ACLS fellowships for recently tenured scholars

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American Council of Learned Societies announces a new program!
FREDERICK BURKHARDT RESIDENTIAL FELLOWSHIPS FOR RECENTLY TENURED SCHOLARS

Deadline:       October 1, 1999
Amount: up to $65,000
Tenure: one academic year, plus institutional support for an additional
period

Thanks to the generous assistance of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the
ACLS announces the availability of a small number of new Frederick Burkhardt
Residential Fellowships for Recently Tenured Scholars engaged in long-term,
unusually ambitious projects in the humanities and social sciences.
Appropriate fields of specialization include but are not limited to:
anthropology, archaeology, art history, economics, geography, history,
languages and literatures, law, linguistics, musicology, philosophy,
political science, psychology, religion, and sociology. Proposals in the
social science fields listed above are eligible only if they employ
predominantly humanistic approaches (e.g., economic history, law and
literature, political philosophy). Proposals in interdisciplinary and
cross-disciplinary studies are welcome, as are proposals focused on any
geographic region or on any cultural or linguistic group.

The ACLS will award approximately 9 Burkhardt Fellowships per year in this
and the next two years to recently tenured humanists at institutions in the
US and Canada; each fellowship carries a stipend of $65,000. (These new
Fellowships are in addition to the 60 offered through the ACLS Fellowship
Program.)

Burkhardt Fellowships are intended to support an academic year (normally
nine months) of residence at any one of nine national residential research
centers. Such an environment, beyond providing free time, encourages
exchanges across disciplinary lines that can be especially helpful to
deepening and expanding the significance of projects in the humanities and
related social sciences. This year's successful applicants may take up the
fellowship in 2000-2001 or in either of the succeeding two academic years.

The objectives of this new program are three:
1) To encourage more adventurous, more wide-ranging, and longer term
patterns of research than are current in these disciplines;
2) To link a small number of outstanding scholars and their projects to one
of a limited number of residential study centers with an established record
of advancing multi-disciplinary scholarship;
3) To sustain the scholarly momentum of the emerging intellectual leaders in
fields of the humanities and related social sciences.

Applications are invited that extend the frame within which research is
planned in ways that will encourage conceptualizing and bringing to
completion projects of wide scope and high significance. Such work might
compare historical or literary trends across two or more cultures; might
require command of two or more scholarly disciplines to advance analysis;
might explore topics which require the combining of insights from two or
more fields of the humanities; or might 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.

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. Assurance will be required from the administrative leadership
of the scholar's home institution (Dean, Provost, or President) 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 (see below). The overall
structure of support would thus include:
1) An academic year's leave funded by ACLS under the new Burkhardt
Fellowship Program, with a stipend of $65,000 and residence at a major
inter-disciplinary center for advanced study, or national research library,
with distinguished records of fostering significant scholarly
accomplishment. To accommodate Fellows' personal schedules, the
participating residential centers and libraries have agreed to permit
successful applicants to specify one of the succeeding three years for
residency and to hold a place for them; applicants will be required to
adhere to that schedule. (If the $65,000 stipend exceeds the Fellow's normal
academic year salary, the excess will be available for research and travel
expenses.) Applicants to the current competition must normally have begun
their tenured contracts on or after October 1, 1995, and must be citizens or
permanent residents of the US or Canada.
2) 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, funded by the home institution.
3) Since projects are expected to be long-term, and since these fellowships
provide full-salary support for a full academic year, work plans should be
designed to take maximum advantage of existing leave and/or sabbatical
policies at home institutions; that is, these fellowships should be viewed
as incremental to institutionally approved leave policies. Such
institutionally granted research support could be used for the "final spurt"
necessary to bring the project to completion. The ACLS will waive its normal
requirement of a waiting period between funded leaves for successful
applicants for Burkhardt Fellowships.

The following nine residential research centers will participate in this
program: The National Humanities Center (Research Triangle Park, NC); the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Palo Alto); the
Institute for Advanced Study, Schools of Historical Studies and Social
Science (Princeton); the American Antiquarian Society, and the Folger,
Newberry, and Huntington Research Libraries; the American Academy in Rome,
and Villa I Tatti (Florence). Scholars may hold Burkhardt Fellowships at any
of the above institutions, but should apply to be in residence at no more
than one: the aim is to associate scholars with the institution best suited
to advance the project. Applicants should therefore specify the center or
research library where they hope to go into residence, and give reasons why.

Note: Applicants for Burkhardt Fellowships who hope to be affiliated with
the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) should also apply directly to the
School of Historical Studies or the School of Social Science at the IAS
(Olden Lane, Princeton, NJ 08540), indicating clearly that they are applying
for an ACLS Burkhardt Fellowship; applicants to all other centers should
send their materials only to ACLS rather than to the center.

A scholar with an outstanding project may be unable for compelling personal
reasons to leave the home campus for an academic year. The ACLS Burkhardt
Selection Committee may, in an exceptional case, approve an application from
such a scholar; applicants will, however, if they remain at their own
institutions, be expected to demonstrate how they will protect themselves
from academic and administrative obligations which could distract them from
concentrated research, and how their projects will be intellectually
enhanced under such conditions.

Scholars are, of course, free to apply both for Burkhardt Fellowships and
for the standard forms of support offered directly by all nine of the
participating centers, as well as those offered by ACLS.

Completed application forms must be postmarked no later than October 1,
1999.  Awards will be announced in mid-February, 2000.  Application forms
are available at our Website, at <www.acls.org/appform.htm>. The forms are
in PDF format and can be printed out using Adobe Acrobat Reader. The
application must then be completed and mailed to ACLS according to the
program deadline.

A hard copy of the application form may be requested by any one of the
following means.
e-mail: grants at acls.org
Internet:  www.acls.org/appform.htm
fax:  212-949-8058
mail: Office of Fellowships and Grants, ACLS, 228 East 45th Street, New
York, New York 10017-3398

ANY APPLICATION REQUEST MUST CONTAIN THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION
1.      Highest academic degree held and date received;
2.      Country of citizenship or permanent legal residence;
3.      Academic position and institution;
4.      Field of specialization;
5.      Proposed subject of research;
6.      Specific award program for which application is requested;
Note: Application forms will be sent only by U.S. Postal Service first-class
mail, or airmail to addresses abroad.  Application forms will not be sent or
accepted by fax or e-mail.