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
History of monarchical rule; History of violence
Weblink for further information: https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/persons/peter-becker/
Email: peter.becker(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Palaeolithic zooarchaeology, human-animal interactions, taphonomy, organic technology, personal ornamentation, shell beads, dietary practices, aquatic resource exploitation, archaeozoology, Palaeolithic archaeology, human origins, eastern African faunas, human-environment interaction, landscape archaeology, behavioural adaptation to climate change.
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
- Human-animal interactions at Grub-Kranawetberg (Austria): through zooarchaeological and biochemical approaches.
- Raw material sourcing and provisioning strategies of pigments, stones and lithics at Grub-Kranawetberg (Austria).
- Neanderthals in a cave: zooarchaeological analyses of the Late Pleistocene faunas of Shanidar Cave (Iraqi Kurdistan).
Weblink for further information: https://technobeads.wordpress.com
Email: dorothea.maria.bosch(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
I supervise dissertation projects that explore questions related to the Jewish literary and cultural history of the rabbinic period (70–1040 CE). | Ich betreue Dissertationsprojekte, die Fragestellungen zur jüdischen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte der rabbinischen Periode untersuchen (70–1040 n. Z.).
Weblink for further information: https://judaistik.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/institutsmitarbeiterinnen/constanza-cordoni/
Email: constanza.cordoni(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
The focus of work of our research group are mnemonic practices in public spaces of identity discourses (MELPAUMENE). Our main research target is to find traces of contemporary Austrian national identity deliberations, conflicts, and productions. International comparative case studies are welcome.
Weblink for further information: https://fakzen-thks.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/public-history/
Email: public-history.thks(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Archaeological prospection; aerial archaeology; airborne laser scanning; LiDAR; landscape archaeology; landscape interpretation
Weblink for further information: https://uha.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/personen/wissenschaftliche-mitarbeiterinnen/universitaetsprofessorinnen/michael-doneus-institutsvorstand/
Email: michael.doneus(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Austrian Contemporary History in the Global Context
Weblink for further information: https://zeitgeschichte.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/wissenschaftliche-mitarbeiterinnen/lucile-dreidemy/
Email: lucile.dreidemy(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
I came to Vienna in 2018 and have been teaching the history of science in an increasingly inspiring research environment. We have rapidly grown into a group of 20 scholars working closely together with a focus on history of bureaucratic knowledge, legal and economic histories and resource histories. Before this I had professorships at Humboldt-University Berlin and Technical University Berlin, as well as fellowships at the MPIWG and GHI Washington.
My own research contributes to a network project “Global History of the Enquete”. I study long questionnaire responses on Indigenous law from the German Pacific colonies in legal anthropology. Other work is dedicated to the investigation of data practices (for instance classification and clustering of social data before and after AI), where an emphasis lies with indigenous data sovereignty and data feminism. My latest book focusses on the measurement of resources, and how units of measurement and patterns of justification interact in allocation schemes. I am also co-editor of the journal “Science in Context” and of the book series “Historische Wissensforschung” with Wallstein.
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
I am happy to supervise topics in the history of science and knowledge in the 18-20th century. Areas of expertise include colonial and decolonial histories of Oceania during Imperialism, the social history of quantification (indicators, statistics, models, metrication, cadastral surveying), as well as the history of the humanities and social sciences.
Weblink for further information: https://ifg.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/mitarbeiterinnen/wissenschaftliche-mitarbeiterinnen/anna-echterhoelter/
Email: anna.echterhoelter(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
My main areas of research are Classical Modernism (Duchamp, Malevich, Mondrian), Minimal and Pop Art of the 1960s, and Institutional Critique and site-specific art of the last few decades. I am particularly interested in the interferences between art and philosophy, as well as art's response to the technological and social conditions of modernity and to the ecological crisis. I also supervise (or co-supervise) theses that are not strictly within my own research field, for example in the nineteenth century, in the intermediate field of art and film, or in performance art and photography.
