The University of Warwick and the Newberry Library invite applications for two Visiting Research Fellowships for advanced doctoral and beginning post-doctoral students (those who received PhDs in 2003-2006), which will be tenable in the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at the University of Warwick for eight weeks from 14 May to 8 July 2006. Each fellowship carries with it travel to and from Warwick; accommodation on the campus; a subsistence allowance of $450 per week; and a small research fund ($450 per fellow) to facilitate travel to local libraries, museums and historical sites. 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. Where the quality of applications is equal, preference may be given to North America-based applicants in order to promote the project's commitment to comparative assessment of developments in the field of Renaissance and early modern studies on either side of the Atlantic.
The Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at the University of Warwick provides an interdisciplinary forum for twenty-four faculty members and associated graduate students (drawn from the departments of Art History, Classics, English, French, History, Italian and Theatre Studies) who share research interests in the history and culture of the early modern period. The fellowships are funded by a three-year Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant entitled 'The Spaces of the Past: Renaissance & Early Modern Cultures in Transatlantic Contexts' and intended to foster interdisciplinary collaboration between the institutions associated with the Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies and the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at the University of Warwick. The first year of activities sponsored by the grant is focussed on the theme 'Culture, Space and Power: Peopling the Built Environment in Renaissance England, c.1450-1700', and is being co-ordinated by the social historians Professor Steve Hindle and Dr Beat Kümin.
The fellows may be drawn from any disciplinary context in which the Renaissance (broadly defined) is studied, but will have research interests in the relationships between specific forms of social and cultural practice and particular types of built environment in early modern England. They will be expected to participate in the research culture of the Centre, delivering a paper based on their research at the final session of the programme's year-long interdisciplinary seminar series. In addition, each fellow will develop a small research project at Warwick along lines compatible with the programme theme. This research will be presented during the course of a two-week residential workshop, entitled 'Culture, Space and Power' to be held at Warwick from 9-22 July 2006. (Visiting Fellows will be provided with accommodation and full board at Warwick for the duration of the summer workshop.) These projects might include: a case study of a particular site or structure; a thematic survey of specific cultural practices associated with building types; engagement with theoretical literature on social space; or leading a session/field trip in the July workshop.