Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship 2027-2028: Humanities Plural

Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University; Atlanta (GA); On-site; USD 53,000 - 71,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stipend $62,000

Research budget $2,000

Moving allowance $2,000

Medical, dental, vision

Job summary

Emory University's Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry invites applications for Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowships. Two one-year appointments with a stipend of $62,000, a $2,000 research budget, and a $2,000 moving allowance, plus benefits including medical, dental, and vision.

Fellows must reside on campus during the academic year 2027-2028 and teach one undergraduate course. Applications open Aug 17, 2026 and deadline Dec 7, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET; second deadline Dec 11, 2026 for letters.

Qualifications

• PhD required; applicants may not have received their doctorate before Jan 1, 2024.
• Applicants from outside the United States may be admitted under J-1 visa or F-1 OPT depending on circumstances.
• Preference given to applicants who have not held prior postdoctoral fellowships.

Responsibilities

• Participate in weekly interdisciplinary seminar.
• Teach one undergraduate course in the College of Arts and Sciences.
• Engage in residency for the academic year and contribute to center programming.
• If renewed for a second year, undertake additional teaching responsibilities and mentorship.

Education

PhD or international equivalent

Job description

Emory University: Arts and Sciences: Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry Location

Atlanta, GA

Open Date

Aug 17, 2026

Deadline

Dec 07, 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time

Description

The Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry is pleased to open applications for our Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowships. We invite applications from scholars in any humanistic discipline who are eager to be part of a community engaged in interdisciplinary conversations around our theme of Humanities Plural.

At a moment when fields such as "history of the humanities" and "humanities theory" are coming into view, and as hybrid formations such as digital humanities, health humanities, and public humanities are taking humanities scholarship into new academic and extra-academic spaces, we seek scholars whose research expands our horizons for thinking about the humanities as they have existed or are unfolding in our current moment. Applications are open to scholars in any field, area, or historical period.

Projects need not explicitly foreground "the humanities" (or related formations such as "liberal arts") as an object of inquiry, but they should clearly address any core issue of humanities scholarship or learning, including its methods, its objects, its histories, its values and social valuation, its contradictions, its publics, or its institutional or social locations.

Potential lines of inquiry include:

• What are the contexts, across time and space, where humanistic learning occurs and matters (e.g., formal or informal academic settings, places of worship, prisons, online spaces, museums)?
• Where is humanistic scholarship enlisted into serving other systems of knowledge and value (e.g., medical schools, think tanks, revolutionary movements, corporate boardrooms), and what sorts of work is it asked to do there?
• Which communities have forged programs or practices of humanistic learning without having access to formal or elite institutional structures? What are the distinct methods, epistemologies, aesthetics, and/or values that take shape in these sites?
• What gave rise to "theory," where and why has it taken root, and what is its future?
• How do or should humanistic methods function in hybrid formations, for example in digital humanities, environmental humanities, or health humanities?

The Fox Center will appoint two Mellon Postdoctoral Fellows for one year (August 1, 2027-July 31, 2028), with the possibility of renewal for one additional year. Fellowships include a stipend of $62,000, a research budget of $2,000, and a one-time additional payment of $2,000 to defray the costs associated with moving to Atlanta, and competitive benefits including medical, dental, and vision care. Fellows are required to be in residence during the academic year for the term of the fellowship.

All postdoctoral fellows participate in a weekly interdisciplinary seminar, presenting their research at one of these meetings, and teach one undergraduate class in their area of expertise in the College of Arts and Sciences. If invited to continue for a second year, fellows will have additional teaching responsibilities and will receive teaching mentorship from Emory faculty in a relevant discipline.

The application deadline for applicants to submit their materials is December 7, 2026, at 11:59 PM ET. The deadline for receipt of letters of recommendation is December 11, 2026, at 11.59 PM ET.

Qualifications

All postdoctoral fellows must hold a PhD (or its international equivalent, such as the DPhil). Applicants may not have received their doctorate before January 1, 2024. Preference will be given to applicants who have not held prior postdoctoral fellowships. Applicants applying without a degree in hand must have successfully completed all degree requirements by June 30, 2027. Scholars from outside the United States are appointed under either the J-1 visa (Research Scholar status) or F-1 OPT (Optional Practical Training), depending on their circumstances. The Fox Center reserves the right to cancel awards if the recipient is unable to meet these conditions of completion and visa status.

Application Instructions

To complete the online application, you will need to provide the following:

• Cover letter (2 pages maximum)
• Project description (1000 words maximum)
• Writing sample (20-25 pages)
• Syllabi for two undergraduate courses
• Curriculum vitae
• E-mail information for three recommenders

Please notethat as part of the University’sInterfoliosystem, each applicantis required to complete the Equal Employment Opportunity form. The Fox Center will not have access to the completed form.

Specific Instructions

Project description:

Applicants should give an overview of their research and their goals for the period of the fellowship. They shoulddescribe their engagement with the fellowship theme and how they wouldbenefit from the interdisciplinary environment.

Syllabi:

Each syllabusshould include acourse description,thepresumed levelof the course, readings, and representative assignments, but need not include a class schedule.One course should be close to theapplicant’s areaof research, andthe other should beconceived more broadly.Courses may either be offered within an established discipline at Emory or may be conceived as interdisciplinary. [Note:Actual teaching assignments will likely differ from the proposed courses; the fellowship selection committee will use these sample syllabi to get a sense of the applicants’ primary teaching interests.]

Recommendation letters:

Recommenders are automatically notified byInterfolioto upload their letters to your application file. Be sure to leave enough time so that your letters of recommendation aresubmitted by the deadline.

It isthe applicant’s responsibility to ensure that all required documents are uploaded toInterfolioandsubmitted. Incomplete applications cannot be considered after the deadline.

Acceptance Procedures

Uponnotification of an FCHI Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, recipients must agree to:

1. conduct writing and research in residence full-time at the FCHI for the academic year;
2. take full responsibility for contributing to and maintaining an environment conducive to academic research while at the Center;
3. submit a report of progress to the Director at the end of the Fellowship;
4. acknowledge the FCHI in all work resulting from research and writing done during the Fellowship;
5. teach an undergraduate course in the spring term of the Fellowship year;
6. attend all Fellows’ seminars and thematic programming sponsored by the FCHI during their term of residence;
7. immediatelynotify the FCHI of any other support or of any conflicts with the restrictions and conditions of this Fellowship Program.

Pleasenote:

The Postdoctoral Fellowships aim to create a diverse community of scholars-in-residence at the FCHI and to introduce the University toexcitinghumanisticwork by emerging scholars nationally andinternationally.As such,applicants who received (or will receive) their PhD from Emory Universitywill not be considered. If for any reason a Fellow’s circumstances change and the grantee is unable to use the Fellowship during the academic year for which it was granted, the Fellowship will beforfeited. If the project involves human subjects, approval from the proper Emory Institutional Review Board Committee (IRB) isrequiredbefore Fellowship funding can be released.For more information, please refer to this website:https://www.irb.emory.edu.If you have any questions, please contactthe FoxCenter [e-mail]. The FCHI regrets that it is unable to provide feedback on unsuccessful applications.