Weblink for further information: https://kunstgeschichte.univie.ac.at/personen/professoreninnen/egenhofer-sebastian/
Email: sebastian.egenhofer(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Byzantine Philosophy, Byzantine Intellectual History, Reception of Aristotle, logic, Iconoclasm, religious controversies, history of sciences in Byzantium, byzantine Medicine, Individuality, Portraiture,
Weblink for further information: https://univie.academia.edu/ChristopheErismann
Email: christophe.erismann(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
I am a cultural anthropologist working within European ethnology, a field rooted in folklore studies and critically engaged with that heritage. My research focuses on urban anthropology, the anthropology of knowledge, and multimodal ethnography. I specialize in cultural analysis of everyday life, with conceptual attention to temporality, relationality, material-semiotic dimensions, and modes of (re)presentation. I am especially happy to supervise qualitative, ethnographic research concerning the French cultural sphere.
Weblink for further information: https://euroethnologie.univie.ac.at/en/department/staff/reseachers/alexa-faerber/
Email: alexa.faerber(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
early modern history
history of knowledge and science, esp. the history of earth science and technical sciences
history of sustainability and resource management
Weblink for further information: https://ifg.univie.ac.at/en/about-us/staff/academic-staff/sebastian-felten/
Email: sebastian.felten(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Holocaust Studies, History of National Socialism, History of Dictatorship and Violence; History of Nazi Concentration Camps; Contemporary Hungarian and Austrian History, History of the Carpatho-Ukraine; History of the Interwar Period; Politics of History and Cultures of Remembrance; Oral History, Musealisation
Weblink for further information: https://zeitgeschichte.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/wissenschaftliche-mitarbeiterinnen/regina-fritz/
Email: regina.fritz(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
I am a historian working at the intersection of history of science, environmental history and political history. My research interests and supervision areas include:
History of Science; environmental sciences; ecology; Anthropocene
Political history of knowledge; social movements and activism; popular science
Environmental history; infrastructures and knowledge production; aviation history
Media history; mapping practices; academic publishing
Weblink for further information: https://ifg.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/mitarbeiterinnen/wissenschaftliche-mitarbeiterinnen/nils-guettler/
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Urban and Rural settlements in the Late Antique and Early Christian periods; Christianization of Roman Castra; Archaeology, visual and material culture of the Late antique, Early Christian/Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East; Mosaics in Late Antiquity; ivory in Late Antiquity; Early Christian monuments of Rome and broadly of the Orbis Christianus Antiquus; Monastic and religious identities; Relics and their circulation between East and West; Hagiography applied to topographic studies.
Weblink for further information: https://klass-archaeologie.univie.ac.at/en/about-us/staff-members/hamarneh-basema/
Email: basema.hamarneh(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Medieval and Early Modern Art History, especially Northern Renaissance Painting and Netherlandish Art (1400-1700); image theory, optical theories, visual and material culture, technical art history
Weblink for further information: https://kunstgeschichte.univie.ac.at/personen/professoreninnen/hindriks-sandra/
Email: sandra.hindriks(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Global and International History
Middle Eastern History
Migration and Mobility
Health and Disease
Education and Literacy
Communication and Global Publics
Global Languages and Linguistic Diversity
Weblink for further information: https://zeitgeschichte.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/wissenschaftliche-mitarbeiterinnen/valeska-huber/
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
History of central banking in a comparative and global perspective, history of money and means of payment, (hyper-)inflations, exchange rate regimes, financial history of Austria, the Habsburg Empire and Europe more generally, history of government finance and sovereign debt, history of banking, geography of finance, economic history of the Habsburg Empire and Austria, developmental and industrial policies, state-owned enterprises in Western Europe
Weblink for further information: https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/persons/clemens-jobst/
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Archaeology, Egyptology, material culture, ancient Egyptian society and state formation, prehistoric Egypt
Weblink for further information: https://egyptology.univie.ac.at/
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
I am interested in European and especially Central and Eastern European history from the 18th to 20th century from a transnational and comparative perspective. In particular, I am focusing on Polish history (in particular the history of the 2nd Polish Republic (1918-1939), history of forced migrations from and to Poland in the first years after World War II, the history of state socialism in Poland, the history of the transformations of Polish society after 1989). In terms of methodological approaches, I am focusing on gender history, queer history, intersectionality as a research perspective. I have a strong interest in postcolonial theory and the reconceptualization of area studies after the “spatial turn”. I am also interested in transnational and comparative legal history in the 20th Century, the history of human rights and citizenship and the history of forced migrations
Weblink for further information: https://zeitgeschichte.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/wissenschaftliche-mitarbeiterinnen/claudia-kraft/
Email: claudia.kraft(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Roman cultural history with a focus on musical and poetic forms of expression; Roman epigraphy, especially Carmina Latina Epigraphica and wall inscriptions; Cultural practices of non-elite classes in the Roman Empire; Theatre and mass entertainment in the Roman Empire; Language history as history of mentalities.
