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The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is now accepting applications for up to five one-year research fellowships to Penn graduate students who have completed their qualifying exams. The Fellows Program supports individual projects (either the dissertation or research in preparation for it) with a stipend between $2,000-4,000 and convenes a year-long Collaborative Public Research Colloquium for PPEH’s Graduate and Undergraduate Fellows. In AY 2021-22, Fellows will participate in a collaboratively organized series of seminars and lectures organized by the cluster for graduate training in the environmental humanities at the University of Toronto, Oxford University, and Penn. This colloquium is designed to facilitate alternative academic career exposure and training in public research methods with invited experts. It further provides Graduate Fellows opportunities to develop research mentorship experience; and to develop and execute cross-disciplinary, public engagement projects, including public writing on the well-trafficked PPEH Fellows blog. In the spring semester, participants in the Research Colloquium receive one course credit by enrolling in Public Environmental Humanities taught in 2022 by PPEH Faculty Director Bethany Wiggin.
To apply, please submit the following to director@ppehlab.org:
- 1000-word research statement, including a project abstract, a brief statement about how the project interacts with the environmental humanities, and how it might encourage collaboration across the disciplines
- 250-word statement addressing the candidate's vision for public, collaborative humanities projects
- A C.V
- One confidential letter of recommendation, emailed to director@ppehlab.org by the dissertation advisor or graduate chair
The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities (PPEH) at the University of Pennsylvania invites applications from advanced doctoral students in the School of Arts & Sciences for a one-year PPEH Environmental Humanities Dissertation Completion Fellowship. We seek applicants whose research, teaching, and public engagements support and complement PPEH’s core commitments:
- broadly interdisciplinary, collaborative research on the environment across the arts and sciences
- arts-driven inquiry into place, particularly our campus and the City of Philadelphia as well as urban ecology in other global contexts
- public engagement, particularly in and with environmental justice communities and concerns
- the creation and growth of living archives via practices of urgent collection
Applicants must be enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania and plan to defend their dissertation during the 2021–2022 academic year to be eligible.
Beginning in Summer 2021, the selected Dissertation Completion Fellow will receive 12 months of support covering tuition, fees, and summer research funds. The fellowship’s summer funds will enable the student to plan and carry out public engagements throughout the course of the year. The Dissertation Completion Fellow will be expected both to pursue their own research agenda as well as actively to participate in PPEH’s ongoing projects and initiatives, in Philadelphia and beyond.
Application Materials:
- 1500-word Research Statement in which the candidate describes how their dissertation project intersects with the environmental humanities and addresses how their work fosters collaboration across disciplines
- CV
- 500-word Public Engagement Statement about how their project will build wider public engagements in and through the environmental humanities
- Letter of recommendation from the Ph.D. advisor or graduate chair, which also confirms a dissertation completion timeline
Submission Instructions:
- Application materials must be collated into a single PDF and emailed by May 15, 2021 to director@ppehlab.org.
- Letter of recommendation can be sent directly from faculty advisor/chair under separate cover.
The Penn research team of the Andrew W. Mellon Just Futures Initiative will award 2 graduate fellowships for the 2021-2022 academic year to graduate students in the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) with approved prospectuses for dissertation topics in any discipline relevant to the study of “Dispossessions of the Americas: The Extraction of Bodies, Land, and Heritage from La Conquista to the Present.” We are particularly interested in graduate applicants whose research relates to the theme of dispossessions via mechanisms of deceit, disease, or violence.
The Mellon Just Futures Initiative Graduate Fellowship, in conjunction with the SAS Graduate Division, will provide the graduate student’s 10-month stipend, tuition, fees and health insurance during the 2021-2022 academic year. Recipients are expected to split their time between their own research and their research contributions to the Mellon collaborative research project. Among other activities, graduate fellows will supervise and coordinate undergraduate research assistants, will participate in weekly research team meetings, and will help organize and participate in international conferences.
For more details, and to apply, see the following.
The Price Lab announces its 2021-22 program of mid-doctoral fellowships in digital humanities. Intended for students who have completed their coursework and are entering their 3rd or 4th year of study in a humanities doctoral program in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, these fellowships will place a one-year “pause” on the normal sequence of advancement within the student’s department while extending the standard level of doctoral funding (stipend + benefits) for an extra year. During the fellowship year, recipients will be relieved of any teaching, TAing, exams, or other normal responsibilities within their department, instead devoting the time to activities and research with the Price Lab aimed at helping them gain skills and experience in technologically innovative research. Upon return to the department, they will resume the normal support arrangement in GAS without any loss of regular graduate funding. If for example a student spends year 4 as a fully funded mid-doc fellow at the Price Lab, they will still have two years remaining of the standard 5-year funding package when the fellowship year is over. And after those two further years, they will still be eligible without prejudice for final-year completion fellowships.
