Applications will be accepted starting on 15 March 2019

Deadline for applications: 15 April 2019

The Jackman Humanities Institute (JHI) at the University of Toronto, with support from the Council of Library and Information Resources (CLIR) offers a twelve-month Postdoctoral Fellowship in Digital Humanities with a focus on digital cultures and computational approaches to humanities research. The JHI DH Postdoctoral Fellow will have an established track record in their own discipline and/or the digital humanities. They will pursue their own research while at UofT, while working to foster the JHI’s DH Network at UofT. They will receive training, research, and networking opportunities through CLIR.

The mandate of the JHI DH Network is to design and support initiatives that raise awareness of and build upon UofT’s existing strengths in the digital humanities. In this context, digital humanities means the communities and methods, tools, and platforms-based approaches often associated with the term “digital humanities”; and a broader agenda that also encompasses interpretative or theoretical work on digitality, and a wide variety of computational approaches to humanities research.

Responsibilities

The JHI DH Postdoctoral Fellow will be supported to attend the CLIR’s Postdoctoral Fellowship program’s mandatory week-long seminar (28 July-3 August 2019) at Bryn Mawr College and other CLIR events. The JHI DH Postdoctoral Fellow will draw upon their disciplinary expertise and upon training provided by CLIR, the JHI, and UofT Libraries to connect and strengthen DH projects across the tricampus university. Specifically, depending on their own skillset and research interests, the JHI DH Postdoctoral Fellow will:

• direct the development and organization of the annual summer meeting of the DH Network, August 2019 at UTM, in close collaboration with administrative staff;
• establish and maintain online spaces where members of the DH Network can share information about their research and discuss matters of common interest;
• run regular roundtables and workshops at the JHI and with UofT Libraries on digital humanities topics;
• organize, facilitate, and participate in other tricampus DH training initiatives;
• facilitate introductions and connections between researchers within the DH Network;
• in consultation with digital librarians, provide one-on-one and group consultancy to humanities researchers seeking to make use of infrastructure for digital scholarship in and beyond UofT;
• participate in planning the future shape and directions of the DHN
• articipate in weekly JHI fellows lunches every Thursday from the beginning of September to the first week of May.

The JHI DH Postdoctoral Fellowship is a twelve-month position, from 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020, co-supervised by Alexandra Gillespie and Elspeth Brown. The JHI DH Postdoctoral Fellow may seek additional research supervision from within UofT according to their own interests. They will have access to equipment and collaborative digital working space at JHI. This fellowship award provides an annual stipend of $51,500 (CAD) plus benefits. The incumbent is welcome to seek up to 1.0 FYE credits in teaching as a sessional instructor with the appropriate unit(s) at the University of Toronto. The JHI DH Postdoctoral Fellow will be expected to pursue their own research; projects relevant to the JHI’s annual theme of Strange Weather are particularly desired.

Annual Theme, 2019-2020: Strange Weather

How might the humanities contribute to the critical discourse on energy and climate? The energy crisis is no longer simply about limited supplies but now concerns the very nature and place of energy in human life and society. Strange weather as symptom of changing climate destabilizes our trust in and certainty of our home (i.e. our planet) and provokes fantasies of control and of chaos. How can we help frame questions of environmental degradation, scientific knowledge and its popularization, especially in their relation to social equity, and societal futures?

Eligibility and Attributes

Applicants must have completed their doctorate within five years of the beginning of the fellowship on 1 July 2019. Applicants who will defend their thesis before the end of May 2019 are eligible, but a letter from their supervisor or Chair may be requested. Any award will be conditional on a successful defense. Applicants who received their Ph.D. prior to 1 July 2014 are ineligible. Applicants who are graduates of doctoral programs at the University of Toronto are eligible.

The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate excellence in teaching and research and have an established track record in the digital humanities. They will understand the history, development, and current state of the field; be able to assess institutional processes and policies; be willing to work with a range of scholars in and outside of their own field; desire to learn and pursue research in an interdisciplinary, collaborative environment; and be committed to open source development and open access scholarship.

The JHI Postdoctoral Fellowship in Digital Humanities is open to citizens of all countries. The University of Toronto is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from racialized persons / persons of colour, women, Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ persons, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas. Engagement as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto is covered by the terms of the CUPE 3902 Unit 5 Collective Agreement.

Procedure

You must have an account on the JHI website to apply. Click on Calls for Funding to see the description of the fellowship and application procedures. Scroll to the bottom of the description, and then click Apply Now to apply.

You will be asked to upload the following documents in your application:

1. Letter of Application
2. Curriculum vitae
3. Statement of Digital Humanities Research Interest
4. Research Sample (a completed thesis chapter, published article of about 30 pages, or digital publication or portfolio)

All documents must be in .pdf format. The size limit for a complete application including all four documents is 8 mb. If your application is too large, you will see an error message; please adjust the size of your files and try again. You will also be asked to provide the names and email addresses of three referees, whom we will contact to request letters of reference.

Deadline

All applications must be made online at http://www.humanities.utoronto.ca by 15 April 2019 at 11:59 p.m. (EDT). Faxed, emailed, and paper applications will not be considered.

Questions? 

About the fellowship: contact Professor Elspeth Brown at elspeth.brown@utoronto.ca or Professor Alexandra Gillespie at alexandra.gillespie@utoronto.ca. About the website: contact Dr. Kimberley Yates jhi.associate@utoronto.ca

Please see the full posting: https://humanities.utoronto.ca/funding/23029