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
I look to support any proposed work in the field of Roman verse inscriptions (Carmina Epigraphica).
Weblink for further information: https://altegeschichte.univie.ac.at/en/about-us/members/staff/kruschwitz/
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
- Quantitative economic history with a regional focus on Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe
- Long-run economic growth, development, and industrialisation
- Historical political economy, particularly the legacies of empire, socialism, and ethnic and religious diversity
- Historical economic geography
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
- Economic development in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
- Drivers and consequences of long-run economic growth and development
- Patterns and determinants of regional inequality
- Socialist and post-socialist economic growth trajectories
- The historical roots of ethnic/religious identity and conflict
- Consequences of imperial rule in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe
Weblink for further information: https://sites.google.com/view/leonardkukic/home
Email: leonard.kukic(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
I am interested in the history of nationalism, ethno-confessional diversity, borders, and languages, as well as in urban and Jewish history.
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
All topics welcome in the field of Central and Eastern European History between 1750 and 1991.
Weblink for further information: https://homepage.univie.ac.at/boerries.kuzmany/
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
My research fields and topics are: Historical Kinship Studies, History of Family and Marriage, History of Property and Wealth, History of Inheritance Practices and Marital Property Regimes, Social History of Logistics and Infrastructure, Inns and Innkeepers, Alpine socio-material-natural interconnectedness, Cultural History of Administration as well as the Making of Heroes and Heroines. The range of my methodological approaches is equally broad, linking social and economic, legal and political, administrative and cultural as well as gender-specific research perspectives in an integrative approach that combines qualitative and quantitative methods. The theoretical and methodological foundations of my work, which spans from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, are historical anthropology and micro-history. I am happy to supervise PhD students in these research fields and with these approaches.
Weblink for further information: https://wirtschaftsgeschichte.univie.ac.at/en/people/faculty/lanzinger-margareth/
Email: margareth.lanzinger(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Early modern and modern Jewish history, Austrian and Habsburg Jewish History, European Jewish history, intellectual history, history of antisemitism
Weblink for further information: https://geschichtsforschung.univie.ac.at/
Email: philipp.lenhard(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
I am interested in Early Modern History of the Habsburg Monarchy and Europe in a broad sense. I deal with Central European history in various contexts, particularly between Austria, Bohemia and Moravia, and Poland-Lithuania. In addition, I also work on French, Belgian and Italian topics. My main fields of interest are history of the nobility and dynasties, cultural history of politics, economy and law, and the history of administration. Currently I am working on several projects on the history of dynasties, diplomacy and financial history. My personal focus is mainly on the period between the early 17th and late 18th centuries.
Weblink for further information: https://geschichtsforschung.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/personen/wissenschaftliche-angehoerige-institut-geschichte/lichy-kolja/
Email: Kolja.Lichy(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Eastern and Central Europe in the 20th century
Intellectual history and history of political thought
History of feminist political thought and feminist movements
Intellectual history in East Central Europe in the 20th century
Feminist political thought
Conceptual and cultural history of violence
Women’s art, Women’s literature (mostly 20th century)
Dissidence, resistance and dissent
Human rights and democracy
Cold War history
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
You are welcome to get in touch before the application deadline.
