The University of Warwick (UK) and the Newberry Library invite applications for two Visiting Research Fellowships at the University of Warwick from 12 May to 19 July, 2008. Each fellowship supports travel to and from Warwick University; a subsistence and accommodation allowance of $540 per week; and a small research fund ($450 per fellow) to facilitate travel to neighbouring libraries and research collections.
Context: the fellowships, funded by a three-year Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant, are intended to foster interdisciplinary collaboration between the institutions affiliated with the Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies and the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at the University of Warwick.
The coming year of activities sponsored by the grant focuses on the notions of Belief and Unbelief. Discussions and papers will examine the scope, boundaries, and developments of the religious and spiritual beliefs of the Renaissance and Early Modern Period - including questions of gender; encounters and clashes with the ‘other’; the afterlife, ghosts and witchcraft. For more details see http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren/mellon-newberry/2007/.
The project coordinator Ingrid De Smet is a specialist of Neo-Latin literature and intellectual culture in France and the Low Countries. Other members of the Warwick-based team are based in the Departments of History; English & Comparative Literature; Italian; Classics; and the History of Art. Their interdisciplinary research interests include (but are not restricted to): the study of women’s writing and gender; rhetoric; drama; social and political issues; and more generally, the transmission and reception of texts and ideas (including translation and the Classical tradition). Please see the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance website for further details of research activities and expertise at the Centre.
Purpose of the Fellowships: fellows appointed will be expected to participate in the research culture of the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance. Each fellow will develop a small, well-defined research project at Warwick along lines compatible with the programme’s theme. This research will be presented during the course of a two-week residential Summer Workshop to be held at Warwick University 6-19 July, 2008. (Visiting Fellows will be provided with accommodation and full board at Warwick University for the duration of the summer workshop.) The research projects might include a case study of a particular text or body of texts; the study of a specific theme (e.g. censorship); or the exploration of a broad intellectual domain (e.g. the history of the book, history of science, religion, emergence of cultural identities etc.) relating to, or from the angle of, Belief and Unbelief.
The application deadline is October 18, 2007, and successful applicants will be informed by 1 December 2007. All applicants will automatically be considered for places as participants in the residential workshop.
Eligibility: applicants should be advanced doctoral and post-doctoral students (who received, or will have received, PhDs in 2005-2007). Doctoral students attending institutions that are members of the Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies Consortium, and recent post-doctoral graduates of those institutions, are eligible to apply. The Fellows may be drawn from any disciplinary context in Renaissance studies (broadly defined) or in the Classical tradition; candidates must demonstrate a scholarly interest in advancing their knowledge and understanding of the intellectual, social and cultural developments relating to Belief and Unbelief in early modern Europe.
How to apply: applications should include:
These materials should be sent by mail or courier as hard copy (without staples) to:Mrs Lisa CookCentre for the Study of the Renaissance University of Warwick Coventry CV4 7AL United Kingdom Applicants should also ensure that three letters of recommendation, one of which must be from their doctoral supervisor, are sent separately to Mrs Lisa Cook at the same address. Referees should use the coversheet available for download below.
Cover sheet for the application
Note: the project simultaneously runs a competition for Participants in the Summer Workshop (with slightly broader eligibility criteria). Click here for details. If you are interested in the Summer Workshop only (and not in the Visiting Fellowships), please follow the application procedure as described there.