Deadline for 2010 Burkhardt Residential Fellowships

Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship for Recently Tenured Scholars

Deadline:  September 30, 2009

The Institute for the Arts and Humanities announces for the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) the 11th annual competition for the Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowships for Recently Tenured Scholars, supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. These fellowships support long-term, unusually ambitious projects in the humanities and related social sciences that will result in a major piece of scholarly work by the applicant.

Burkhardt Fellowships support an academic year of residence at any one of the national residential research centers participating in the program and provide a stipend of $75,000. UNC will provide the successful applicant a summer’s support (usually estimated at 2/9 salary) and/or equivalent reduction of teaching and administrative duties at some point in the post-fellowship stage. 

Applicants must submit proposals through the ACLS Online Fellowship Application system at ofa.acls.org no later than 9 p.m., September 30, 2009. Decisions will be announced in February 2010. Visit http://www.acls.org for application requirements; the Burkhardt is listed under Fellowships and Grants, Competitions and Deadlines.

Internal Application Process

Because projects are long-term and fellowships provide full salary support for an academic year, applicants should design a work plan to take full advantage of existing leave and/or sabbatical policies at home institutions. Applicants for the Burkhardt Residential Fellowship are strongly encouraged to contact John McGowan, director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities (962-0249), to consider how UNC can support their proposed research.

Proposals should show evidence of significant preliminary work already completed and a plan of work, typically in the five-year range, to be carried out. At UNC, IAH Director John McGowan will fulfill the role of assuring the ACLS that the applicant is an especially promising member of its humanities faculty and that the institution is prepared to make its own contributions—beyond providing normal fringe benefits during the fellowship year—to assist the scholar in bringing the project to completion. 

Eligibility

The Burkhardt Fellowship Program is open to recently tenured humanists who will have begun their first tenured contracts by the application deadline but began their first tenured contracts no earlier than the fall 2005 semester. ACLS does not fund creative work (e.g., novels), textbooks, straightforward translation or pedagogical projects.

Applications should reflect a research plan to conceptualize and complete a project of wide scope and high significance. Such work might compare historical or literary trends across two or more cultures; require command of two or more scholarly disciplines to advance analysis; explore topics that require the combining of insights from two or more fields of the humanities; or attempt a new interpretation of the work of a significant writer, artist, composer, or thinker. Long-term institutional histories and critical analyses of major cultural traditions are also examples.

Applicants must specify the center or research library where they hope to go into residence and must commit themselves to relocating as needed in order to be in residence for the tenure of the fellowship. A full listing of participating centers and research libraries is available on the Burkhardt Residential Fellowship page on the ACLS Web site (http://www.acls.org).