Weblink for further information: https://zeitgeschichte.univie.ac.at/en/about-us/academic-staff/zsofia-lorand/
Email: zsofia.lorand(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
- Archaeology and History of Western Asia
- Neolithic, Copper, Bronze and Iron Ages
- Settlement, funerary and landscape archaeology in Mesopotamia, Syria, the Levant, Anatolia and the Arabian Peninsula
- Material culture and Interdisciplinary Studies (Geo-archaeology, Environmental Studies, Archaeometry, Petrography, NAA, Bioarcheology, Isotopes Studies, aDNA, Residues Analysis, Archaeometallurgy and Ancient Mines, Gemstones Characterization and Provenance)
- Iconographic and Gender Studies
- Methods and techniques of field archaeology
- Historical geography and regional studies of Syria and Mesopotamia
- Capacity building: Training and empowering today’s female colleagues in Western Asia
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
HEAS Team Leader
https://www.heas.at/about/partners/department-of-prehistoric-and-historical-archaeology-iuha/marta-luciani/
Weblink for further information:
https://uha.univie.ac.at/en/about-us/staff-members/scientific-staff/associate-and-assistant-professors/marta-luciani/
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Medieval and early modern cultural and gender history,
Entangled medieval urban, monastic, and courtly cultures,
Medieval visions and practices of community building,
Political communication and cultures of conflict,
Religious reform movements in high and late medieval (Central) Europe,
Medieval and early modern representations of emotions
Austrian and Central European History
Weblink for further information: https://geschichtsforschung.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/personen/wissenschaftliche-angehoerige-institut-geschichte/lutter-christina/
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
History of Europe in the High and Later Middle Ages (ca. 900-1500); the medieval Holy Roman Empire; medieval political and social history (case studies and comparative); history of governance, administration and corruption in medieval Europe.
Weblink for further information:
https://geschichtsforschung.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/personen/wissenschaftliche-angehoerige-institut-geschichte/lyon-jonathan-r/
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Areas of interest include:
The Iron Age to Classical Greek world; Ancient Anatolia; Greek interactions with the ancient Near East; Landscape and survey archaeology; Ethnicity and race in antiquity; Migration and colonisation in antiquity; Communality and identity; The use of antiquity in contemporary political discourse
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
Specific projects for which material is available:
Landscape of cult and burial in archaic Ionia; the Iron Age in Rough Cilicia; big data approaches to comparative Mediterranean urbanisation; Greek myths of civic origin
Weblink for further information: https://klass-archaeologie.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/institutsmitarbeiterinnen/mac-sweeney-naoise/
Email: naoise.macsweeney(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
History didactics with a focus on pragmatic concepts
Holocaust studies and education
Visual history and culture (photography, film, digital media)
History of National Socialism, fascism, right-wing extremism
Antisemitism and racism studies
Jewish history
Public history, memory culture, and politics of memory
Israel studies
Cold War studies with a focus on the legacy of World War II and Nazi atrocities
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
Didactic approaches in Holocaust studies and education
Projects on the history of National Socialism and the Holocaust in Europe and North Africa
Studies in visual history focusing on photography, film, and/or digital media
Research on antisemitism and/or anti-Jewish terrorism (case studies and/or longue durée approaches)
Studies on Jewish history and Jewish historical sources (archival collections, testimonies, multimedia documents)
Projects on memory politics, political activism in public history, and/or memory culture
Projects on Israeli history and society
Weblink for further information: https://holocauststudies.haifa.ac.il/index.php/faculty-staff/faculty
Email: lmeissel(at)campus.haifa.ac.il
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Ancient Egyptian language, literature, and religion; cultural studies, cultural theory and intercultural relations; narratology and rhetoric
Weblink for further information: https://egyptology.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/personal/gerald-moers/
Email: gerald.moers(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Russian History and Politics; International Relations
Weblink for further information: https://iog.univie.ac.at/en/about-us/staff/professors/mueller-wolfgang/
Email: w.mueller(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
History of Medicine and the Biomedical Sciences in the 20th Century; History of Sex/Gender Diversity; History of Reproduction and Risks; History of Medical Products; History of Global and Reproductive Health and Justice;
My work rewrites conventional reproductive health histories by shifting focus from experts to newly empowered actors, patient, parent and health activists, to focus on the negotiation of medical knowledge and interventions. I uncover controversy and clashes of expertise where we expect causation, and find diversity of practices and knowledge instead of health political watersheds in the post-thalidomide history. My work on hormone pregnancy tests in Germany and the U.K. has linked the intimate world of families and activists with national and international politics of healthcare and disability. Through a multi-layered analysis, I have demonstrated how health policies, lived experiences and ‘embodied knowledge’ of patients are co-constructed and mutually shaped by local, national and global actors. I development develop methods in symmetrically integrating the patient’s view and her ways of attributing meaning, in connecting multiple dimensions of analysis and systematic ways of addressing ill-preserved, hard-to-reach, and disappearing archives, by creatively drawing on a wide variety of sources in multiple languages.
