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English Graduate PreDoc Funding Blog

Please email Jonathan Dick (jondick@sas.upenn.edu) with updates.

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posted by on September 13, 2015
deadline: October 9, 2015

 

The DAAD stands for the German Academic Exchange Service and is a publicly-funded independent organization of higher education institutions in Germany. DAAD has assisted to fund the exchange of 6,000 Germans to North America and 2,000 Americans and Canadians to Germany each year, and spends more money on exchanges with the US than any other country worldwide. The research grant is awarded primarily to highly qualified PhD candidates and recent PhDs who wish to earn their doctoral in Germany.

The internal deadline for the application process is October 9, 2015. The applications will be reviewed by Associate Dean Eve Troutt Powell and the top candidate will be selected. All of the completed applications will be processed and sent to the DAAD in one packet before the DAAD deadline of November 4, 2015. The DAAD will review the applications and make the final selections. Historically, Penn has had several students awarded the DAAD research fellowship each year.

For more information visit: https://www.daad.org/gradresearch and https://www.daad.org/gradstudy

Any interested candidates should contact Anna Smith at the SAS Graduate Division Office, immediately, and she will assist them through the application process. Candidates can reach Anna at smithann@sas.upenn.edu.

The internal deadline for the completed application to be received by Anna Smith at the SAS Graduate Division Office, 3401 Walnut Street, Suite 322A is October 9, 2015. 

posted by on January 6, 2015
deadline: August 31, 2015

The University of Wisconsin-Madison invites applications for a post doctoral fellowship for the academic year 2015-16 (Aug 24, 2015-May 22, 2016). the postdoctoral fellow will take a leading role in the project entitled Bibliomigrancy and World Literature in the Public Sphere.

For more details, please see:

https://chroniclevitae.com/jobs/0000864128-01

 

Deadline for applications: Feb 16, 2015.

Candidates will be notified by April 1, 2015.

posted by on January 6, 2015
deadline: February 16, 2015

The Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University invites applications for a one-year position (2015-2016) as the Ruth J. Simmons Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Study of Slavery and Justice. The Center is devoted to interdisciplinary scholarly research around issues of racial slavery, contemporary forms of injustice, as well as freedom. Applicants should have a Ph.D. in any humanities or social science discipline (or will obtain a Ph.D. by June 2015) and work on questions concerning the historical formations of slavery in global or comparative terms; issues concerning contemporary forms of indentured servitude; philosophical, historical, and theoretical questions concerning slavery, justice, and freedom.  Consideration will also be given to candidates whose work pays special attention to contemporary issues and legacies of slavery.  Applicants working on questions of gender, contemporary racial formations, public history, and memory are welcome. The successful applicant would be expected to offer one course in a department to be agreed upon at the time of hire. He/she will be expected to be a regular participant in the Fellows seminar at the Cogut Center for the Humanities. The fellowship stipend will be $45,000- $50,000.

Search Opens December 15. Deadline is February 16, 2015.

Application Instructions

Applicants should apply online at: http://apply.interfolio.com/28187

Please include a cover letter, current CV, a writing sample, and three letters of reference.

posted by on December 2, 2014
deadline: February 2, 2015

Since 1978, more than 200 advanced graduate students from dozens of universities across North America and Europe have received dissertation fellowships from the McNeil Center. At least eight new fellows will be appointed for the 2015-2016 academic year, most with nine-month stipends of at least $21,000. Fellows receive office space in the Center's magnificent building on the University of Pennsylvania's campus and library, computer, and other privileges at the University. Limited travel funds for research are also available. While no teaching is required for most fellowships, all McNeil Center fellows are expected to be in residence in Philadelphia during the academic year and to participate regularly in the Center's program of seminars and other activities.

*****Applications and recommendations must be submitted online through the following site: http://www.mceas.org/dissertationfellowships.shtml

Awards may be made in the following categories, depending on the qualifications of the applicants and the availability of funding. In a given year, appointments may not be made in all categories.

Nine-Month or One-Semester Fellowships:

--MCEAS Barra Dissertation Fellowships are open to candidates from any discipline working on any relevant topic.

--The Barra Foundation Fellowship is designed primarily for candidates specializing in Early American art or material culture.

