World-Leading Scholarship in Modern Languages

Project

How did knowledge and creative works spread across vast territories before the invention of print and railways? Globalisation is often seen as a modern phenomenon, but medieval trade and cultural exchange connected all parts of the Old World, with forays into the New World. Medieval techniques for encouraging global transmission and for stemming its dangers can provide useful historical precedents for tackling today’s challenges. Literary manuscripts provide traceable evidence for how thoughts and ideas were disseminated through material objects. Using digital humanities methods, this PhD project investigates the conditions for the spread of the biggest global literary success of its time, translated into at least 32 premodern languages: the Seven Sages of Rome or Book of Sindbad.

The PhD project ‘How to write a global success before print: The paradigmatic case of the Seven Sages of Rome/ Sindbad narrative’ is innovative in that combines recent theories of translingualism and globalisation with premodern literature and digital humanities methods. It analyses on a unique resource: the largest dataset ever collated for the transmission of a single premodern narrative matter, cataloguing the c. 600 known manuscripts and c. 300 known print editions (each of which contains a slightly different version) of the multilingual The Seven Sages / Sindbad. This database is being assembled at St Andrews as part of the AHRC-funded research project ‘The Seven Sages of Rome’ in collaboration with the Free University of Berlin and the University of Würzburg (Germany). It will be completed and ready for analysis by March 2026, and offers a rare opportunity to study how cultural artefacts achieved global – or more precisely, pancontinental – success.

The PhD project will map some of the circumstances of the text’s transmission. Because German-speaking towns, monasteries and later also printers were the major hubs for publishing and translating the text into Latin as well as Scandinavian, East European and Iberian languages from 1200CE, the prospective student must be able to understand German-language sources. Beyond that, you will be able to choose your own focus on any aspect of the transmission that fits your training and interests (and local supervisory expertise), employing philological, historical, digital and/or literary methods. You might choose to study, for example, why and how the story matter entered English, Scots and Welsh, but not Irish literary traditions; the text’s 16^th-century import into Mexico and the American colonies; the role of repeated Dutch translations as multiplicators (Schlusemann 2025); the question of how the text made it from 8^th-century Persian, where it was probably first written down, to Eastern Anatolia, where it was translated into Greek around 1100, and by 1200 into Cistercian monasteries in Lorraine, where the Seven Sages craze that swept Europe for the next four centuries seems to have started. Such questions are still unsolved after nearly three centuries of scholarly efforts, but the AHRC database provides a new, secure basis for finding answers. The PhD project’s interdisciplinary approach will look for success factors that may include changing trading routes and market locations, availability of raw materials and print technology, the flexibility of the Seven Sages/Sindbad’s frame-tale narrative structure to accommodate Christian, Muslim and Jewish educational purposes, and the transcultural appeal of its ‘he-said/she said’ story of a sexual assault.

Value of award (per year)

The scholarship will comprise a full tuition fee award and an annual stipend paid at a rate set by the University of St Andrews. For 2025-2026, the stipend is £19,775 p.a., with an annual uplift published by the University each academic year.

The stipend will be paid pro-rata to part-time students.

The scholarships do not cover any continuation, extension, or resubmission period/fees, Visa fees, Immigration Health Surcharge, IELTS fees, costs for travel to and from the UK or research training grant or another equivalent award for research expenses.

Duration of award

Up to 3.5 years (full-time) or 7.0 years (part-time). Scholarship holders will be expected to have submitted their thesis for examination by the end of that period. The award term excludes the continuation period and any extension periods.

At what stage of my course application can I apply for this scholarship?

Please apply for the scholarship after you have submitted your application for a place at St Andrews.  You do not need to wait until you have received an offer of a place before applying for the scholarship.

Additional criteria

You must have applied for a PhD programme at St Andrews.

You must not already (i) hold a doctoral degree; or (ii) be matriculated for a doctoral degree at the University of St Andrews or another institution.

As part of the scholarship application you will be required to upload a personal statement. This should serve as a cover letter for the research project application as a whole, and should include:

• An outline of your suitability for the project (project criteria can be found in the "Eligibility" and "Project Description" sections above).
• Why the project interests you.
• What you would bring to the project in terms of previous skills and expertise.
• Any ideas that you may have for the realisation of the project.

How to apply

1. Apply for your chosen course at the University St Andrews: Postgraduate research. Select School of Modern Languages as the academic school. After submitting your course application, you must allow up to three working days to receive login details for the My Application portal.
2. When you have received your login details, apply for the scholarship:
   • Log into My Application and follow the links to Scholarships and Funding
   • Select 2026/7 as the Academic Year and click Refresh list.
   • Find the specific World-Leading St Andrews Doctoral Scholarship that you wish to apply for in the list of scholarships (using the filter box if necessary), click Apply and complete the application form.

You can also use the catalogue to search and apply for other scholarships for which you are eligible. 

Scholarship application form guidance

If you are a current student at St Andrews, you can access Scholarships and Funding through MySaint. However, you should wait until after you have applied for your intended postgraduate programme before doing so, to ensure that the scholarship application is linked to that course.

Terms and conditions

Please read the University of St Andrews scholarships terms and conditions

If you apply to this scholarship, details from your course application may be passed to the selection panel solely for the purpose of merit-based assessment. 

When will I know the outcome?

The outcome of your scholarship application will be available on View or continue my funding applications in the Scholarships and Funding section of My Application within two months of the application deadline.