Project ANR SHERBET : Stemmatology for the HEbRew BiblE Transmission - 
Artificial Intelligence to understand the transmission of the Hebrew Bible


1st September 2024-31th August 2026


Description
Before the appearance of the printing press, the only way of reproducing and 
spreading a text in written form was manual copying. During this process, 
accidents, errors and intentional modifications occurred, progressively 
modifying the text of each witness. The revised text, whether modified 
deliberately or accidentally, then served as a template for other copyists and 
the changes would thereby be propagated. For the philologist interested in the 
reconstruction of text history and the text’s genealogical relations (similar 
to a genealogical tree, called stemma codicum), it has been imperative to study 
these different variants and suggest methods for the objective construction of 
such trees (called stemmatology methods). Retrieving the genealogical lineage 
of the Hebrew manuscripts has been one of the major focuses of the laboratoire 
Écritures and the MSH at the University of Lorraine. In this project, we 
suggest to improve the manual work performed in the critical editions of the 
Hebrew Bible by applying the latest advances in applied mathematics and natural 
language processing to reconstruct the stemmas of the Hebrew manuscripts. This 
project takes place as a partnership between the centers of research MSH 
Lorraine (UL), Écriture (UL), LORIA (UL), LJK (UGA) and IECL (UL).
In this context, we are looking for a two years fellow for a post-doctoral 
position, to fulfill the objective of building the genealogical lineage of the 
Hebrew Bible through computational stemmatology algorithms.

Postdoc’s responsabilities
Over the course of the project, the fellow will be asked to lead and innovate 
to complete the following objectives:

Automatic Variant tagging for ancient language The candidate will have to 
design, train and test a Deep Learning model to automatically tag scribal 
variants between manuscripts. The model should will be trained on the different 
variants and their subsequent classification, as designed by the philology 
experts (orthographic, lexical, grammatical, etc.). The model will then be able 
to automatically suggest a variant classification given two different strings. 
While the main focus of the project is Hebrew, extension to Greek would be a 
possible supplement to the project.

Textual embedding of ancient languages A major challenge of the project is the 
computation of a semantic-based distances between Hebrew words, in order to 
define the proximity between two variants, accounting for their meaning. The 
candidate will have to work on textual embeddings and textual representation of 
the Hebrew words using Neural Networks.

Textual generation of Hebrew texts using adversarial Deep Learning models 
Current approaches within the project rely on probabilistic models to generate 
mock textual traditions to be used as ground truth, that resemble the variants 
observed on real traditions. Statistics describing scribal behavior are then 
fed into the model, that then rely on Markov chains to generate the 
corresponding tradition. One of the objectives of the project is to rely on 
Deep Learning models for this generation of mock traditions, by using 
generative adversarial networks. The networks should be able to generate new 
traditions representative of scribal behavior.
 
Provide Open-Source results To ensure a reception as wide as possible for the 
project and to strive towards the goal of making science open to all, the 
candidate is expected to provide all the software developed over the course of 
the project as an Open-Source software, respecting all the quality constraints 
of modern software development. The generated datasets should also be made 
available to the public. All results will be published in high-impact journals 
and conferences.
Required skills

Mathematical and computer science skills The candidate must have a PhD in 
computer science and/or applied mathematics (artificial intelligence, natural 
language processing...). An experience in Deep Learning, especially applied to 
Natural Language Processing or modelization of complex systems is required.

Technical skills The candidate should be very familiar with the Python 
ecosystem for Deep Learning, data manipulation and analysis: pandas, sklearn, 
tensorflow/ Keras/pytorch.
The candidate should have previous experience in the development of Open-Source 
software and a good knowledge of current development standards, to ensure that 
the project reaches as many scholars as possible: CI/CD pipelines, 
containerization, automated deployments. They will also have to interact daily 
with REST API and SQL databases. A good understanding of XML TEI and collation 
tools would be a plus.

Humanities skill Knowledge of Classical Greek and Ancient Hebrew. Knowledge and 
interest in textual criticism, philology and biblical studies would be a plus.

The candidate is expected to have a good level in English. Knowledge of French 
would be a plus.

Terms and tenure
This two-years position will be based at the Loria, Campus Scientifique, BP 239 
54506, Vandoeuvre-lès- Nancy & MSH Lorraine, Ile du Saulcy, 57000 Metz. The 
duration can not exceed 24 months.
The target start date for the position is 1st September 2024, with some 
flexibility on the exact start date.

How to apply
Applicants are requested to submit the following materials:
• A cover letter explaining their motivation for the position. • Full 
Curriculum Vitae and list of publications.
• Academic transcripts (unofficial versions are fine)
Deadline for application is June 17th 2024. All documents must be sent to 
frederique....@univ-lorraine.fr

Job Location
Nancy-Metz, Lorraine, France

----------------------
Maxime Amblard
Université de Lorraine
https://members.loria.fr/mamblard
http://espoir-ul.fr

Si vous lisez ce message en dehors de vos heures de travail, 
merci de ne le traiter qu’en cas d’urgence avérée.

Attachment: smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature

_______________________________________________
Corpora mailing list -- corpora@list.elra.info
https://list.elra.info/mailman3/postorius/lists/corpora.list.elra.info/
To unsubscribe send an email to corpora-le...@list.elra.info

Reply via email to