Bard Graduate Center invites applications for two one-year post-doctoral fellowships funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, designed to help bridge the gap between the ways objects are studied by conservators and the ways they are approached by academics in the human sciences (Art History, History, Archaeology, Anthropology). These fellowships are available to individuals with a PhD or equivalent professional experience, and each of the appointed humanities-trained fellows will join a conservation team at a New York-area museum and work together on a joint project. The participating institutions are the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History, Anthropology Division.

The fellowship is part of “Cultures of Conservation,” an initiative designed to model a new graduate curriculum at Bard Graduate Center. The five years of the grant (2012-17) are seeing the development of new courses, new seminars, and new research and teaching positions, all of which aim to bring the knowledge created by conservators into the intellectual apparatus of graduate students and professors in the humanities. Candidates will be judged on the merits and scope of what they bring to the proposed research.

Applications should include: a cover letter, curriculum vitae, statement explaining the importance of this project to the candidate’s professional and intellectual development, sample publication (SASE), and three letters of recommendation. Applications should be emailed fellowships@bgc.bard.edu. Materials may also be sent by post to: Mellon Fellowship Search Committee, c/o Dean Peter N. Miller, Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, 38 W. 86th Street, New York, NY 10024.All application materials must be received by 15 December 2015. Late or incomplete applications will not be considered. 

Please direct questions to the Mellon Fellowship Search Committee via email fellowships@bgc.bard.edu

For more information, visit http://cultures-of-conservation.wikis.bgc.bard.edu