FELLOWSHIP – Human-Animal Studies

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The Animals and Society Institute (ASI) and Wesleyan Animal Studies invites applications for the eighth annual summer fellowship program for scholars pursuing research in Human-Animal Studies.

Human Animals FellowshipApplication Deadline: November 30, 2013

This interdisciplinary program was started by the ASI in 2007 and enables 6-8 fellows to pursue research in residence at Wesleyan University at the College of the Environment.  In 2010, ASI began a partnership with Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, USA which now hosts the fellowship.  Wesleyan is a selective private, coeducational, non-sectarian school of liberal arts and sciences known for the excellence of its academic and co-curricular programs.  Wesleyan’s College of the Environment was created in 2009 with a belief in the resilience of the human spirit and a desire to engage students and scholars in discussions about environmental issues and their social and political impact.

The fellowship is designed to support recipients’ individual research through mentorship, guest lectures, and scholarly exchange among fellows and opportunities to contribute to the intellectual life of the host institution.  Fellows should expect a diversity of approaches, projects, and commitments to animal protection issues.  All fellows must be in continuous residence for the duration of the program, May 28 – July 11, 2014 inclusive.

The fellowships are open to scholars from any discipline investigating a topic related to human-animal relationships.  This year, we especially encourage applications that deal with dogs, public policy, feminism, and animal sentience.

Selected topics from previous years’ programs include:

  • Animal Ethics in Cold War Literary Culture
  • Animal Experimentation and Animal Welfare in Twentieth Century Anglo-American Science
  • Animals and Colonialism
  • Animals, Technology and Future
  • Cloning Extinct Species of Mammals
  • Ethics and Politics in Environmental Discourse in India
  • Mourning Extinct Species
  • The Animal Rights Movements in France and the United   States
  • Food, Economy, Conservation, and Welfare in Veterinary Ethics
  • Legal Personhood, Animal Advocacy, and Human-Animal Relationships
  • Literary Representations of Dogs
  • The Moral Significance of Animal Cognition and the Irrelevance of Species
  • Victorian Quaker Women’s Contributions to Feminist-Animal Ethics

Fellowship Directors

Lori Gruen and Kari Weil (who host the Program), Margo DeMello, and Kenneth Shapiro

 

Amount of Award

Scholars selected to participate in the fellowship program will be awarded a stipend of $3,000 to help cover travel costs, housing, living expenses, books and other research expenses.  The fellowship does not pay for housing; fellows will be responsible for finding, and paying for, their own housing.

 

Eligibility

Applicants must (1) possess a Ph.D., J.D., M.S.W. or equivalent, or be a doctoral student at the dissertation stage; (2) have a commitment to advancing research in Human-Animal Studies; (3) be actively engaged, during the fellowship program, in a research project that culminates in a journal article, book, or other scholarly presentation; (4), be far enough along in the project that it will truly benefit from a concentrated period of work conducted on the Wesleyan campus; and (5) submit a follow-up report six months after the fellowship’s completion. Applications are encouraged from the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences, as long as a part of the project is explicitly dealing with the human-animal relationship.

 

Application Procedure
Applicants should email electronic copies of the following items to fellowshipapplication@animalsandsociety.org:

  • PenguinCover sheet with the applicant’s name, mailing address to be used for future correspondence, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail address, present rank and institution name, date Ph.D. or J.D. or M.S.W. received or expected, citizenship status, title of project, history of fellowships and grants received during the past five years. Cover sheet must also list one of the following categories to which the proposal can be positioned:

· Law, Ethics or Policy

· Quantitative Methods in Natural or Social Sciences

· Qualitative or Interpretive Approaches in the Social Sciences
· Animals and Theory or Animal Representations
In addition, please specify if you are adopting or working with a particular theoretical framework and if so which.  If your work falls between the above categories, please describe.

  • One paragraph abstract

  • Project proposal of up to three pages (single-spaced) that describes the project and indicates work completed on the project to date.  Since the description will be considered by a panel of scholars from a variety of disciplines, it should be written for non-specialists.

  • Project proposal should include clear details about what draws the candidate to animal studies, how far the applicant is along in the project, and what part of the project the applicant expects to accomplish during the course of the fellowship

  • Proposals should also include answers to these questions: What are the policy and/or ethical implications in your work? In particular, we are looking for scholarship that is directly engaged with policy.

  • Does your work inform your teaching or how might it be integrated into coursework? How does your work contribute to the field of human-animal studies generally and to the animal question in your own field?

  • Curriculum vitae of up to three pages

  • Please name all of your documents in the following manner: Smith_Proposal; Smith_Abstract; Smith_CV, etc.

  • Two letters of recommendation (pdfs of original letters recommended). These can come from the referees themselves or can come from you.

  • Applicants are responsible for contacting referees and supplying them with a description of the project.

 

Selection Process

The selection committee includes members from a range of disciplines connected to Human-Animal Studies.  Applications are evaluated on the basis of the contribution of the completed project to Human-Animal Studies, the qualifications of the applicant to complete the research, and how well the applicant’s project complements the other accepted projects.

 

Applicants will be notified by e-mail January 2014

Please address all correspondence to us at: fellowshipapplication@animalsandsociety.org