For 2021-22 we are offering four fellowships. Each fellow will be attached to a specific project team, and will work with that team for the equivalent of approximately 15-20 hours a week for 10 weeks, either in the summer, during the academic year, or some combination of both. Depending on the fellow’s interests and skills, the project they work on may be managed by the Price Lab and its DH Specialists, or based in the Penn Museum’s new Department of Digital Records, Archives, and Publications or at the Kislak Center.
Current second- and third-year doctoral students in humanities departments are eligible to apply. Interested students should send a CV and a letter of application of no more than 1500 words describing their interest in the fellowship and any previous experience with digital humanities to: Stewart Varner, Managing Director of the Price Lab (svarner@upenn.edu). Along with their application, students will need to solicit a letter from their advisor attesting to their suitability for Price Lab support, and a brief note from the graduate chair of their department verifying their academic good standing and completion of coursework. Both of these should also be emailed directly to Stewart Varner (svarner@upenn.edu). The strongest candidates will be those who have demonstrated an interest in some area of digital humanities and are developing a dissertation proposal that lends itself convincingly to the use of digital research methods. The application deadline is February 8th, 2021. We encourage prospective candidates to speak with their advisors and graduate chairs well in advance of this deadline; they should also feel free to contact the Price Lab to tell us about their interests in DH and/or to obtain additional information about the fellowships or the selection process. Fellowship offers will be made by mid-March. We hope to assemble a diverse cohort of fellows who come to digital humanities research from a range of backgrounds, perspectives, and disciplinary homes.
The Graduate Associate (GA) is a para-professional staff member of the Office of College Houses and Academic Services (CHAS) at the University of Pennsylvania who is expected to assume responsibility for an assigned area of a College House. The GA serves as a mentor, advisor, and friend to residents. Under the direction and supervision of a House Dean, the GA is expected to assist in the development of community, encourage student initiated programming, and report inappropriate behavior. The GA provides support in emergencies and times of personal stress.
In total there are 123 GA positions in the system. The number of GA positions that will be open varies from year to year, depending on how many staff are selected to return from the previous year in each House. All Houses hire GAs as part of their staff. GAs are required to spend approximately 15-20 hours per week. It is important to understand that due to the nature of this work there will be weeks when the time commitment will be greater than this average. For instance, during the month of August, staff should expect to be very busy participating in fall Staff Orientation, New Student Orientation and opening activities. GAs cannot pursue a full-time employment position, on or off campus.
The Graduate Associate receives a rent-free single occupancy accommodation in their assigned College House. Some rooms will accommodate a partner or spouse but facilities do not exist to accommodate a GA with a child, or any other individual. The associateship also comes with a partial meal plan as part of their duties.
For more information or to apply to be a GA, visit the GA website.
CTL’s Graduate Fellowship for Teaching Excellence program honors graduate students who are dedicated to excellent teaching and is designed to foster conversations about teaching in order to help graduate students develop as teachers. Because CTL Graduate Fellows organize graduate student teaching workshops within their home departments or programs as well as for the university as a whole, the fellowship program can help improve teaching by your graduate students in particular and help them develop as future faculty.
Each CTL Graduate Fellow will receive a $6,000 award for the school year. This is in addition to whatever other funding a student receives. Fellows will participate in regular teaching discussions with the other Graduate Fellows, will organize teaching workshops for graduate students in their department roughly monthly, will lead workshops for graduate students across the university once a semester, and will mentor other graduate students in teaching, consulting with and observing current teaching assistants.
In order for a student to be recognized with a CTL Graduate Fellowship, graduate students must be nominated by the graduate chair of their home departments or programs. If you could nominate potential fellows, we would greatly appreciate it. We are looking to honor nominees who have demonstrated that they are outstanding and dedicated teachers. Nominees must also be doing well in their program and be respected by faculty and peers alike.
In addition to a letter of nomination from the graduate chair, potential fellows should provide CTL with a vita, a letter of recommendation that includes some discussion of the student’s teaching, and a two-part statement. The first part of the statement should discuss how the nominee teaches, particularly what he or she does in a typical class and why; in the second part the nominee should suggest teaching topics that would be valuable for graduate students in the department to explore. The statement should run no more than 500 words.
Nominations are due by noon, Friday, April 17. They may be sent electronically to ctl-help@lists.upenn.edu. If you have questions about the fellowship, please contact at lenthall@upenn.edu.
