Skip to main content

Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Classics
Academic Years 2020-2022
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

With the sponsorship of the Society for the Humanities, the Department of Classics invites applications for a two-year Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship position beginning August 1, 2020. The fellowship offers a stipend of $53,000/year.

Cornell’s Classics Department seeks a postdoctoral fellow whose work, while addressing any area of classics as broadly defined, engages with critical race or postcolonial theory in a sustained and meaningful way. For example, this may include applying theoretical approaches such as intersectionality or employing the work of subaltern studies to any of the many subfields of classics including work in the field of classical reception. Applications are welcome from scholars working on literature, history, thought, or material or visual culture (etc.), but we particularly encourage those with an interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary research trajectory and project. Scholars who intersect with, and wish to address classics in terms of, other fields and wider theoretical interests will be especially sought and welcome (and depending on specific focus we would welcome collaboration with an appropriate partner department or interdisciplinary Program at Cornell).

Postdoctoral Fellows teach one course per semester. Candidates should propose an introductory, 2000-level course focused on people at the margins of society, and an advanced, 4000-level course designed focusing on critical exploration of the reception of classics (whether in antiquity itself or thereafter). These courses should be conceived of as smaller seminars, and can reflect the fellow’s particular research interests.

Eligibility Requirements

Applicants eligible for the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 academic years include those who have received the Ph.D. degree after September 1, 2014 and no later than June 30, 2020. Applicants who do not have the Ph.D. in hand at the time of application must include a letter from the committee chair or department stating that the Ph.D. degree will be conferred before the term of the fellowship begins. International applicants are welcome to apply, contingent upon visa eligibility.

Application Procedures

The following application materials must be submitted via Academic Jobs Online position #14034, https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/14034 by November 1, 2019.

  1. Cover page (will be generated via your AJO account):
    (a) Full name and home institution
    (b) Date (or expected date) of Ph.D
    (c) Research interest(s)
    (d) Referees’ names and emails
  2. Curriculum vitae
  3. Detailed statement of research interests (1,000 – 2,000 words)
  4. Course proposal with sample syllabus for introductory, 2000-level course
  5. Course proposal with sample syllabus for upper, 4000-level course
  6. One writing sample [30-page limit]
  7. Letter of degree conferral (only for applicants who do not have the Ph.D. in hand by November 1, 2018)
  8. Three letters of recommendation. Please ask referees to upload their letters directly through the link provided by Academic Jobs Online. Letters must be received on or before November 1, 2019.

For further information:
Phone: 607-255-9274
Email: humctr@cornell.edu

Society for the Humanities:

The Society for the Humanities was established at Cornell University in 1966 to support research and teaching in the humanities. It is intended to be at once a research institute, a stimulus to educational innovation, and a continuing society of scholars. The Society and its Fellows have fostered path-breaking interdisciplinary dialogue and theoretical reflection on the humanities at large.

Mellon Postdoctoral Fellows are invited to attend all of the Society’s events, and expected to participate in the Society’s weekly Wednesday Fellows Seminar and luncheon.

societyhumanities.as.cornell.edu

Diversity and Inclusion are a part of Cornell University’s heritage. We are an employer and educator recognized for valuing AA/EEO, Protected Veterans, and Individuals with Disabilities.