Pembroke Center Postdoctoral Fellowships
"The Question of Critique"

Postdoctoral research fellows play a critical role in the Pembroke Center's intellectual community. In residence for one year, postdoctoral fellows undertake original research, teach undergraduate courses of their own design, participate in the Pembroke Seminar's rigorous interdisciplinary scholarly community; collaborate on research and programming, and develop professionally through faculty mentorship.
Applications for 2023-24 Pembroke Center Postdoctoral Research Fellowships are now being accepted. Please apply using Interfolio.
For the 2023-24 academic year, the Pembroke Center is awarding one-year residential postdoctoral research fellow positions to scholars from any field whose research relates to the theme of the seminar, "De-Colonial Retro-Speculation." This seminar starts with a simple desire: to look back and forward to the liberationist movements, practices, art works, and theories of the recent past (1960 to 2000) by queer, feminist, and/or global majority scholars, artists, political figures, and practitioners so as to offer new modes of understanding, and intervening into, our tumultuous present. While not imposing a progressive timeline, this seminar hopes to think through how such retro-speculation may help us understand our lives under the last half century of global Neoliberal domination, including U.S. interventions in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, Post-Cold War labor regulation, predatory global trade policies, and the valorization of human capital, developmentalism, and entrepreneurialism.
Fellows are required to participate weekly in the Pembroke Seminar, teach one undergraduate course, and pursue individual research.
Candidates are selected on the basis of their scholarly potential and the relevance of their work to the research theme. Recipients must have a PhD and may not hold a tenured position. Fellowships are awarded to postdoctoral scholars who have received their degrees from institutions other than Brown within the last five (5) years. Brown University is an EEO/AA employer. The Center strongly encourages underrepresented minority and international scholars to apply.
The term of appointment is July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024. The stipend is $53,760 plus $1,500 for research expenses. Postdoctoral Research Fellows are eligible to participate in the Brown University health and dental benefit plan. For full consideration, applications must be submitted by 11:59 pm (EST) on Monday, November 21, 2022. Selections will be announced in February.
Questions should be directed to Donna_Goodnow@brown.edu or phone 401-863-2643.
Complete applications must include:
- Curriculum vitae
- Cover letter
The letter should demonstrate how your research project relates to the Pembroke Seminar theme, "De-Colonial Retro Speculation", and include a proposed course description. - Writing Sample
Please send a piece no longer than 7,000 words (equivalent to 28-double spaced pages with 1" margins and a 12 point font). If the sample is part of a larger work, situate it briefly in a cover page.
Selected finalists will be asked to submit additional materials including:
- One page document including title and 250-word abstract of proposed research project
- Project statement of five typed pages (double-spaced)
- Brief representative bibliography for research proposal
- Three confidential recommendation letters
- Course syllabus with a course description and schedule of assigned readings