--MCEAS Consortium Fellowships are open to candidates from research universities that are members of the McNeil Center Consortium. For more information concerning consortium membership, please contact the Center Director.

--Friends of the MCEAS Fellowships are supported by annual donors to the McNeil Center to facilitate dissertation research dealing with the Philadelphia or the Mid-Atlantic region before 1850.

--The Richard S. Dunn Fellowship, funded by a gift from an anonymous donor in honor of the Center's founding director, acknowledges excellence in Early American Studies.

--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 and may include some teaching responsibilities.

Other Fellowships:

--Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships in Early American Literature and Material Texts: In collaboration with the Library Company of Philadelphia, two fellows will be appointed for 13-month terms beginning 1 July 2015. These fellowships are open to dissertators in English, American Literature, Comparative Literature, American Studies, History, Art History, or related fields whose work combines in innovative ways the study of texts—novels, poems, plays, newspapers,magazines, scribal publications, genres not traditionally defined as "literary"—with the material circumstances of their production and dissemination. Projects should rely on the extraordinary rare book, print, and ephemera collections of the Library Company. The fellows' terms will begin and end with a summer workshop under the guidance of a senior invited scholar. The 13-month stipend is $29,000.

--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, and the remainder in Philadelphia. Reasonable travel costs between Philadelphia and Charlottesville and, subject to availability, housing at ICJS are included.

How to Apply:

*****Online applicants can complete all of these requirements by visiting http://www.mceas.org/dissertationfellowships.shtml and clicking on application submission link

A single application suffices for all fellowships. Categories and duration of awards are determined by the selection committee, but candidates interested in the Mellon and Monticello-McNeil fellowships should state their interest clearly in their research proposals. Your online submission will complete the following application requirements:

--a cover sheet;

--a curriculum vitae;

--a research proposal of 3-5 double-spaced pages; and

--an unpublished writing sample related to the project, not to exceed 7,500 words, double-spaced.

--two letters of recommendation should be uploaded by your recommenders online at http://mceas.org/dissertationfellowships.shtml or they can email recommendations to mceas@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Please ask recommenders to address the specifics of this application. Do not send letters from job placement dossiers.

Questions can be directed to:
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies
University of Pennsylvania
3355 Woodland Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-4531

posted by on December 2, 2014
deadline: January 15, 2015

Applications for Graduate Teaching Fellowships in the Critical Writing Program are due January 15, 2015. All SAS doctoral candidates who will be in their fifth or sixth year in 2015-16 are eligible and encouraged to apply, including those from the social and natural sciences. Graduate Teaching Fellows teach one writing seminar in their discipline each semester, and are provided with extensive training and mentoring in analyzing and teaching writing in their fields. Graduate students typically find the Teaching Fellowship valuable not only for the teaching experience and specialized credential, but also for how it advances their own understanding of and approach to writing their dissertations and articles. The writing seminar also provides freshmen with an introduction to writing in the Graduate Fellow’s discipline.   To see the disciplines and topics offered this spring, visit online course descriptions.   For more information and a link to the application, visit Teaching Opportunities for Graduate Students page.
  For further information about the writing program, please visit our website.

posted by on October 2, 2014
deadline: November 3, 2014

This award is for a two-year term beginning 1 July 2015. Applicants must have been earned the PhD no earlier than 2010 in American History, American Literature, American Studies, or a closely allied field and must have completed all requirements for the degree when the appointment commences. During the terms of appointment, the fellow will teach two courses in an appropriate department at the University of Pennsylvania. The remainder of the The remainder of the fellow’s time will be devoted to research and writing. While this fellowship is particularly appropriate for projects designed to turn a doctoral dissertation into a publishable monograph, any proposal falling with in the Center's area of interest will be considered. Candidates who have received McNeil Center funding for a related project at the pre-doctoral stage are not eligible. The Barra Postdoctoral Fellow will receive a starting stipend of $43,000, health insurance, and modest funds for travel and research.

Applications are to be submitted online at     http://www.mceas.org/postdoctoralfellowships.shtml

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 during the fellowship term; and a writing sample related to the project, not to exceed 7,500 words, double-spaced.

