King's College Cambridge Junior Research Fellowships

Andrew W. Mellon and King’s College Junior Research Fellowship in Punishment  2020 / ­2024 & Andrew W. Mellon & King’s College Junior Research Fellowship in Prejudice 2020­ / 2024

A Junior Research Fellowship is a postdoctoral position tenable for up to 4 years. Applications are welcome from graduates of any university. Candidates will usually have completed their PhD, but must not have undertaken more than 2 years of postdoctoral work by 1st October 2020 (i.e. your PhD cannot have been granted before 30th September 2018).

This competition is receiving applications from 24 July 2019. The closing date for applications, including references, is 9 a.m. on Thursday, 5th September 2019.

Further Particulars Junior Research Fellowship in Punishment

Assisted by the generosity of the Mellon Foundation, which is funding the first two years of this Fellowship, King’s College Cambridge is able to invite applications for a four-year Junior Research Fellowship from those who are completing or have recently completed a doctorate and who intend to pursue a research project on some aspect of the study of punishment.

Notwithstanding Foucault’s ground-breaking and much-cited work, there is remarkable little understanding either of the historic or of the current rationale for conventions regarding punishment (by which we mean all forms of punishment, not merely punishments mandated by law), on the one hand, or of its effects (on the society which metes out the punishments as well as on those punished). Yet decisions about who to punish for what and in what ways massively shape all political societies at every level, and have major ramifications for personal and societal relations and attitudes. Punishment is therefore an urgent political and social question, begging to be addressed from across the disciplines in the arts, humanities and social sciences, as a philosophical, theological, psychological, sociological, anthropological, legal, historical problem and indeed a problem in literary and visual culture.

This post-doctoral fellowship is intended to encourage research into punishment by enabling the successful candidate to complete a substantial research project on their chosen aspect of punishment in the context of any Arts, Humanities or Social Science discipline, broadly conceived: viz. anthropology, archaeology, architecture, classics, criminology, economics, English and other literatures, history, the history of art, the history of science, law, linguistics, musicology, philosophy,  psychology, sociology, theology.

The ideal candidate for this Junior Research Fellowship will have a strong background in one or more disciplines within the Arts, Humanities, or Social Sciences and have completed an outstanding doctoral thesis. It is not a requirement that the candidate’s doctoral studies or the work that they submit in support of their application should have concerned questions of punishment, but candidates will be expected to show in their applications both how their future work relates to the work that they have already done, and to explain clearly how their proposed project relates to existing studies on punishment. The successful candidate will be expected to engage broadly with the whole college community and to organise academic activities in the form of seminars/workshops/conferences (for which the College is able to provide modest funding).

The successful candidate will join a lively body of post-doctoral research Fellows working across a wide range of ‘grand challenge’ problems that affect societies in an interconnected world, and facilitating a flow of critical knowledge from the university into the community by bringing major community issues into the university. Our existing Arts and Humanities JRFs work on issues of Urban Studies, Gender Studies, Race, Equality, Representation and Immateriality. It is the aim of these projects to develop and consolidate crucial fields of study that are currently too narrowly restricted in their practitioners and/or their objects of analysis, and to strengthen the intellectual framework for international and global approaches to the humanities by tackling related issues that can only properly be understood when tackled globally.

King’s is advertising simultaneously for JRFs in punishment and in prejudice. A candidate who wishes to be considered in both competitions should complete two applications with two separate appropriate projects. Referees may submit the same references fo both competitions but are asked to submit them separately.

Junior Research Fellows are members of the Governing Body, with full privileges of Fellows. In addition to pursuing research, a Junior Research Fellow is required to live in Cambridge or close by and to participate in College life and activity. Privileges include all meals, limited financial support for expenses associated with research, the possibility of an office and accommodation in College properties. Although these are research posts, Junior Research Fellows are encouraged to take advantage of opportunities to undertake a small amount of University and/or College teaching.

The stipend attached to all Junior Research Fellowships is £21,716 (pre award of doctorate) rising each year to a maximum of £27,949, according to age and academic qualification. Additional payment is made for teaching. A living-out allowance of £4,000 is made to those not living in college. Further information about the College may be obtained from the College website (www.kings.cam.ac.uk).

Further details Junior Research Fellowship in Prejudice

Assisted by the generosity of the Mellon Foundation, which is funding the first two years of this Fellowship, King’s College Cambridge is able to invite applications for a four-year Junior Research Fellowship from those who are completing or have recently completed a doctorate and who intend to pursue a research project on some aspect of the study of prejudice.

Because of the appalling consequences of racial prejudice, on the one hand, and because of the deep-seated nature of prejudices based on sexuality and gender, on the other, prejudice as such has gone largely unexamined. But when does the discrimination involved in proper judgement become socially and morally deleterious prejudice? Neither the full range of the operation of prejudice nor the consequences of drawing the line between proper judgement and improper prejudice are properly understood, either in theory or practice. Education and cultural life depend upon discrimination, and classification is an essential, if also problematic, part of coming to know the world. Yet discrimination and classification are the tools too of corrosive social, political, and intellectual prejudice.

