The four-year Ph.D. programme is offered in collaboration between the Institute of Greek and Latin Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, and the Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences.
Application deadline: 31 March 2025
Admission examinations: 21 May 2025
See: PhD in Medieval and Neo-Latin Studies Prague.pdf and Detailed Info 2025.pdf
Every student accepted into the regular Ph.D. programme receives a scholarship of 25,000 CZK/month (ca. 1,000 EUR/month) and may apply for additional research and travel support as well as participate in paid research grants, ensuring a sufficient income to live in Prague. (The tuition fee is 1,000 EUR/year, equivalent to one month’s scholarship.)
Currently, an additional scholarship of 800 EUR/month is available for the first 12 months of the Ph.D. programme for students focusing on manuscript transmission and/or scribes in the period 1450–1500. (For details, contact Lucie Doležalová.)
The Ph.D. programme explores the history of Latin literature and European culture, examining Latin’s role as a medium of expression from the fall of Rome through its transformation during the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque, culminating in its revival as a subject of scientific investigation and a component of modern European cultural life.
Latin texts are studied from the perspectives of cultural history, literary studies, linguistics, palaeography and codicology, with special emphasis on developments in the Czech Lands. The programme is interdisciplinary, engaging with intellectual history, the history of religion, and the history of books. Doctoral students explore both theoretical and practical aspects of publishing Latin texts from the programme’s historical scope and gain familiarity with digital humanities methodologies.
This programme is available in both Czech and English. However, the doctoral dissertation may be written also in another European language upon agreement with the supervisor.
For further information, contact Lucie Doležalová – lucie.dolezalova@ff.cuni.cz
Admission to the doctoral programme follows the internal regulations of the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. Candidates must meet the following requirements:
All in accordance with the Faculty of Arts’ requirements: https://www.ff.cuni.cz/home/applicants/phd-programmes/application-and-admission
Detailed information 2025 in pdf (Information from 2022 in PDF)
Iva Adámková
https://urls.ff.cuni.cz/cs/ustavkatedra/vyucujici/iva-adamkova/
I lead dissertations focused on medieval Latin literature (e.g. textual analysis, contextualization, translation). I work on monastic texts, hagiography, texts connected to medieval art. Contact: iva.adamkova@ff.cuni.cz
Lucie Doležalová
https://cuni.academia.edu/LucieDolezalova
I will happily supervise dissertations on medieval literature and manuscripts. Usual dissertation is an edition an analysis of a so far unedited text, or textual transmission and reception of a particular text. I am interested in obscure texts, but also memory, mnemonic aids, library history, Bible reception, parody, proverbs and digital humanities.
I supervise themes on manuscript transmission and/or scribes in the period of 1450–1500, within the project THEEND (Innovation and Inertia: The End of Medieval Manuscripts), which offers additional scholarship of 800 EUR/month for the first 12 months of the study.
Contact: lucie.dolezalova@ff.cuni.cz
Anna Pumprová
https://ff.osu.cz/kla/anna-pumprova/61846/
I focus on analysis of medieval Latin texts, especially from 12th–14th century Bohemia. I especially enjoy monastic writing – historiography, homiletics, biblical exegesis (commentary of the Song of Songs), or spiritual lyrics. I will happily supervise critical editions, literary-historical studies or translations of a text, e.g. from the Zbraslav monastery, a work of Jan of Jenštejn, or the sermon collection of Robert of Olomouc. Contact: anna.pumprova@osu.cz.
Petr Kitzler
http://www.ics.cas.cz/pracovnici/13/petr-kitzler
My main focus of interest is Late Classical and Early Christian literature written in Latin (including Czech translations), hagiographies, and intellectual currents in Early Church. Dissertations could therefore focus on any of the following subjects:
1) Graeco-Roman cultural and intellectual context of Early Christian literature (e.g. the influence of Classical rhetoric or contemporary philosophical movements) and its literary and intellectual stylisation and reception;
2) Latin apologists, especially Tertullian of Carthage;
3) Hagiographic literature in Latin (vitae, acta, and passiones martyrum), its diversity in terms of genres, development, and gradual adaptation and reinterpretation in reaction to changing cultural and intellectual climate;
4) Latin language in early Christian texts and changes in its semantics in reaction to new religious and cultural contexts;
5) Translation of a Latin-written early Christian text with detailed commentary and an introductory study.