***If you would like to be nominated, contact Nancy Bentley (nbentley@english.upenn.edu) ASAP.***
The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is now accepting applications for up to five one-year research fellowships to Penn graduate students who have completed their qualifying exams. Students should be conducting dissertation research related to PPEH’s annual topic. In 2020-2021, PPEH programs, research initiatives, workshops, seminars, performances, and public engagement projects engage the topic “Transition/Transformation.”
Each PPEH Graduate Fellowship carries a $2,000 stipend designed to support EH projects at the doctoral level, and, in select cases, for projects leading to a M.A. M.S., M.F.A, or M.P.H. The Fellows Program supports individual projects (either the dissertation or research in preparation for it) and convenes a year-long Collaborative Public Research Colloquium for PPEH’s Graduate and Undergraduate Fellows. This colloquium is designed to facilitate alternative academic career exposure and trainings in public research methods with invited experts. It further provides Graduate Fellows opportunities to develop research mentorship experience; and to develop and execute cross-disciplinary, public engagement projects, including public writing on the well-trafficked PPEH Fellows blog. In the spring semester, participants in the Research Colloquium receive one course credit by enrolling in Public Environmental Humanities (ANTH 543, COML 562, GRMN 544, URBS 544), taught in 2021 by PPEH Faculty Director Bethany Wiggin. In our regular meetings, we will frame the role of the environmental humanities and transdisciplinary research and scholarship and think together about how public engagements, whether virtual or in-person, can intersect with and even enhance scholarship.
Past PPEH Fellows’ collaborations include public art/history/science installations, organization of reading groups and workshop series, a conference or un-conference, co-authored articles, a co-edited book, an installation, and Data Refuge and Remediations. All PPEH Fellows are expected to attend and contribute as appropriate to PPEH events and symposia. For further information, visit us at ppehlab.org
Call for Applications, 2020–2021
Research Topic: Transition/Transformation
Application deadline: Friday, May 15, 2020
To apply, please submit the following via email to director@ppehlab.org:
- 1000-word research statement. This statement should include a project abstract, a brief statement about how the project intersects with the environmental humanities and the research topic, and about how it might foster collaboration across disciplines.
- 250-word statement addressing the candidate’s vision for public, collaborative humanities projects
- C.V.
All documents should be submitted as a single PDF, with the file name <PPEHgrad_your Last name_First name.pdf> (e.g., PPEHgrad_Franklin_Ben.pdf)
Also required:
- One confidential letter of recommendation from your dissertation advisor or graduate chair. Please ask your referee to email their letter to director@ppehlab.org no later than the application deadline, May 15, 2020.
The Penn Urban Studies Dissertation Completion Fellowship is a competitive fellowship with a service component for advanced doctoral students in the final year of their dissertation work. In addition to completing the dissertation, the fellow will be responsible for teaching one course for the Urban Studies program and taking a leading role in organizing public programs and communication for the Urban Studies graduate certificate program. As with the Graduate Division’s SAS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, the award is nonrenewable.
The Fellowship is open to Ph.D. candidates in any department in the School of Arts & Sciences whose research is relevant to urban studies and who are in their 6th or 7th year of study. Preference will be given to students enrolled in the Urban Studies Graduate Certificate Program, but students in other departments whose work is significantly urban-related will also be given consideration.
A completed application must include a cover letter explaining the applicant’s interest in the fellowship, and how their work represents an urban focus. In addition, the application should include:
(1) An up-to-date, unofficial Penn transcript.
(2) Two current letters of recommendation. (Letters should be emailed directly by the recommender to urbs@sas.upenn.edu. Please have them include “Urban Studies DCF recommendation” in the subject line.)
(3) A CV that includes a list of publications and conference papers. (Please attach PDFs of 1-2 publications, if available.)
(4) The tentative title of the dissertation, the name of the dissertation supervisor/chair, and a 2-page abstract of your dissertation proposal that includes an explanation for how it addresses issues or questions relevant to Urban Studies.
(5) A statement from the nominee discussing his or her specific plans for completing the dissertation and their degree by the end of the fellowship period.
(6) A summary of the applicant’s previous teaching experience.
Criteria for selection are: 1) likelihood that the applicant can complete their dissertation and degree during the award year; 2) previous research and teaching experience; and 3) relevance of research and teaching for urban studies. The review committee will announce its results by the end of May.
Compensation includes a teaching stipend (based on current graduate student funding in SAS), dissertation fee reimbursement, and benefits.
Please send all materials via email by Thursday, April 30, 2020, to urbs@sas.upenn.edu, and include “Urban Studies DCF application” in the subject line. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) is accepting applications for its 2020-2021 Graduate Student Research Fellowship. The fellowship has been established to encourage emerging scholars to engage with the rich physical and digital manuscript resources at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, including the Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection and the Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts. Working closely with a SIMS staff member, the fellow will have the opportunity to develop a project and gain experience working in a collaborative, digital humanities environment. The fellow will be expected to present his or her research in some form at Penn Libraries either during the term of the fellowship or on a selected date following the completion of the term.
