Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry Post-Doctoral Fellows Program
Democracy: Past, Present, Future
The Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry (FCHI) at Emory University seeks applications for its postdoctoral fellowship program. The program will host three fellows whose work advances our Center’s annual theme “Democracy: Past, Present, Future.” Fellows will participate in a weekly interdisciplinary seminar, help to plan a Spring conference, and teach one undergraduate course of their own design. Fellowships are for a period of ten months, August 1, 2024 – May 31, 2025, and carry a stipend of $55,000, a research fund of $2,000, and eligibility for a wide range of competitive benefits.
Democracy: Past, Present, Future
How do the Humanities help us examine and understand Democracy? In a time of intensified political unrest across the globe our theme invites research projects that interrogate the shifting contours of democracy and struggles surrounding democratic values and rights in societies past, present, and future. In the U.S. 2024 marks the one-hundred-year anniversary of 1924 Indian Citizenship Act and Immigration Act, the sixty-year anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, and a presidential election. Around the world debates around the future of democracy and the rise of fascism abound. How can humanistic inquiry help us critically examine these pressing questions?
Democracy is measured, on one hand, by the state of political institutions and governance practices: policies, elections, legal apparatus, and judicial mechanisms. At the same time, art, education, and public cultures provide spaces where democratic belonging and freedom are actively and creatively shaped by people through debate, dissent, representation, and dialogue. Humanities research and creative works also play a critical role in analyzing and advancing democratic ideals and institutions.
We invite scholars whose research interests are resonant with such a panoramic view of democracy as shaped and transformed by a variety of forces. We especially welcome projects investigating the theme across international contexts and/or through interdisciplinary approaches spanning the humanities and humanistic social sciences and employing a range of methodologies and approaches including public and digital humanities.
We envision that fellows may pursue research on a range of historical, contemporary, social, cultural, literary, and philosophical questions about democracy, including but not limited to:
- What issues and crises have recent populist movements and authoritarian leadership sparked for rethinking liberal democracy?
- How do we think about the fundamental inclusions and exclusions of liberal democratic regimes?
- How are the interests of and issues faced by minority communities addressed within contemporary democratic discourses?
- What are the racialized, gendered and sexual imaginaries that govern both dominant and counter-hegemonic cultural productions that subtend democratic politics?
- What forms does political resistance take under eroding conditions of democracy?
- How do literary works reconfigure our sense of life and agency under conditions of political violence?
- How do we analyze the psycho-social imperatives of totalitarian regimes, and how is collective memory, trauma, affect and identity deployed within such political formations?
- In the age of transnational capital flows, how do the global migration crises call into question the state-centered understandings of democratic citizenship?
- In what ways have new networks of information and technologies such as AI and social media transformed democratic processes?
The Fox Center invites applications from candidates who are eager to be part of a community of scholars engaged in a broad range of conversations on Democracy in an inter-disciplinary setting. All Postdoctoral Fellows are required to be in residence for the term of the fellowship. Each fellow will teach one undergraduate course in the College of Arts and Sciences and participate in the Fox Center's weekly Research Seminar (Wednesdays 12-1:30pm), presenting their research at one of these meetings. Fellows will also collaborate in the planning of Fox Center programming and participate in professional development sessions.
Qualifications
All Fellows must hold a PhD (or its international equivalent, such as the DPhil) before submission of the application and may not have held the PhD for more than five years before receiving the fellowship. Preference will be given to applicants who have not held prior postdoctoral fellowships.
Application Instructions
To complete the online application, you will need the following information and required documents available and ready to submit:
• E-mail information for your three recommenders – recommenders are automatically notified via Interfolio to submit/upload their letters to your file. Be sure to leave enough time so that your letters of recommendation are submitted by the deadline.
• Any current and previous project funding information, including other pending applications
• Previous leave information, if applicable
• Course Description Information: Title, Description, and Course Materials
Required documents – prepared and ready to be uploaded to Interfolio:
• Project Abstract / Project Description / Project Timeline
• Curriculum Vitae
External required document, if applicable:
• Department Chair’s letter approving leave should be sent directly to foxcenter@emory.edu by the Chair.
Please note that as part of the University’s Interfolio system, each applicant is required to complete the Equal Employment Opportunity form and the Diversity and Inclusion Statement. The Fox Center will not have access to the completed forms.
SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS
• Course Description Information: In addition to providing the opportunity for individual research and writing, FCHI Fellowships are awarded to promote an exchange of ideas among the Fellows during their time in the Center, as well as to encourage interactions between the Fellows and the Emory community. During the spring of their fellowship year, Postdoctoral Fellows are expected to offer an interdisciplinary undergraduate seminar on a subject of their choosing, which will be offered in the College through the Institute of the Liberal Arts, which hosts two disciplinary majors, Interdisciplinary Studies (IDS) 385 or American Studies (AMST) 385: ila.emory.edu/home/undergraduate/schedules/index.html. Please be prepared to enter your Course Title, Description, and Course Materials when prompted.
• Project Abstract / Project Description / Project Timeline: Please place together in one complete document file for uploading:
- Project Abstract: 100 words maximum, 12-point type, double-spaced
- Project Description: 1000 words maximum, 12-point type, double-spaced Applicants should describe the specific research planned for the period of the FCHI Fellowship, explaining the basic humanistic ideas, problems, or questions to be explored. Included should be explanations of the objectives and significance of the project, and the methodology to be employed. The project description should make clear any preliminary work already completed, the present state of the proposed research, and any stages to be completed after the FCHI Fellowship ends. Applicants should detail the expected results of research conducted during the Fellowship period, including the ultimate forms of public presentation of their results (books, journal articles, lectures, papers, public humanities projects, etc.). In your project description, please include your vision for interdisciplinary contribution and engagement.
- Project Timeline: 1 page maximum An outline of plans and goals for the project during the Fellowship year, including expected dates of completion for each, should be included. Applicants should be as precise as possible about activities planned for the Fellowship period. Please remember that Fellows are expected to be in residence at the FCHI full-time each semester.
• Curriculum Vitae: no more than 3 pages
• Department Chair’s Letter Approving Leave: Required only for applicants who currently hold regular academic appointments elsewhere. Please have your Department Chair email the letter directly to foxcenter@emory.edu with APPLICANT (Your Name) in the subject line.
It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure that all required documents are uploaded to Interfolio and submitted. Incomplete applications cannot be considered after the deadline.
ACCEPTANCE PROCEDURES
Upon notification of an FCHI Postdoctoral Fellows Program Award, recipients must agree to:
(a) conduct research in residence full-time at the FCHI for the academic year;
(b) take full responsibility for contributing to and maintaining an environment conducive to academic research while at the Center;
(c) submit a final report of progress to the Director at the end of the Fellowship;
(d) acknowledge the FCHI in all work resulting from research and writing done during the Fellowship;
(e) teach an undergraduate course in the spring term of the Fellowship year;
(f) attend all Fellows’ lunches, lectures, and programs sponsored by the FCHI during their terms of residence;
(g) immediately notify the FCHI of any other support or of any conflicts with the restrictions and conditions of this Fellowship Program;
(h) for three years following the Fellowship, provide written reports to the Director of the FCHI detailing how their teaching and research has been influenced by the time spent during the Fellowship;
(i) if applicable, return to their Emory University positions for the year immediately following their Fellowship.
PLEASE NOTE:
Because the Postdoctoral Fellows Program was established in part to create a diverse community of scholars in residence at the Center as well as to introduce Emory University to promising work beyond its walls, currently preference will be given to applicants who are not affiliated with Emory.
If you accept another fellowship before notification about the FCHI Program, please inform the FCHI as soon as possible so that alternates can be contacted promptly.
If for any reason a Fellow’s circumstances change (such as Sabbatical Leave, Leave Without Pay, or the receipt of any grant or award that conflicts with the restrictions and conditions of this Fellowship), and the grantee is unable to use the Fellowship during the academic year for which it was granted, the Fellowship will be forfeited.
If the project involves human subjects, approval from the proper Emory Institutional Review Board Committee (IRB) is required before Fellowship funding can be released. For more information, please refer to this website: https://www.irb.emory.edu.
If you have any questions, please contact the Fox Center at foxcenter@emory.edu.
The FCHI regrets that currently it is unable to provide any assessments of unsuccessful applications.
Application Process
This institution is using Interfolio's Faculty Search to conduct this search. Applicants to this position receive a free Dossier account and can send all application materials, including confidential letters of recommendation, free of charge.