Two confidential letters of support should be uploaded separately by the letter writers or submitted by email to mceas@ccat.sas.upenn.edu. Please ask recommenders to address the specifics of this applications. Do not send generic letters from job placement dossiers.
Questions may be directed to:

The McNeil Center for Early American Studies
University of Pennsylvania
3355 Woodland Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-4531
215-929-9251
mceas@ccat.sas.upenn.edu

posted by on October 2, 2014
deadline: November 3, 2014

Barra Sabbatical Fellowship
(9 months, 2015-2016)

This award is for a nine-month term beginning 1 September 2015. This fellowship is designed for a scholar in any relevant discipline who earned the Ph.D. no later than 2010 and who will be on leave from a tenured or tenure-track faculty position for the 2015-2016 academic year. Proposals will be entertained for book-length projects falling with in the Center's area of interest at any stage of research or writing, provided that the applicant has not previously received McNeil Center funding for the same or a closely related project. The fellow will be encouraged to provide informal mentoring to more junior members of the McNeil Center community while participating fully in the Center's seminars and other activities. The fellow will receive a grant of $46,000, wwith no other salary or benefits, on the assumption that additional support will be provided by his or her home institution during the fellow's period in residence at the McNeil Center.

Applications for either fellowship must be submitted on line at http://www.mceas.org/postdoctoralfellowships.shtml.

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 during the fellowship term; and a writing sample related to the project, not to exceed 7,500 words, double-spaced.

Two confidential letters of support should be uploaded separately by the letter writers or submitted by email to mceas@ccat.sas.upenn.edu. Please ask recommenders to address the specifics of this applications. Do not send generic letters from job placement dossiers.
Questions may be directed to:

The McNeil Center for Early American Studies
University of Pennsylvania
3355 Woodland Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-4531
215-929-9251
mceas@ccat.sas.upenn.edu

posted by on October 2, 2014
deadline: February 1, 2015

Ahmanson-Getty Postdoctoral Fellowships   The theme-based resident fellowship program, established with the support of the Ahmanson Foundation and the J. Paul Getty Trust, is designed to encourage the participation of junior scholars in the Center's yearlong core programs.   Combined fellowship information can be found here: www.c1718cs.ucla.edu/fellowships   Post-doctoral application forms can be accessed directly via this link: www.c1718cs.ucla.edu/postdoc-app     The core program for 2015–2016:The Frontiers of Persian Learning: Testing the Limits of a Eurasian Lingua Franca, 1600–1900. Organized by Nile Green (UCLA) As a lingua franca promoted by multi-ethnic and multi-religious states and expanded further by education and commerce, Persian had reached by the eighteenth century the zenith of its geographical and social reach. Then, in the course of the nineteenth century, it was rapidly undermined by the rise of new imperial and vernacular languages. By 1900 a language that had connected much of Eurasia had shrunk to a core ‘homeland.’ This conference series aims to understand the reasons behind both the rapid expansion and contraction of Persian by identifying what functions the language was both able and unable to serve in an age of transformative Eurasian interactions. By identifying the geographical, social, and epistemological ‘frontiers’ of Persian, the Clark conferences explore the limits of exchange, understanding, and affection with the diverse communities brought into contact by Persian. Through a critical rather than celebratory approach drawn from the intersection of historical, sociolinguistic, and literary analyses, the program aims to test the limits of Persian by identifying its geographical, social, and epistemological fault lines.   Session 1: The Geographical Frontiers of Persian Learning October 16, 2015   The first conference tests the frontiers of Persian’s linguistic geography by reconstructing the mobility of Persian east into India, China, and Southeast Asia and west into the Ottoman Empire and northern Europe. By following the journeys of texts and text-producers, the conference asks speakers to identify the limits—indeed, the breakage points—of Persian’s usefulness as a medium of affinity, understanding, and interaction. Was Persian anchored to a geographically delimited region, or was it capable of following the settler routes of its users worldwide like other global languages? Is it meaningful to conceive Persian as possessing language borders, or did it function mainly in informational orders characterized by multilingualism and translation? What, if any, were the diminishing social or intellectual returns of its spatial expansion? Indeed, how should we spatialize Persian and conceive its relationship to different layers of place? What functions could Persian perform and not perform in these different contexts? At the same time as the conference maps the furthest expansion of Persian, it therefore serves as an exercise in tracing the constraints of the cosmopolitan.   Session 2: The Social Frontiers of Persian Learning February 5, 2016   As one Eurasia’s great lingua francas, Persian has been rightly celebrated for its inclusiveness, bringing together Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and others into a single if disjointed ecumene. At the same time, it has widely been conceived as the ‘Islamicate’ language par excellence. Against this apparently cosmopolitan backdrop, the conference seeks to identify the social limits or breaking-points of Persian’s usage and usefulness. By asking whether in its connecting of different communities, Persian served more as a language of trade, governance, or literature, we can assess the limits of the ‘cosmopolitanism’ that has been celebrated in recent scholarship. This approach raises a series of questions. Was the wide expansion of Persian enabled but ultimately disabled by its close but constraining ties to ruling states?  How did the ‘Islamicate’ profile of Persian shape the frontiers of its republic (or empire) of letters? Were there forms of social interaction or organization with which Persian could not cope? At the same time as pointing to the bridge-building achievements of Persian, by addressing such questions the conference aims to assess the social fault lines to help explain why so successful alingua franca could dissolve so rapidly in the nineteenth century.   Session 3: The Epistemological Frontiers of Persian Learning April 8–9, 2016   While Persian has been rightly admired as a language of humanism, philosophy, and science, we have little sense of its epistemological limitations. Yet the early modern period saw a rapid acceleration of intellectual and scientific exchange, involving—in the case of Persian—translations from both European and Asian languages. In this age of new ideas, the conference asks whether there were certain concepts or debates that Persian was unable to capture or communicate? Were these constraints due to external, socio-political factors, or did Persian’s linguistic profile and literary conventions impose on its users internal constraints? How constraining a factor was Persian’s reliance on manuscript transmission prior to the mid-nineteenth century (and, conversely, what was the impact on Persian of printed texts in European or vernacular languages)? What role was played by demands of creating a vocabulary for scientific discoveries and political innovations made in other cultural and linguistic contexts? In these ways the conference charts the epistemological barriers of Persian as it responded to new political and intellectual demands.   Scholars must have received their doctorates in the last six years (no earlier than 1 July 2009 and no later than 30 September 2015). Scholars whose research pertains to the announced theme are eligible to apply. Fellows are expected to make a substantive contribution to the Center’s workshops and seminars. Awards are for three consecutive quarters in residence at the Clark. Stipend: $42,000 for the three-quarter period including paid medical benefits for scholar and dependents.              