Barbora Kocánová
http://www.ics.cas.cz/pracovnici/28/barbora-kocanova
I would be happy to supervise theses in Middle Latin philology and educational/instructional literature on subjects such as:
1) Various topics from Middle Latin lexicography and terminology. Theses could focus on e.g. analysis of some lexicographic text, including its edition, or characterisation and analysis of changes within some interesting terminological group;
2) Subjects from educational medieval Latin literature. Such theses could deal with, for example, analysis and edition of some Bohemical source, the history of some natural science in the Middle Ages, or sources of academic provenance (e.g. texts based on Prague quodlibets);
3) Topics related to the reception of Aristotle in the Middle Ages.
Pavel Nývlt
http://www.ics.cas.cz/pracovnici/30/pavel-nyvlt
Dissertation theses I could supervise should focus on Latin Bohemical literature, especially historiography or dictionaries, eventual Latin vocabulary in the Middle Ages. The following are some suggestions of suitable subjects:
1) Location of the work in time and space and construction of the person of narrator in select Bohemical chronicles;
2) The importance of Velešín’s dictionary for textual criticism of Claretus’s Glossarius;
3) Specific features of vocabulary of select Latin Bohemical texts with focus on, e.g., neologisms, occasionalisms, synonyms, or the use of particular works that lack a full semantic meaning.
Pavlína Cermanová
http://cms.flu.cas.cz/cz/o-nas/lide/odborni-pracovnici/pavlina-cermanova.html
Supervision of dissertations in the area of intellectual history of the Middle Ages with focus on intellectual links and communication channels between centres of education in Central Europe. Theses could also deal with medieval apocalyptic thinking, its sources, spread, and impact on society. Possible subjects include the following:
1) Medieval apocalyptic and prophetic literature, both in the vernacular and in Latin;
2) Subjects related to the sources, manifestations, and identification strategies of medieval religious radicalism;
3) Spread of writings on natural philosophy by manuscripts and their further reception; reconstruction of communication channels among scholars and other ways of sharing texts based on the above;
4) Medieval alchemy, its records in writing, alchemistic constructs.
Dušan Coufal
http://cms.flu.cas.cz/cz/o-nas/lide/odborni-pracovnici/dusan-coufal.html
I would be happy to take on doctoral projects on subjects from late medieval intellectual and ecclesiastical history, especially such that also touch upon contemporary political and social events. I feel especially close to work focused on the study of Latin manuscripts, eventually their publication in print. I offer supervision of theses on the following areas:
1) Theological production of Central European universities, especially the Prague university (tractates, exegetical commentaries, testimonials);
2) The history and written legacy of fifteenth-century councils, especially the Council of Basel;
3) Biographies and social activities of university masters; 4) Hussite and anti-Hussite thought;
5) Controversies surrounding the reception of John Wyclef’s theological and political thought in Bohemia.
Pavel Soukup
http://cms.flu.cas.cz/cz/o-nas/lide/vedeni/pavel-soukup-6.html
I would be happy to supervise doctoral theses on subjects from the intellectual and cultural history of Late Middle Ages with focus on Central Europe. I feel particularly attracted to the subject of heresies, especially Hussitism, as well as controversial theology and preaching. Given this focus, I would consider the following subjects of theses especially suitable:
1) Analysis of handwritten collections of sermons with focus on their structure, the origin of particular pieces, and relations between the text and spoken rendition (for instance, the mystery of Hus’s sermones de primo anno, the so-called postil of Hus’s representatives from 1413, or collections of sermons from the period of formation of the Utraquist Church);
2) Investigation of transmission and transformation of Latin texts in their intellectual and social context. Particular topics in this area include the vernacular reception of Wyclef’s Latin writings (comparison of Middle English and Old Czech adaptations); movements of people and texts between medieval universities using Prague and Leipzig as an example; the use and production of instructional texts for preachers in the Czech Lands (artes praedicandi, distinctiones, model sermons);
3) An overview of treatment of particular questions in late medieval discussions, e.g. arguments against the freedom of speech in polemics with heresies; Czech ecclesiology during the period of legal coexistence of different Christian denominations; analysis and edition of a selected tractate from the area of anti-Hussite polemics.
Marcela Slavíková
http://komeniologie.flu.cas.cz/cz/o-nas/lide/stali-pracovnici/mgr-marcela-slavikova-ph-d
I would be happy to supervise dissertations focused on Bohemical literature in Early Modern Era, on subjects such as:
1) Latin humanist poetry connected with activities of the Prague university prior to 1622, including poetry written in Classical Greek in the context of contemporary Latin production;
2) Early Modern Bohemical editions of Classical and humanistic texts, e.g. school editions published for the needs of the university in Leipzig in late fifteenth and early sixteenth century;
3) Latin correspondence of John Amos Comenius from editor’s perspective; preparation of a critical edition of a humanist Latin text based on work with manuscripts and old prints.
