CALL FOR PROPOSALS for Faculty Research Fellows
The Humanities Center at Carleton
The Faculty Fellows Program
Intellectual life at Carleton is the most engaged and productive when faculty are debating
new ideas that infuse both their teaching and their research. To this end, the [Virtual]
Humanities Center seeks to encourage these integrative connections by initiating the
Faculty Research Fellows Program. Each year a group of faculty will meet in a Research
Seminar around a central question or theme. The multidisciplinary group will assume a
double function: 1) promoting excellence and innovation in scholarship, and 2) extending
the resulting intellectual excitement to the rest of the campus through a public forum.
Interdisciplinary publications or joint book projects are not the explicit goal of the Faculty
Research Seminar, though such work might emerge on occasion. Rather, the Seminar will
be a locus of exchange and advancement of scholarly inquiry; participants’ work on their
own projects will inevitably be strengthened and enhanced by the multidisciplinary focus
of the collaborative group.
The Research Seminar will meet throughout the academic year. The Seminar will follow a
schedule established by the Faculty Fellows, but normally the group will meet for a winter
break workshop, and then roughly twice a month for the remainder of year. Ideally, the
participants will each teach a course related to the theme or will incorporate questions
raised by the theme into their own classes during the year. Participants will receive a
stipend of $2000 (the Seminar Leader $2500), and as well as a book budget of up to $500
per Seminar. In addition to contributing to the collaborative group and advancing their
own research, they will design (with the administrative help of the Center) and participate
in a public forum, which might include a seminar with a visiting scholar, a music, dance
or theater production, library exhibits, student/faculty panels, student videos or other
multi-media presentations. At the end of the year, each faculty member will write a brief
report summarizing the year’s project.
Seminar Themes
Possible themes for the Research Seminar are infinite and will arise from the faculty. These
themes might emerge in conjunction with other interdisciplinary programs on campus and
include such topics as “The Environment,” "Death and Dying," “Globalization,”
Humanities Center – Call for Proposals - 2
"Hierarchies of Knowledges," "Magic and Miracles," “The Anatomy of Exile,”
“Regenerative Issues,” and “Growing Old, Past and Present.”
Sample Year 1: The Human Body in Time and Space
(An exploration of the human body as signifier and its relationship to theology, aging,
torture, gender, and ritual.)
Potential Participants: Faculty members from Religion, Spanish, Chemistry, Dance,
Biology, Physics, or Sociology
Sample Year 2: Aftermaths of War: Memory and Forgetting
(An examination of what remains after wars, past and present: the role of witnessing,
commemoration, collective amnesia, and reparation.)
Potential Participants: faculty members from History, Political Science, Psychology, Art
History, German and Russian, Economics, English, or Theater.
Sample Year 3: Word and Image
(A theoretical inquiry into the relationships between language and visuality, including
questions of visual culture, poetry, mathematical or scientific modeling, and cultural
contingencies.)
Potential Participants: faculty members from Studio Art, Philosophy, Classics, French and
Francophone Studies, Mathematics, CAMS, Music, or Anthropology
The Application Process
1. Potential Research Seminar Leaders are invited to submit a two-page proposal
developing a topic and rationale for the year-long collaboration. Priority will be given to
themes that draw from a variety of disciplines. While the main focus of the Seminar is
faculty research and interdisciplinary exchange, ideally the theme will complement and
enhance existing programs and curricular initiatives at Carleton. The proposal should
include a preliminary bibliography/reading list of relevant works, as well as an indication
of a few other people on campus who, given their current work, might be interested in the
proposed topic. The Director of the Center will be happy to meet with faculty who are in
the process of drafting such proposals to discuss their projects.
2. After the submission of proposals for themes, the Advisory Board will make a selection
based on each topic’s potential for promoting multidisciplinary collaboration and
enhancing existing initiatives. A general call for Faculty Research Fellows will then be
launched, at which time potential Fellows should submit a two-page proposal indicating
the ways in which the Seminar would enhance their research as well as a description of
Humanities Center – Call for Proposals - 3
their proposed project and the contributions they would be able to make to the
collaborative group.
3. A group of approximately five to seven Faculty Research Fellows will be chosen by the
Advisory Board in consultation with the Seminar Leader, with preference given to faculty
from a variety of disciplines. Faculty of all ranks (and, where applicable, staff) with a
scholarly interest in the particular theme are invited to apply. Faculty from fields other
than the humanities are actively encouraged to participate.
Given the selection process for the Research Seminar, current members of the Advisory
Board are not eligible to apply. In the future, preference will be given to those who have
not participated in a Seminar for five years.
Deadlines for the 2009-2010 Academic Year
(The early deadlines will allow participants to plan their classes for the following year
with the theme of the Seminar in mind.)
1. Proposals for themes from potential Seminar Leaders should be sent to
cyandell@carleton.edu no later than Friday, 9 January 2009, 5 p.m.
2. An announcement of the chosen theme will be sent out the week of 12 January.
Proposals to participate in the Seminar as a Faculty Research Fellow are due Friday, 6
February, 2009, 5 p.m., to cyandell@carleton.edu.
Members of the Advisory Board of the Humanities Center: Deborah Appleman, Jorge
Brioso, Carol Donelan, Andrew Fisher, Susan Jaret McKinstry, Silvia López, and Susannah
Ottaway. Shahzad Bashir, Scott Bierman, Mark Gleason, Rob Oden, and Diet Prowe
(Emeritus) were also instrumental in the founding of the Center.
If you have questions, please contact Cathy Yandell at cyandell@carleton.edu or 222-4245.