Call for Applications (Cornell PhD candidates and recent Cornell PhDs)

Eligible applicants for this search are Cornell University PhD candidates and recent Cornell PhDs.

The Humanities Scholars Program, an undergraduate research initiative in Cornell University’s College of Arts & Sciences, invites applications from scholars holding PhDs from Cornell and Cornell PhD candidates for one-year Postdoctoral Associate positions beginning August 1, 2023. The positions offer stipends of $58,000/year. Two Postdoctoral Associates will be appointed.

The Humanities Scholars Program seeks Cornell University scholars who have completed a PhD in any discipline, including the humanities, interpretive social sciences, and the creative arts; we also welcome scholars who conduct interdisciplinary research that transcends traditional disciplines. All successful candidates will be able to demonstrate experience performing scholarly research. The HSP Postdoctoral Associates are fully integrated into the Society for the Humanities’ annual cohort of Fellows, including the Wednesday seminars; preference is given to candidates intending to pursue an academic career.

The Postdoctoral Associates will be selected based on their research’s promise for cultivating interdisciplinary exchange, nurturing collaboration across academic disciplines, and building upon existing disciplinary contributions to the humanities, broadly conceived. We seek candidates who are eager to develop their skills in undergraduate pedagogy, focusing in particular on guiding and mentoring undergraduates through the process of developing and researching humanistic questions. 

We anticipate that the Postdoctoral Associates will teach one seminar per year, which is one section of SHUM 2750 Introduction to the Humanities in the spring term. As well, we expect each to supervise the one-credit course SHUM 4750 for guiding seniors through the senior thesis in the fall and spring terms. They will organize and support a regular schedule of events such as peer-to-peer workshopping of work-in-progress, workshops in oral presentation skills, careers in humanities, and other professional training, and regular coffee hours, lunches, and informal gatherings with faculty and graduate students. The successful candidate will work closely with the director and program manager to develop a schedule of events to integrate the Humanities Scholars Program students with events occurring across campus in the humanities.