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
Sex/Gender Diversity, 1950-1990
Patient Experiences with Klinefelter syndrome, 1950s–1990
Hormone Pregnancy Tests, 1950–1990
Thalidomide in Latin America, the Patient Perspective, 1960–
Weblink for further information: https://fakzen-thks.univie.ac.at/en/about-us/history-of-medicine-and-the-biosciences/
Email: birgit.nemec(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Early Modern History
- Holy Roman Empire and its territories, Europe, British Empire
- constitutional and administrative history, state building
- estates and parliaments, political participation and democracy
- fiscal-military system, contractor state, financial revolution
- money, finance, public credit
- theories and methods of history, cultural history, Actor-Network-Theory, praxeology
Weblink for further information: https://ifg.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/mitarbeiterinnen/wissenschaftliche-mitarbeiterinnen/tim-neu/
Email: tim.neu(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Art history of China and East Asia, particularly the early imperial and early Buddhist period
Links between the arts of China and Europe
Reception of East Asian art in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
The team around the chair of Art History of Asia develops a couple of specific research initiatives. PhD projects fitting into or enhancing these foci are particularly welcome. Possible themes include:
- Chinese and chinoise art in 18th century Europe (either case studies of individual sites or specific material – such as wallpaper, lacquer screens and furniture, soap stone carving)
- Impact of World’s Fairs on collecting Chinese/Japanese art in 19th century Europe
- Stone working and stone architecture in early and medieval China
Weblink for further information: https://kunstgeschichte.univie.ac.at/personen/professoreninnen/nickel-lukas/
Email: lukas.nickel(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Prehistoric archaeology, Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Pleistocene to early Holocene, Middle Palaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic, archaeology of Neanderthals and modern humans, site formation processes, interdisciplinary approaches, lithic technology, mobility in the Palaeolithic
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
Raw Material Economy in the Upper Palaeolithic of Central Europe
Backed tools of the Gravettian of the Middle Danube Region
Lithic technology of Early/Mid Upper Palaeolithic
Fire in the Upper Palaeolithic of the Middle Danube region
Mobility in the Upper Palaeolithic
Site formation processes in periglacial environments
Weblink for further information: https://palaeo.univie.ac.at
Email: philip.nigst(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Migration history (focus on Eastern Europe & the Soviet Union, East-West migration, also interested in southern Europe, esp. Greece); history of racism (with a focus on Eastern Europe); history of postsocialist transformation; transnational and comparative history; German history; Jewish history; Israeli history; Greek history
Weblink for further information: https://www.recet.at/our-team/detail/jannis-panagiotidis
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Romanesque and Gothic Figural Art in German-speaking regions, France, and Italy
Medieval Image Theory, Experience, Reception, Somaesthetics
Scale and measurment
Materiality and Medium
Modern Christian Art in the Holy Land, 1900–present
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
My current projects which you might join:
St. Stephan in Vienna: The Dynamics of Change:
A Global (Art) History of Giants
The Scaling Revolution: Western Visual Culture, 1300–1500
Modern Christian Art in the Holy Land, 1900–present
Weblink for further information: https://kunstgeschichte.univie.ac.at/personen/professoreninnen/pinkus-assaf/
Email: assaf.pinkus(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Prehistoric Archaeology, Europe in the Copper, Bronze and Iron Ages, archaeology of the human body and social identities, gender archaeology, archaeology of motherhood, kinship analyses, interdisciplinary bioarchaeology (anthropology, DNA, proteomics, isotope analyses)
Weblink for further information:
https://uha.univie.ac.at/en/about-us/staff-members/scientific-staff/university-professors/katharina-rebay-salisbury/
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
transformation of the Roman world, identity and diversity in late Antique and medieval Europe, manuscript cultures in medieval Europe, legal history (late Roman to medieval Europe)