This call for applications is open to investigations of prejudice as such, as a philosophical, political, or sociological concept, to investigations of the operation of prejudice in all branches of life and learning in the past and the present, and to investigations of the consequences of prejudice, historical or contemporary.

This post-doctoral Fellowship is intended to encourage research into prejudice by enabling the successful candidate to complete a substantial research project on their chosen aspect of prejudice in the context of any Arts, Humanities or Social Science discipline, broadly conceived: viz. anthropology, archaeology, architecture, classics, criminology, economics, English and other literatures, history, the history of art, the history of science, law, linguistics, musicology, philosophy,  psychology, sociology, theology.

The ideal candidate for this Junior Research Fellowship will have a strong background in one or more disciplines within the Arts, Humanities, or Social Sciences and have completed an outstanding doctoral thesis. It is not a requirement that the candidate’s doctoral studies or the work that they submit in support of their application should have concerned questions of prejudice, but candidates will be expected to show in their applications both how their future work relates to the work that they have already done, and to explain clearly how their proposed project relates to existing studies on prejudice. The successful candidate will be expected to engage broadly with the whole college community and to organise academic activities in the form of seminars/workshops/conferences (for which the College is able to provide modest funding).

The successful candidate will join a lively body of post-doctoral research Fellows working across a wide range of ‘grand challenge’ problems that affect societies in an interconnected world, and facilitating a flow of critical knowledge from the university into the community by bringing major community issues into the university. Our existing Arts and Humanities JRFs work on issues of Urban Studies, Gender Studies, Race, Equality, Representation and Immateriality. It is the aim of these projects to develop and consolidate crucial fields of study that are currently too narrowly restricted in their practitioners and/or their objects of analysis, and to strengthen the intellectual framework for international and global approaches to the humanities by tackling related issues that can only properly be understood when tackled globally.

King’s is advertising simultaneously for JRFs in prejudice and in punishment. A candidate who wishes to be considered in both competitions should complete two applications with two separate appropriate projects. Referees may submit the same references fo both competitions but are asked to submit them separately.

Junior Research Fellows are members of the Governing Body, with full privileges of Fellows. In addition to pursuing research, a Junior Research Fellow is required to live in Cambridge or close by and to participate in College life and activity. Privileges include all meals, limited financial support for expenses associated with research, the possibility of an office and accommodation in College properties. Although these are research posts, Junior Research Fellows are encouraged to take advantage of opportunities to undertake a small amount of University and/or College teaching.

The stipend attached to all Junior Research Fellowships is £21,716 (pre award of doctorate) rising each year to a maximum of £27,949, according to age and academic qualification. Additional payment is made for teaching. A living-out allowance of £4,000 is made to those not living in college. Further information about the College may be obtained from the College website (www.kings.cam.ac.uk).

Eligibility

Graduates of any university are eligible. Candidates will usually have completed their PhD but must not have undertaken more than 2 years of postdoctoral work by 1st October 2020 (i.e. your PhD cannot have been granted before 30th September 2018).

Dates

The closing date for application is 9 am on Thursday, 5th September 2019. Applications received after this date and time will not be considered. Short-listed candidates will be invited for interview on either Wednesday, 15th January 2020 or Thursday, 17th January 2020. Please ensure that you will be available for interview on these dates, as it is not possible to arrange other times for interviews. The Fellowship will begin on 1st October 2020 and will run until 30th September 2024.

Application

To apply go to the FAS website and create an application.

Before the closing date, applicants must complete all sections of the online Fellowship Application and upload onto the website (PDF only) the following:

• A curriculum vitae (of no more than three A4 sides) including details of higher education, degrees awarded, positions held and a list of publications.
• A document (of no more than 1200 words in length) containing descriptions of your current research and of the research you propose to undertake during the Fellowship.
• Applicants must also arrange for three letters of recommendation to be uploaded onto the site in PDF format by the closing date of the competition, 9 am on Thursday, 5th September 2019. Each referee should be asked to provide the names of two further readers, not in the candidate’s institution, to whom work might be sent if the candidate is long-listed. It is the duty of the candidate to ensure that the referees submit the references and the names of two readers before the closing date.

Your referees will need to provide their references through the FAS website. They will be sent an email containing a link to do this. Referees unable to submit references electronically via the FAS website may e-mail bronach.james@kings.cam.ac.uk to send them directly to the competition administrator.

Please note that all application materials must be in the English language.

The application will not be considered in the competition until it has been submitted and all references, including the names of additional readers, have been received. An email will be sent once this has occurred.

In late September or early October, the College will contact long-listed applicants by email to ask for samples of written work, up to 20,000 words (either published papers or chapters of a doctoral thesis). This work must be supplied within a week of the sending of the e-mail.

Travel expenses

A successful candidate travelling from outside the UK to take up a Fellowship may claim travel and removal expenses up to a level agreed in advance with the Bursar of the College.

Further questions

If you have any further questions regarding any aspect of the competition, please e-mail bronach.james@kings.cam.ac.uk to reach the competition administrator.

King’s College follows an equal opportunities policy.