Haverford College is pleased to have the support of the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation in establishing an endowed fellowship program designed to nurture
the professional potential of an emerging generation of young humanists. As
a liberal arts college dedicated to the complementary pursuits of excellent
teaching and advanced scholarship, Haverford has a profound stake in ensuring
continuity in the tradition of scholar-teachers. We likewise believe that
an institution such as ours, with its opportunities for faculty development
through intimate interdisciplinary exchange and innovative pedagogy, provides
an ideal setting for cultivating the creative energies of young scholars.
At the same time, Haverford has much to gain from the steady infusion of fresh
intellectual and pedagogical perspectives brought by the Fellows from their
recent university training and experience.
Haverford’s program for Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellows is organized to
provide five key instruments of professional advancement: meaningful teaching
(Fellows teach one course per term, with the expectation that they will supplement
the curriculum with innovative course designs); collaborative intellectual
exploration (through participation during the first year in the year-long
Humanities Center Faculty Seminar); interaction with the broader world of
scholarship and public life (focused in the Fellowship’s second year
through the staging of a symposium connected to the Fellow’s teaching
and research interests); mentoring (through association with host departments
and programs, as well as the Faculty Seminar); and the time and resources
for scholarly endeavor (a reduced teaching load, support for research, and
funds for travel to professional conferences).
Current Fellows
Michael
Booth is the Hurford Humanities Center Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow
for 2006-2008. Professor Booth came to Haverford from Boston University, where
he was Assistant Professor of Humanities; he has also taught at Brandeis University
and at Georgetown University. His doctoral work focused on the relationships
between science and language, and between science and literature, during the
Early Modern period.
His book (in progress), "Shakespeare and the Blending Mind," applies
recent developments in cognitive science to the concerns of literary study,
and he is organizing a symposium with the same title, to take place at Haverford
on the 18th and 19th of April, 2008. Michael Booth's courses at Haverford
this year are "English Literature in the Age of Discovery" (fall
semester) and "Theory and Practice of Versification" (spring semester).
John Muse is currently Haverford College's Mellon Post-Doctoral
Fellow for 2007-09 in the Fine Arts Department. In 2006 he received a Ph.D.
in Rhetoric from U.C. Berkeley. His dissertation, The Rhetorical Afterlife
of Photographic Evidence: Roland Barthes, Avital Ronell, Roni Horn, co-chaired
by Judith Butler and Kaja Silverman, analyzes Barthes' numerous writings on
photography, an artwork by Horn entitled Another Water (the River Thames,
for Example), and an essay by Ronell on the videotaped beating of Rodney King,
"TraumaTV: Twelve Steps Beyond the Pleasure Principle." Muse shows
how these works use photographs to promulgate a crisis of the evident.
His single-channel videotapes and multi-media installations have been exhibited
throughout the United States and Europe. In 2003 New Langton Arts in San Francisco
staged a mid-career retrospective of the installation works that he and frequent
collaborator Jeanne C. Finley have created. In 2001 Muse and Finley received
a Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Fellowship for their experimental documentary
project, Age of Consent. In 1999 they received a Creative Capital Foundation
Award. In 1995 they received Artist in Residence fellowships from the Xerox
Palo Alto Research Center. The Patricia Sweetow Gallery in San Francisco represents
his installation works, and the Video Data Bank distributes his single-channel
works.
For information about Finley+Muse, please visit: http://www.finleymuse.com/
Search Charge for 2007-8
Results of this search wil be announced in April,
2008.
Humanities Center Seeks Mellon Post-Doc Fellow for 2008-09
The Hurford Humanities Center invites applications for
a two-year Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities to begin Fall
2008. We seek scholars interested in the illustrated book and associated technologies
of the visual. Area of specialization is open, but might include art history,
literary studies, the history of the book, visual anthropology, manuscript
studies or technologies of design. Scholars with creative or studio experience
are encouraged to apply.
During the first year of the program, the Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow will
participate in a year-long faculty seminar led by Professors C. Stephen Finley
(English) and Maud Burnett McInerney (English and Comparative Literature)
entitled “Visual and Textual
Technologies: The Illustrated Book,” an exploration of the complex
interchange between text and illustration from the Medieval to the modern.
In the second year, the Fellow will organize and present a spring symposium
funded by the Humanities Center.
During each of the four semesters of his or her time at Haverford College,
the Fellow will teach one course at the intermediate or advanced level. Applicants
should submit two brief course proposals related to their area of interest,
one for a broad-based introductory course, the other for a more specialized
or advanced course.
Candidates who have received the Ph.D. in 2003 at the earliest, or who have
completed the requirements for the Ph.D. by the application deadline of January
31, 2008 are eligible. Please submit a letter of application, curriculum vitae,
two course proposals and a writing sample of no more than 25 pages, and arrange
for three letters of recommendation to be sent to:
Emily Carey Cronin
Associate Director
John B. Hurford ’60 Humanities Center
Haverford College
Haverford PA 19041