Weblink for further information: https://history.princeton.edu/people/helmut-reimitz
Email: hreimitz(at)princeton.edu
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
I am a historian of science and the environment whose work explores how Earthly materials have been used to articulate broad social ideas. My research traces how concepts such as “deep time,” “sustainability,” and “energy” have been materialized in substances like ice—the focus of my first book—and wood—the focus of my second. Bringing together materiality, temporality, and aesthetics, I investigate how the Earth itself becomes a site of knowledge-making. My work asks what role history can play in a time of environmental crisis, showing how interdisciplinary, nonhuman-centred histories—told across deep timescales—can offer essential insight into contemporary planetary challenges.
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
I welcome students interested in environmental history, the history of science, and the environmental or geohumanities. Possible topics include histories of Earth science, climate knowledge, cryospheric/glacial worlds, deep time and nonhuman temporalities, materials such as ice, wood, or minerals, and the cultural or political work these substances perform. I also encourage projects that examine the Anthropocene, environmental imaginaries, and the visual or aesthetic dimensions of Earthly knowledge-making. I’m enthusiastic about supervising students who use interdisciplinary methods, draw on unconventional archives, or take creative approaches to research, including those whose training is outside traditional history.
Weblink for further information: https://alexisrider.com/
Email: alexis.rider(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Islamic art history, visual and material cultures in Islam, focused on but not limited to: architecture, imagery, and fine arts objects in Arabic, Persian and Turkish speaking cultures, from the medieval to early modern periods. Transfer and reception phenomena across geographies of Islamic art, and the reception of Islamic art in Europe. Historiography and history of Islamic art history.
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
Doctoral projects that relate to the broader research interests and supervisions areas mentioned above are welcome. For more specific fields on which I have been working and publishing, see: https://kunstgeschichte.univie.ac.at/en/staff/professors/ritter-markus/ritter-publications/
Weblink for further information: https://kunstgeschichte.univie.ac.at/en/staff/professors/ritter-markus/
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
International history and history of international organizations (late 19th to early 21st century), especially: history of technology governance; history of arms control and nonproliferation; history of science diplomacy.
Weblink for further information:
https://iaea-history.univie.ac.at/;
https://ifg.univie.ac.at/en/elisabeth-roehrlich/
Email: elisabeth.roehrlich(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Italian Renaissance art; Nineteenth-century art in France; History of abstraction in art: History of art literature and art reception; Cognitive research in art history
Weblink for further information: https://kunstgeschichte.univie.ac.at/en/staff/professors/rosenberg-raphael/
Email: raphael.rosenberg(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Late Medieval and Early Modern European History, Social and Economic History, Slavery Studies, Mediterranean Studies, Social Inequality and Dependency studies, Labour History, Microhistory, Global History, Historical Semantics, History of Venice, Comparative History
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects:
- histories of Mediterranean slavery
- histories of work and asymmetrical dependencies
- research on the transition from late medieval economic systems to early capitalist and colonial systems
- histories of Venice and the Venetian empire
- research on the global Middle Ages and postcolonial perspectives on the Middle Ages
- comparative or entangled histories of premodern Eurasia
- social spaces and inequalities in urban and/or rural contexts (1300–1800)
Doctoral position linked to the Department of Economic and Social History, Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies
Within the framework of this pooled call, I also offer a specific doctoral position situated at the Department of Economic and Social History.
