Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Humanities as Social Practice

Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Humanities as Social Practice,

2023–2024

The Humanities Research Institute (HRI) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, seeks to hire a Post-Doctoral Fellow for a one-year appointment commencing Fall 2023.

The Humanities as Social Practice draw on interdisciplinary arenas of inquiry that have direct impact on contemporary issues. When the humanities are conceived of as a social practice, they have the capacity to move between the academy that nurtures them as fields of study and the communities, local and global, they both seek to serve and must be accountable to, especially in a public research university. As form of “public humanities,” this practice is collaborative and cross-disciplinary, drawing on a range of methodologies and seeks to recognize academic knowledge-making beyond the walls of the university. Through its social practices, the humanities have the capacity to challenge hierarchies of knowing and expertise, in part by engaging audiences and communities beyond campus, in part by embedding reciprocal partnerships in all aspects of research, pedagogy, and public engagement. Practices rooted in critical humanities training are attentive to social differences and disparities, aiming to re-center the human condition and collective community needs in an increasingly tech-driven world.

The Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Humanities as Social Practice will spend the one-year term in residence at UIUC, participating in the yearlong HRI Fellows Seminar and in the variety of publicly engaged humanities work ongoing at HRI and on campus. The Fellow will pursue a project rooted in participatory community-based research and designed to amplify what the humanities as a social practice can and should look like, both in their field(s) and in the larger ecosystem of campus and local communities. They will be required to make a public presentation of their work and run a workshop for graduate students interested in developing pathways to the humanities as a social practice in their own work in the spring semester of 2024.

The search is open to scholars in all humanities disciplines, including the humanities-inflected social sciences, whose research interests lie in the area of community-based social justice and human rights. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, community-based research in racial, im/migrant, and/or gender justice; public health; environmental justice; Indigenous sovereignty; and disability studies.

The fellowship carries a $60,000 annual stipend, a $6,000 research account, a modest moving allowance, and a comprehensive benefits package. To be eligible, applicants should have received their Ph.D. in a humanities discipline between January 1, 2021 and no later than July 31, 2023.

Application Deadline: November 28, 2022

Detailed eligibility requirements and application guidelines can be found at http://go.illinois.edu/postdoc. The University of Illinois conducts criminal background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer. The University of Illinois is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action employer. Minorities, women, veterans and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply. 

Applications must be submitted through the online application system. The submission period opens October 1, 2022.

Questions about these fellowships may be addressed to Dr. Nancy Castro, Deputy Director of HRI, at ncastro@illinois.edu or (217) 244-7913.