Lucie Storchová
http://komeniologie.flu.cas.cz/cz/o-nas/lide/stali-pracovnici/phdr-lucie-storchova-ph-d
Supervision of dissertations in the field of humanist literature in the Czech Lands and Central Europe in general, as well as intellectual history of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Theses could deal with, for instance, the following subjects:
1) Literature as part of cultural exchange between Central Europe and other regions, including non-European ones;
2) Humanistic literature as part of scholarly self-representation and communication of scholars in the sixteenth century (poetry, correspondence, etc.);
3) Travel literature and representation of otherness during the period in question;
4) Neo-Latin and vernacular historiography in the sixteenth century;
5) Neo-Latin and vernacular literature through the prism of gender studies and queer studies.
Vladimír Urbánek
http://komeniologie.flu.cas.cz/cz/o-nas/lide/stali-pracovnici/phdr-vladimir-urbanek-ph-d
Supervision of dissertations in the area of intellectual history of Early Modern Era with focus on Bohemical subjects within a wider European context. Subjects may include for example:
1) Research of networks of correspondence of Early Modern ‘republic of letters’, e.g. topic analysis of correspondence of Comenius and his circle; popularity and changes of meaning of terms such as pansophia (using digital humanities); exile as a subject of scholarly correspondence;
2) Prophecy as a literary genre and medium of communication in the seventeenth century: prophecies, visions, and revelations as a literary genre and their reception by readers; the relationship between vernacular and Latin versions of prophecies published by Comenius; textual transmission of prophecies from a vernacular manuscript, through a printed Latin version, and all the way to re-contextualisation in collections of prophesies.
3) The influence of Early Modern neo-stoicism in Central European environment, e.g. a comparison of Lipsius’s De constantia and its contemporary translations (including Comenius’s Czech paraphrase in Truchlivý).
Pavel Blažek
http://ancientmedieval.flu.cas.cz/cz/lide/transed/10-lide/180-pavel-blazek2
I would be happy to supervise doctoral theses on subjects from late medieval philosophy and theology and, more generally, topics from the intellectual history of Late Medieval Era. Theses could focus on for instance the following subjects:
1) Medieval Aristotelianism and late medieval reception of Aristotle. Particular topics include the use of Aristotle in medieval sacramental theology; reception and adaptation of Aristotle’s theories on the genesis of community, on virtues, and on friendship in medieval commentaries on the Politics and/or Nicomachean Ethics; Aristotelianism in medieval political discourses (e.g. in De regimine principum by Aegidius Romanus); transmission and adaptation of various medieval pseudo-Aristotelian writings;
2) Family, marriage, and family relations in medieval philosophical, theological, and legal literature. Particular subjects include: relations between men and women or children and parents in medieval commentaries on the Politics, Nicomachean Ethics, and pseudo-Aristotelian Ethics; the concept of childhood and youth in medieval commentaries on the Rhetoric; ideals of Christian upbringing in medieval instructive texts on the upbringing of children (Vincent of Beauvais, Jean Gerson, etc.); on arranging marriage, inseparability of marriage, marital sexuality, and marriage of Mary and Joseph in medieval commentaries on the Sentences by Peter of Lombardy;
3) Critical editions of previously unpublished medieval philosophical and theological writings.
Ota Pavlíček
https://ancientmedieval.flu.cas.cz/cz/lide/transed/10-lide/179-ota-pavlicek
I will be happy to supervise doctoral students and possibly include them in my scientific projects; candidates may be interested in traditional medievalist approaches or more modern approaches related to digital humanities and other interdisciplinary perspectives. I am interested in the history of thought (especially philosophy and theology) and intellectual history with an emphasis on late medieval Central European universities (including Prague) in a pan-European context. I also do research on corpora of medieval texts or their parts through digital methods. I will be happy to help promising doctoral students integrate into European scientific networks and would be available to consult or propose specific proposals for dissertation projects. More generally, these may come from the following areas: 1) Research on the production, reception and transmission of university knowledge in late medieval Europe
2) Content analyses of lesser-known texts of late medieval university provenance, including and focusing on unedited sources
3) Bohemian university sources of a scholarly nature in the European context; for example, in connection with the phenomenon of the Bohemian Reformation