[INDOLOGY] Re: Professor-researcher recruitment campaign EPHE

Fri Feb 19 13:20:20 UTC 2021

Dear Dominik, Dear Jonathan, Dear Jean-Michel,
Did anyone download the relevant document and read the requirements?
Even I had missed one passage, because I now see that here
<https://www.ephe.psl.eu/actualites/recrutement_des_enseignants-chercheurs_2021/2021-recrutement-ec-shp.pdf>
it says clearly:
"Rédaction : Le français et l’anglais sont acceptés pour tous vos documents"
So: nihil obstat for those who want to apply in English.
My remark reflected no legal condition but a personal estimation which is
perhaps no more valid.
Even apart from any intention to apply or not to apply for the positions
now posted, knowledge of French (and German) should be considered highly
recommendable for anyone studying and teaching in the domain of Indology --
including in officially bi- and multi-lingual Canada :) -- in view of the
extensive scientific literature on Sanskrit, Vedic studies etc. available
in these languages.
In our EPHE-SHP we do have several international colleagues, including from
Belgium.
Even then I experience that France participates more strongly in a "romance
languages" intellectual circuit with students and colleagues from Italy,
Spain, South America etc. whereas what I remember from my active
participation in academic life in the Netherlands is that it has become
more and more strongly Anglo-Saxon oriented, esp. since the late 1990s. But
Willem Caland, Utrecht, still published extensively in German and
co-produced a major publication in French together with his
French colleague Victor Henry ( L'Agnistoma, tome I-II, 1906-1907). On the
other hand, Louis Renou learned sufficient Dutch in order to read Willem
Caland's scientific publications in Dutch (Suutra-aanwinsten, Over en uit
het Jaiminiiya, etc.).
If we come to Vedic studies, the full or partial translations by Ludwig,
Bergaigne, Caland, Renou, Elizarenkova now Jamison & Brereton ... are to be
read in their original languages.
>From whatever I have understood of another major language of the world,
Chinese, I estimate that it will be entirely impossible to capture the
nuances of different interpretations expressed in these translations into
German, French, Russian, English, without enormous footnotes at each
subjunctive, injunctive, imperative, at each explicit or elliptic use of a
form of 'to be' ...  Perhaps a translation into Chinese can at the most
aspire to be a close paraphrase... By contrast, this shows the importance
of having different interpretations of Vedic ritual poetry and Vedic
literature into German, French, Russian and English... (and of course into
Polish...).
All best,
Jan

On Fri, 19 Feb 2021 at 10:43, jmdelire <jmdelire at ulb.ac.be> wrote:

