“For the post-doc project “Anchoring Devices in Ancient Rhetoric” we welcome proposals for research into the use of loci communes and / or oratio figurata as anchoring devices in (a) specimen(s) of Roman literature, with a strong preference for oratory and kindred genres. The anchoring devices may have been employed in a positive way, as in Seneca’s De Clementia, where Nero’s character and behaviour are anchored in those of Augustus, or in a negative way, as in Cicero’s Caesarian speeches, where Julius Caesar’s actions and attitudes are associated with the cliché of the eastern tyrant. The project’s approach will be philological; it will contribute to our knowledge not just of the selected textual corpus but also of its contexts, and of contemporary rhetorical theory. It will moreover finetune our ideas about how rhetoric can be used as an anchoring device. The succesful candidate will be required to write at least two internationally accessible papers.”