Postdoctoral Fellowship for Testimonies in Ladino, Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
A brief description
The Fortunoff Video Archive is a collection within the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. The Archive, which began as a grassroots effort in New Haven to record on video the testimonies of survivors, witnesses, and bystanders in 1979, currently holds more than 4,400 testimonies comprising over 10,000 hours of moving image materials. These testimonies were produced with the cooperation of 37 affiliate projects working in over a dozen countries and just as many languages. The archive is still recording testimony at Yale University. The Fortunoff Archive is a unique collection that has served as an important resource for scholarship in a wide range of disciplines for more than three decades. The program is designed as a dynamic, multidisciplinary fellowship that will encourage use of the Fortunoff Video Archive as a foundation for scholarly research and production.
Fellowship length
The Fortunoff Video Archive will offer a fellowship to a visiting postdoctoral scholar with expertise in Ladino, Sephardic history, and a particular focus on the 20th Century history of Jewish Salonika during the Holocaust.
The fellowship is offered for between six months and one academic year – depending on experience, career position, and needs. For instance, a more senior scholar may require a six-month position to complement a sabbatical.
Scholars and researchers from around the world are invited to apply. Preference will be given to applicants from outside the Yale community.
This fellowship encourages applications from scholars in history and other fields in the humanities and social sciences who can demonstrate the value of research in the collection to their ongoing work. The fellowship start date is negotiable, but applicants must have their Ph.D. in hand prior to application.
Fellowship details
The fellowship offers a salary as well as travel funding. The location of the fellowship is negotiable, but preference will be given to candidates willing to spend significant time in Thessaloniki working closely with faculty at Aristotle University.
Fellows will be asked to produce two critical editions of Ladino testimonies from the Fortunoff Archive collection, working closely with the Director of the Fortunoff Archive, the Archive’s Head of Academic Programs, and Faculty at the Aristotle University. A critical edition consists of an annotated transcript of the testimony in the original language, and a translation in English. The annotations are conceived as a means to provide important historical and contextual information to illuminate the complexities of the unedited narrative. The critical edition will include a short essay describing the significance of this particular testimony to the fellow’s current research effort. During the fellowship, the fellow will be asked to present their research as a “work in progress” to the Yale community. The postdoctoral scholar will also be expected to participate actively in supporting the work of the archive, in particular in an outreach capacity in Thessaloniki.
Applications
Applications for the postdoctoral fellowship are due June 1, 2024. Applicants are required to submit a packet with the following information:
- a cover letter and current curriculum vitae in English
- a letter of recommendation
Application materials may be submitted in PDF form by email to Fortunoff.archive@yale.edu.
Once an application or letter of reference has been submitted, no revisions will be accepted. A fellowship review committee will examine all valid applications and the award will be announced approximately two months after the application deadline has passed.
This fellowship is being offered as part of a grant from the Claims Conference titled "Unlocking Survivor Testimony: Open Access Annotated Critical Editions and Translations of Non-English Holocaust Testimonies."