The fellow may undertake research on any aspect of the collections of premodern manuscripts in the Penn Libraries. Research proposals are invited from any area of manuscript studies, including but not limited to the study of the material text, scripts, decoration and illustration, paleography, codicology, binding, provenance, and the history of libraries and collecting. Proposals should demonstrate that the Libraries’ premodern manuscript resources are integral to proposed research topics. Proposals with a digital component are encouraged though not required.
Eligibility
The fellowship is available to all graduate students at universities in the greater Philadelphia area during the 2020-2021 academic term. International students at these institutions are welcome to apply but must be work eligible according to their visa terms and have approval from their host institution.
All application materials must be received by May 1, 2020, to be considered. For more information regarding the award and to apply, go to https://schoenberginstitute.org/graduate-student-research-fellowship-2/ .
The MCEAS Dissertation Fellowship Program
Since 1978, some 300 advanced graduate students from universities across North America and Europe have received dissertation fellowships from the McNeil Center. At least eight new fellows will be appointed for the 2020-2021 academic year, most for nine-month terms. Nine-month fellows will receive a stipend of $25,000, office space in the Center's home on the University of Pennsylvania's campus and library, computer, and other privileges at the University. Limited travel funds for research will also available. All fellows are expected to be in residence in Philadelphia during the terms of their appointments in order to participate fully in the Center's programs.
Doctoral candidates from any PhD-granting institution who are in the research or writing stage of the dissertation are eligible. As outlined below, some fellowships are targeted at specific areas, but any project dealing with the histories and cultures of North America in the Atlantic world before 1850 will be considered. Proposals dependent on the use of Philadelphia-area archives and libraries are particularly welcome. Applications are encouraged from students of all relevant disciplines, including Africana Studies, American Studies, Anthropology, Archaeology, Comparative Literature, Economics, English, Folklore, Gender Studies, History, Latinx Studies, Law, Music, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Political Science, Queer Studies, Religious Studies, Urban Studies, and Women’s Studies.
Nine-Month or One-Semester Fellowships
Awards may be made in the following categories, depending on the qualifications of the applicants and the availability of funding:
--MCEAS Barra Dissertation Fellowships and Advisory Council Fellowships are open to candidates from any discipline working on topic within the McNeil Center's area of interest.
--The Richard S. Dunn Fellowship, acknowledges excellence in any aspect of Early American Studies.
--Barra Foundation Fellowship
The Barra Foundation Fellowship supports research related to art or material culture.
--Friends of the MCEAS Fellowships
Friends of the MCEAS Fellowships support research on any relevant topic, with a preference for projects dealing with Philadelphia or the Mid-Atlantic region.
--MCEAS Consortium Fellowships are reserved for candidates from research universities that are members of the McNeil Center Consortium. Projects on any topic within the Center's areas of interest are eligible. (For more information about the Consortium, please visit www.mceas.org.)
--The E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Fellowship in Early American Religious Studies is open to candidates in any discipline researching any aspect of religion in North America and the Atlantic world before 1850.
--Marguerite Bartlett Hamer Fellowships are awarded to advanced doctoral candidates from any relevant program at the University of Pennsylvania who meet the same rigorous standards as external candidates.
Other Fellowships
--The Society of the Cincinnati Fellowship, supports research on the era of the American Revolution.
--The Monticello-McNeil Fellowship, co-sponsored by the McNeil Center and the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, facilitates scholarship on Thomas Jefferson and his times. Holders of this fellowship spend a portion of their fellowship term at the ICJS in Charlottesville, Virginia.
How to Apply
A single online application suffices for all fellowships. Categories and duration of awards are determined by the selection committee. Applications need to be uploaded at: https://apply.interfolio.com/71856 Categories and duration of awards are determined by the selection committee, but candidates interested in the Monticello-McNeil fellowship should state their interest clearly in their research proposals. The following items must be prepared for uploading as pdf files:
--A curriculum vitae;
--A proposal not to exceed 1,500 words, double-spaced, describing the general scope of the project and the specific work proposed for the fellowship term
--an unpublished writing sample related to the project, double-spaced, limited to 7,500 words exclusive of notes.
--two letters of recommendation should be uploaded through Interfolio or submitted by email to mceas@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Please ask recommenders to address the specifics of this application. Do not send generic letters from placement dossiers.
Questions can be directed to:
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies
University of Pennsylvania
3355 Woodland Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-4531
The deadline for online applications is 3 February 2020.