Applicants interested in this position should demonstrate:
solid academic training in economic and social history
a dissertation project situated in late medieval and/or early modern economic and social history
very good command of Latin and English
ideally, an additional premodern source language and a modern foreign language
basic paleographical skills
awareness of relevant theories and methods
Applicants should outline in their research proposal how their project fits within these thematic fields and methodological expectations.
Alongside this position, I remain open to supervising varied dissertation projects across the fields described above.
Weblink for further information: https://wirtschaftsgeschichte.univie.ac.at/menschen/wissenschaftliche-mitarbeiterinnen/schiel-juliane/
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
I am a cultural anthropologist working from the perspective of European ethnology, which has its origins in folklore studies and critically examines this tradition. My research focuses on ethnographic methods (especially field research), the transformation of rural areas, cultural studies of urban research, urban-rural relations, postcolonial social and cultural analysis (especially Namibia-Germany), doing university, ethnicity and migration, historical anthropology, and doing gender. I specialize in the cultural analysis of everyday life from an ethnographic perspective. Therefore, I am particularly pleased to supervise ethnographic research projects that explicitly focus on everyday life.
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
- German traces in postcolonial Namibia
- Everyday life and transition in Austrian border regions
Weblink for further information: https://euroethnologie.univie.ac.at/institut/personal/wissenschaftliches-personal/brigitta-schmidt-lauber/
Email: brigitta.schmidt-lauber(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Work / Care Work in Contemporary Art
Materiality and Production in Contemporary Art
Gender Issues in Contemporary Art
Art and New Right / Fascism
Reception and Continuities of Fascism in Art
Art and Politics in the Art in Contemporary Art
Weblink for further information: https://kunstgeschichte.univie.ac.at/personen/professoreninnen/sigler-friederike/
Email: friederike.sigler(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
My research addresses migration history as well as regional and global movements in the Habsburg Empire and Central Europe in a comparative and transnational context from the Early Modern Period to the 21th century with a special emphasis on gender aspects. Further research interests are industrialization and urbanization and the history of crafts and commerce. I am a specialist in quantitative historical methods.
Weblink for further information: https://wirtschaftsgeschichte.univie.ac.at/menschen/wissenschaftliche-mitarbeiterinnen/steidl-annemarie/
Email: annemarie.steidl(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
My research focuses on modern history and especially on women’s and gender history from the 18th century onwards, with a particular focus on transnational, colonial or global connections. I am generally interested in the construction, interpretation, hierarchization or negotiation of differences, as well as the workings of gender and other categorizations of difference in specific historical fields, such as transnational mobility, charity and welfare, humanitarianism, or civil society and religious movements.
Weblink for further information: https://ifg.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/mitarbeiterinnen/wissenschaftliche-mitarbeiterinnen/katharina-stornig/#c2
Email: katharina.stornig(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
My research examines the role of images as expressions of social structures and cultural dynamics in Late Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire. I focus on transformation processes visible in catacombs, sarcophagi and Byzantine iconographies across objects and monuments. A text-based approach is central, especially for linking liturgical, hagiographical and other textual sources with works of art to analyze interactions between text, image and space. Further interests include the transfer and mobility of artistic motifs shaped by encounters between Byzantium and neighboring regions, traced through historical, social, ethnographic, written and material evidence. Special emphasis lies on Georgian art.
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
Possible topics include the study of visual and material cultures of Late Antiquity and Byzantium; transformation processes in funerary contexts (catacombs, sarcophagi); Byzantine iconography in monumental and portable objects; interactions between liturgical, hagiographical and other textual sources and artistic production; mobility and transfer of motifs across regions in the Mediterranean and Caucasus; cross-cultural dynamics reflected in architecture, objects and illuminated manuscripts; and research on Georgian art within broader Byzantine networks.
Weblink for further information: https://kunstgeschichte.univie.ac.at/personen/professoreninnen/studer-karlen-manuela/
Email: manuela.studer-karlen(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
I will be joining University of Vienna by August 1, 2026 as a full professor of modern social and cultural history. Research interests include the history of colonialism and decolonization (in particular German, French, and British empires), historical epistemology of the human sciences, history of everyday life and historical anthropology, history of capitalism, social movements, postcolonial studies, relation between history and social theory. My most recent book is a theoretically informed "people’s history“ of money in the age of empire (Geld and der Grenze: Souveränität und Wertmaßstäbe im Zeitalter des Imperialismus, 1871-1923). Currently, I am about to complete a monograph on the history of psychoanalysis between West Africa and Western Europe in the sixties.
