External Faculty Fellowships

With generous funding from the Lynette S. Autrey Endowment and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Humanities Research Center hosts four visiting professors for one semester each academic year. The fellows teach a course affiliated with a humanities department and take part in the intellectual life of the Center. The HRC sponsors special symposia or conferences centered on their research. These programs give Rice faculty and students significant exposure to eminent scholars from around the world.

Applicants are eligible to apply from all humanities disciplines including, but not limited to, history, philosophy, languages, literature, linguistics, religious studies, art history and the arts. Proposals employing humanistic approaches are welcome from the social sciences, natural sciences, music, architecture, and engineering. Both junior and senior faculty members with faculty appointments at universities other than Rice are eligible, but they must be at least three years beyond receipt of the Ph.D. at the beginning of the fellowship term.

Call for 2008-2009 Fellowships (download cover sheet and full description)
Deadline: November 19, 2007

The Humanities Research Center will award up to four external faculty fellowships for one-semester appointments during the academic year 2008-2009. Applicants are asked to describe how their research project would contribute to the intellectual focus of one or more of the HRC's faculty workshops, or to interdisciplinary humanities initiatives (such as the Americas Colloquium or the Medical Humanities communities).

Selection Process
Each proposal is evaluated by members of an interdisciplinary committee comprised of the HRC Faculty Advisory Panel, and a representative member of the Dean of Humanities Planning Committee.

Criteria for Selection

• The promise of the specific research project being proposed.
• The originality and intellectual distinction of the candidate's previous work.
• The research project's potential interest to scholars in different fields of the humanities.
• The applicant's potential contribution to the intellectual community at Rice and in the HRC.

Submit the following materials by email attachment to hrc@rice.edu (subject: External Faculty Fellowship)

• Cover sheet
• Curriculum vitae
• 1000-word proposal with one-page bibliography. Please double-space and use 12-point font type. In language appropriate for a multi-disciplinary panel of non-specialist readers, the proposal should
  explain the nature and significance of the project, including its impact on larger scholarly communities within and beyond the humanities.
  include a brief history of prior research or planning, past support, and future plans for the project.
  describe the scope and resource materials of the research project, the main issues to be addressed, and the relationship of the research to other published and ongoing work in the field.
• A 250 word statement of the project's potential contribution to one or more of the HRC's faculty workshops or other interdisciplinary programs in the School of Humanities at Rice.

Request hard copy submission
Two letters of reference, solicited by the applicant and sent directly to the HRC. The most effective letters show a detailed knowledge of the candidate's past work and address directly both the importance of the proposed project and the candidate's qualifications to pursue it. General praise is less helpful to the committee.

Resubmitting proposals
In the event that a proposal is not funded, the candidate is welcome to resubmit an updated proposal in any subsequent year.

2007-2008 External Faculty Fellows

	Winfried Mennighaus, Fall 2007 Visiting Professor from Peter Szondi-Institut für Allgemeine at Freie Universität Berlin. A leading critic and theorist in aesthetic philosophy, Dr. Menninghaus has published works on Celan, Bejamin, Hölderlin, and others. He will offer three seminars at Rice, in conjunction with the HRC’s History of Philosophy Workshop led by Dr. Steven G. Crowell.
	Elliot R. Wolfson, Fall 2007  Visiting Professor from the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. Wolfson is a leading scholar in the field of Jewish mysticism and has published a trio of books representing a new direction in the field. He is also the editor of the Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy. He will teach a course on Jewish Mysticism through the Religious Studies Department while pursuing research on dreams and dream interpretation in Kabbalistic thought. In addition, Drs. Marcia Brennan and Jeffrey J. Kripal will convene a symposium, in collaboration with the HRC’s Judaic Studies Workshop led by Dr. Gregory Kaplan, centered on the work of Dr. Wolfson.
	Jacqueline G. Campbell, Fall 2007  Visiting Assistant Professor from University of Connecticut. Dr. Campbell’s research on the Civil War era, examining how race, class, and gender shape military and social history, has yielded publications including When Sherman Marched North from the Sea. She will teach a course on the Civil War and Reconstruction through the History Department. Dr. John B. Boles will also organize a lecture series centered on her work.
	Hans Poser, Spring 2008  Visiting Professor from Technischen Universität in Berlin. Dr. Poser studies the philosophy of science and technology and the history of philosophy. A former president of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Philosophie, he has also served for almost thirty years as the Vice President of the International Leibniz Society. Dr. Poser will offer a course through the Philosophy Department entitled “Introduction to Theories/Practices of Science and Technology Studies.” On the occasion of Dr. Poser’s visit, Dr. Mark A. Kulstad plans to organize the First Annual Conference of the Leibniz Society of North America at Rice.