The Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University invites applications for one-year postdoctoral fellowships in connection with the Center’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation seminar on the topic of migration and the humanities.
Migration plays as critical a role in the moral imagination of the humanities as it does in shaping the activist vision of humanitarianism and human rights. Too often, the humanities are summoned merely as witnesses whose primary aesthetic and moral values lie in their illustrative powers of empathy and evocation. Yet the intellectual formation of the humanities – their very conception of the nature of meaning, knowledge, and morals – is deeply resonant with the displacement of values and the revision of norms that shape narratives of migrant lives.
The Mahindra Humanities Center welcomes applications from scholars in all fields whose work innovatively engages with migration and the humanities. In addition to pursuing their own research projects, fellows will be core participants in the bi-weekly seminar meetings for both academic terms of the fellowship. Other participants will include faculty and graduate students from Harvard and other universities in the region, and occasional visiting speakers.
Fellows will receive stipends of $65,000, medical insurance, additional research support of $2500, and (for those not already in residence in Greater Boston) $1500 in moving expenses. Fellows are expected to be in residence at Harvard for the term of the fellowship.
Applicants for 2021-22 fellowships must have received a doctorate or terminal degree in or after May 2018. Applicants without a doctorate or terminal degree must demonstrate that they have completed all requirements for a terminal degree (i.e. dissertation defence) by 1 August 2021. International scholars outside the United States are appointed under either the J-1 visa (Research Scholar status) or F-1 OPT (Optional Practical Training), depending on their circumstances. If awarded a fellowship, the term of appointment is 1 September 2021 – 31 August 2022.
