Dr. Roland Ferenczi

Roland Ferenczi, PhD (b. 1989), earned his cotutelle PhD degree from the Universität Hamburg (UHH) and Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) under the supervision of Eva Wilden and György Németh in 2022. His doctoral dissertation is titled "History behind the praising words of the learned: An annotated translation of the Patiṟṟuppattu and the political geography of the early Cēra kingdom." His research interests focus on Old Tamil heroic puṟam poetry, the pre-modern trading system of the Indian Ocean, the legitimacy and mechanism of ancient Tamil kingdoms, and the transition between ancient kings' cult and early medieval devotional poetry.

In 2024, Ferenczi was awarded the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship, which will enable him to join the Hamburg Team of Tamilex to work on the critical edition of the Paṭṭiṉappālai, including its annotated translation and historical analysis. Before the fellowship, Ferenczi held the position of head of the Oriental Collection at the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (LHAS) and served as a visiting lecturer at the Indology Department at ELTE in Budapest.