> Another example, which perhaps is not to be generalized : a year ago, I
> was informed that a position as Professor of History of mathematics
> would be opened at the University of Wuppertal (Germany). I went into
> contact by email with two professors there, and all our exchanges were
> in English. I was told that my CV was perfect for the position, which
> implies the training of future math teachers. But, when I asked if I
> could teach in English for a year or two (before becoming able to do it
> in German, a language of which I have a passive knowledge), it was
> answered that this would not be possible. I applied nonetheless, but
> received no invitation to an interview, probably due to the pandemy.
>
> Jean Michel
>
>
> Le 19.02.2021 10:05, Jonathan Silk a écrit :
> > It seems like perhaps it is possible that Jan has not quite addressed
> > Dominik's point: I did not read him as rejecting the use of French,
> > only the condition that fluency is a requirement _for application_.
> >
> > For instance, although one might expect a Spanish or Italian speaker
> > to be able to ramp up to working fluency in two years, this seems to
> > be ruled out. NB: As far as I know, the requirement for fluency in
> > German in German and Austrian universities, and in Dutch here in the
> > Netherlands, is normally specified as "within two years," and at least
> > it used to be the case that the university provided support for
> > language training.
> >
> > Jan, himself Dutch, is surely aware that most people in the world were
> > not able to benefit from the excellent gymnasium training he received
> > in which language acquisition was strongly present (and a further
> > note: this is increasingly not the case even in the top gynmasia here,
> > where so-called beta tracks [natural sciences] have largely taken
> > over, for completely understandable reasons.)
> >
> > So what we seem to come down to is an implicit interest in preventing
> > non-French scholars from even applying...(which Dominik was of course
> > too polite to say in so many words)
> >
> > Jonathan
> >
> > On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 9:54 AM jmdelire <jmdelire at ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> >
> >> Having myself French as mother language, I always had the feeling
> >> that
> >> the education system in France is not particularly open to non
> >> French
> >> students or teachers. Of course, it is different in the world of
> >> research.
> >> Just an example : we have in Belgium thousands of French students
> >> in our
> >> Universities or Hautes Ecoles, because our education system is
> >> quite
> >> open, while it is particularly difficult for a Belgian to study in
> >> France.
> >>
> >> Jean Michel
> >>
> >> Le 18.02.2021 23:53, Jan E.M. Houben a écrit :
> >>> sans accepter la diversité régionale, culturelle et
> >> linguistique, la
> >>> science et l'érudition perdraient pourtant une grande partie de
> >> la
> >>> richesse qui leur appartenait traditionnellement ...
> >>>
> >>> (= without accepting regional, cultural and linguistic diversity,
> >>> science and scholarship would nevertheless lose much of the
> >> richness
> >>> which has been traditionally theirs ...)
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, 18 Feb 2021 at 17:54, Dominik Wujastyk
> >> <wujastyk at gmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 at 04:49, Jan E.M. Houben
> >> <jemhouben at gmail.com>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Dear All,
> >>>>> The professor-researcher recruitment campaign 2021 at the
> >> École
> >>>>> Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) is open.
> >>>>> This time, none of the open positions are directly
> >> "indological"
> >>>>> but some of the positions in Sciences historiques et
> >>>>> philologiques or Sciences religieuses *could* in theory
> >>>>> accommodate indological (indological-linguistic) or
> >> buddhological
> >>>>> applications.
> >>>>> Please explore at
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
> https://www.ephe.psl.eu/actualites/recrutement-des-seignants-chercheurs-2021
> >> [1]
> >>>>> [1]
> >>>>>
> >>>>> A good active mastery of French is of course a prerequisite.
> >>>>
> >>>> "of course"?  No, this is not obvious or normal.  Many
> >> countries
> >>>> hire professors on the understanding that if they don't know the
> >>>> indigenous language they will commit to learning it within the
> >> first
> >>>> two years of tenure.  As far as I am aware, that is normal
> >>>> international practice.
> >>>>
> >>>> Best,
> >>>> Dominik
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>>
> >>> JAN E.M. HOUBEN
> >>>
> >>> Directeur d'Études, Professor of South Asian History and
> >> Philology
> >>>
> >>> _Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite_
> >>>
> >>> École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, Paris Sciences et
> >> Lettres)
> >>>
> >>> _SCIENCES HISTORIQUES ET PHILOLOGIQUES _
> >>>
> >>> Groupe de recherches en études indiennes (EA 2120)
> >>>
> >>> _johannes.houben [at] ephe.psl.eu_
> >>>
> >>> _https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben [2] [2]_
> >>>
> >>> _https://www.classicalindia.info_ [3] [3]
> >>>
> >>> LabEx Hastec OS 2021 -- _L'Inde Classique_ augmentée:
> >> construction,
> >>> transmission
> >>>
> >>> et transformations d'un savoir scientifique
> >>>
> >>> Links:
> >>> ------
> >>> [1]
> >>>
> >>
> >
> https://www.ephe.psl.eu/actualites/recrutement-des-seignants-chercheurs-2021
> >> [1]
> >>> [2] https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben [2]
> >>> [3] https://www.classicalindia.info [4]
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >
> > --
> >
> > J. Silk
> > Leiden University
> >
> > Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
> > Matthias de Vrieshof 3, Room 0.05b
> > 2311 BZ Leiden
> >
> > The Netherlands
> >
> > website: www.OpenPhilology.eu [6]
> >
> > copies of my publications may be found at
> >
> > https://leidenuniv.academia.edu/JASilk [7]
> >
> >
> > Links:
> > ------
> > [1]
> >
> https://www.ephe.psl.eu/actualites/recrutement-des-seignants-chercheurs-2021
> > [2] https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
> > [3] https://www.classicalindia.info_
> > [4] https://www.classicalindia.info
> > [5] http://listinfo.indology.info
> > [6] http://www.OpenPhilology.eu
> > [7] https://leidenuniv.academia.edu/JASilk
> _______________________________________________
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-- 

*Jan E.M. Houben*

Directeur d'Études, Professor of South Asian History and Philology

*Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite*

École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, Paris Sciences et Lettres)

*Sciences historiques et philologiques *

Groupe de recherches en études indiennes (EA 2120)

*johannes.houben [at] ephe.psl.eu <johannes.houben at ephe.psl.eu>*

*https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
<https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben>*

*https://www.classicalindia.info* <https://www.classicalindia.info>

LabEx Hastec OS 2021 -- *L'Inde Classique* augmentée: construction,
transmission

et transformations d'un savoir scientifique

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