posted by on September 5, 2014
deadline: October 15, 2014

The Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship Program is an interdisciplinary training program that helps early-stage doctoral students in the humanities and social sciences formulate doctoral dissertation research proposals. The program seeks students with an interest in learning how their proposals can be strengthened through exposure to the theories, literatures, methods, and intellectual traditions of disciplines outside their own. To that end, the program offers workshops, exploratory summer research, and writing opportunities guided by faculty mentorship and peer review.

Fellowship Terms

Fall workshop in Cambridge, MA 
Photo credit: 2013 fellow 
Jackson Bartlett
Fellows must attend spring and fall workshops led by experienced faculty. The spring workshop prepares fellows to undertake summer exploratory research, while the fall workshop helps fellows draw lessons from their summer research experiences and develop their dissertation and funding proposals. Fellows must also conduct at least 6 weeks of summer research and refine drafts of their proposals through anonline and interactive writing platform in preparation for the fall workshop.

Students may apply for up to $5,000 to cover summer research costs. Travel and accommodations to attend both workshops, as well as most meals, are covered by the DPDF Program.

Eligibility

The Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship is open to pre-ABD doctoral students who are enrolled in PhD programs at accredited universities within the United States. Students in the humanities, social sciences, and related disciplines are welcome to apply.  For more information on eligibility and selection criteria, please visit the website.

                         http://www.ssrc.org/programs/dpdf/

posted by on September 1, 2014
deadline: December 31, 2014

Supporting Research on George Washington, Colonial America, the Revolutionary Era, and Early Republic

Generous short- and long-term awards are available to doctoral candidates, recent PhDs, mid-career faculty, as well as advanced scholars and independent researchers with relevant topics. All fellowships are residential with housing provided on the Mount Vernon campus.

Application Deadline is December 31, 2014

For more information please visit:

http://www.mountvernon.org/library/fellows-program/