• Vita

    since 2021 University of Münster
    Research Associate at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg „Legal Unity and Pluralism”
    2020 - 2021 University of Padua
    Visiting Researcher Talent@UniPD Initiative
    2019 University of Oxford
    Teaching Fellow in Latin
    2014 - 2020 King’s College London
    MA & Postgraduate Diploma in Academic Practice in Higher Education
    2018 - 2019 University of Oxford
    SNF Early Postdoc.Mobility Fellow
    2015 - 2018 The London School of Economics
    Guest Teacher in International History
    2015 - 2017 King’s College London
    Postdoctoral Teaching Assistant in Medieval History, History of International Relations and Memory Studies
    2015 King’s College London
    SNF Doc.Mobility Fellowship and PhD in History
    2010 University of Basel
    Lic. phil. in History, German Linguistics and Medieval Literature, Modern English Literature
    (study abroad at the University of Cape Town and Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg)

     

  • Research Project

    Developing Principles of Good Governance: Political Advice during the Carolingian, Macedonian and Seljuk Reforms

    Alcuin of York’s and Nizam al-Mulk’s engagement with contrasts between opposing states of social order that call for opposing sovereign virtues suggests that there are links between Western and Eastern political advice texts both at the level of content and language. My project Developing Principles of Good Governance: Political Advice during the Carolingian, Macedonian and Seljuk Reforms reaches beyond disciplinary research traditions, traditional periodisation and distinctions between East and West. It explores political advice and mirrors for princes as interdisciplinary analytical frameworks and culturally reflective tools in the transmission of texts and ideas. On the one hand, the comparison reveals continuities and discontinuities in the principles of governance proposed to the Carolingian, Macedonian and Seljuk rulers by their political advisers. On the other hand, it juxtaposes Macedonian and Carolingian notions of spiritual and institutional justice with the circle of justice.

  • Main Areas of Research

    Carolingians

    Transmission of Texts and Ideas

    Social History

    Political thought and ethics in the Abrahamic traditions of the Middle Ages

  • Publications

    Moesch, Sophia: Cultural Contact and Spiritual Transformation. Unveiling Blurred Boundaries between ‘Pagan’ and ‘Christian’ through Virgil’s ‘Georgica’, Augustine’s ‘De Civitate Dei’, and Alcuin’s ‘Versus de Patribus Regibus et Sanctis Euboricensis Ecclesiae’, in: Christian Scholl (Hrsg.): Kulturkontakt zur Zeit der Völkerwanderung. Koexistenz, Verflechtung oder „Clash of Cultures“? Religion und Politik, [in preparation]

    Figueiredo, João/ Lieb, Claudia/ Ludwig, Ulrike/ Moesch, Sophia/ Oestmann, Peter/ Seebröker, Benjamin (Hrsg.): Münsteraner Glossar zu Einheit und Vielfalt im Recht, 4. Ausgabe/Münster Glossary on Legal Unity and Pluralism, 4th Edition (EViR Working Paper 11), Münster 2024.

    Moesch, Sophia: Dispute Settlement (Premodern Europe), in: Figueiredo/ Lieb/ Ludwig/ Moesch/ Oestmann/ Seebröker (Hrsg.): Münster Glossary on Legal Unity and Pluralism, 4th Edition, 31–33.

    Moesch, Sophia: Justice. The Biblical-Christian Elements of Iustitia, in:Figueiredo/ Lieb/ Ludwig/ Moesch/ Oestmann/ Seebröker (Hrsg.): Münster Glossary on Legal Unity and Pluralism, 4th Edition, 73–74.

    Moesch, Sophia: Two Ninth-Century Ecclesiastical Initiatives to Legally Define Religious and Secular Duties. Photios I of Constantinople’s Εἰσαγωγὴ τοῦ νόμου and Hincmar of Reims’s Collectio de Ecclesiis et Capellis (EViR Working Paper 2), Münster 2022.

    Moesch, Sophia: Augustine and the Art of Ruling in the Carolingian Imperial Period. Political Discourse in Alcuin of York and Hincmar of Rheims, Abingdon/New York 2019.

    Moesch, Sophia: Augustinian Thought in Alcuin’s Writing. A Philological-Historical Approach, in: History of Political Thought (HPT) 39/1 (2018), 33–53.

    Moesch, Sophia: Les Annales Mettenses Priores et Alcuin d’York. Le discours politique sur l’accession de Charlemagne au pouvoir, in: Presses universitaires de Nancy – Editions Universitaires de Lorraine (Ed.): Charlemagne, les Carolingiens et Metz. Représentation, recomposition et instrumentalisation du passé du Moyen Âge au XXe s., Nancy 2018, 65–81.

    Moesch, Sophia: What NANSO Posters from Cape Town Reveal, in: Miescher, Giorgio/ Rizzo, Lorena/ Silvester, Jeremy (Ed.): Posters in Action. Visuality in the Making of an African Nation, Basel 2009, 75–86.

    Moesch, Sophia/ Verein Frauen-Stadtrundgang Basel/ Zentrum für Afrikastudien Basel: Stadtsafari – Afrika in Basel = Africa in Basel – an Urban Safari, Basel 2008.

    Moesch, Sophia/ Basler Afrika Bibliographien: „Plakate im Kampf“. Bilder und Öffentlichkeit der Befreiungsgeschichte Namibias = “Posters in the Struggle”. Images and Audiences in the History of Namibia’s Liberation, Basel 2006.