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
I would be keen to hear from prospectives students in the fields of the social and cultural history of Europe in the world, and would in particular welcome projects spanning several languages and regions. Fields in which I have supervised in the past include the history of capitalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the history of the human sciences and racism in the period of decolonization.
Weblink for further information: https://www.graduateinstitute.ch/faculty/mischa-suter
Email: mischa.suter(at)graduateinstitute.ch
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Social and Economic history
Nationalism
Migration
Music history
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
History of transformations
Business & labor history
Central and Eastern Europe after 1945
History of the Habsburg Empire (after ca. 1780)
Comparative History
The themes depend on the proposal of the applicant
Weblink for further information: https://www.recet.at/our-team/detail/philipp-ther
Email: philipp.ther(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
My research and supervision focus on high-resolution geophysical archaeological prospection, developing and applying near-surface methods (GPR, magnetometry, marine/underwater acoustics and SONAR). Core interests include survey design and data acquisition in challenging environments, advanced processing, integration and interpretation of datasets, and digital 3D documentation in archaeology. I have particular expertise in Scandinavian Iron Age sites and landscapes.
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
- Archaeological prospection and robust data positioning in challenging environments (forested, uneven, or built-up terrain).
- High-resolution geophysical investigations of Napoleonic battlefields in the wider Vienna region.
- Advancing sidescan sonar methodologies for shallow-water archaeological prospection in Austria.
- Multibeam echosounder and sediment sonar applications for underwater archaeological prospection.
- Configuration, testing and large-scale deployment of a multichannel MIRA Flex GPR array for high-resolution archaeological surveys.
- Archaeological anomaly modelling in GPR using gprMax and validation against controlled and real-world datasets.
- Machine-learning approaches for automated detection, classification and mapping of archaeological features in GPR data.
Weblink for further information: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Immo_Trinks
Email: immo.trinks(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Medieval European history and archaeology, particularly in the context of social and religious history and archaeology, as well as material culture. Digital Humanities, with a focus on topics related to the broader field of Spatial Humanities, particularly involving geospatial analysis and spatial network analysis.
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
I especially welcome PhD topics within the broader research interest of the ERC project RELIC, which proposes a complex, comparative analysis and contextualisation of archaeological, art historical (standing monuments), and historical remains of the rural population living on the eastern fringes of the HRE during the Ottonian and Salian periods (10th -12th c.), exploring the influences of centres and networks of secular and ecclesiastical lords, of the natural environment, and of the economic infrastructure. Investigating this often-overlooked segment of the population, its hitherto unexplored or neglected role allows us to study how (top-level) changes in political and ecclesiastical organisations can be reflected in the evidence concerning the lower levels of society and of the local church network; how different strategies worked in different political settings, and what role local initiatives/agencies could have played in religious and political shifts.
Weblink for further information:
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/persons/maria-vargha/
Email: maria.vargha(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Social and economic history from the 19th to the 20th century: history of work, livelihood practices and mobility; ego-documents; bureaucratic interactions (e.g. practices of identification and registration).
Weblink for further information: https://www.sigridwadauer.com/
Email: sigrid.wadauer(at)univie.ac.at
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Early moden intellectual history, church history, digital humanities (including digital scholarly editing)
Possible research themes or topics for doctoral projects
A computational analysis of early modern scholastic thought; A canon law history of the early modern Holy Roman Empire
Weblink for further information: https://geschichtsforschung.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/personen/wissenschaftliche-angehoerige-institut-geschichte/wallnig-thomas-dekanat/
Research Interests and Supervision Areas
Ancient numismatics and monetary history, with a specific focus on the Roman empire; history of numismatic scholarship
Weblink for further information: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0854-2563
Email: bernhard.woytek(at)univie.ac.at