Amherst College Copeland Fellows (EXPIRED)

The 2016-2017 Amherst College Copeland Colloquium seeks four or five Fellows from varied disciplines to explore the theme of "The Social Life of Guns."  Amherst College is an equal opportunity employer and encourages women, persons of color, and persons with disabilities to apply. The college is committed to enriching its educational experience and its culture through the diversity of its faculty, administration, and staff. Our student body is broadly diverse with regard to race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, and religion. We are seeking applications from both senior and junior scholars from the humanities and social sciences. We welcome literary scholars, political theorists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, legal scholars, and others whose work illuminates, directly or indirectly, “the gun” as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon.

We are especially interested in projects that address questions such as the following:  how and why do guns become objects of social identity?  What is the importance of these objects in defining the meaning of citizenship? Should we think about the problem of gun violence as an epidemiological issue or as a matter of criminal justice? Explorations of these questions might take myriad forms. We invite applications from scholars interested in the literary and symbolic life of guns and those who study guns as objects of cultural practice and ritual across the world. We also seek to investigate the importance of guns in changing social and political conditions, including—for example—in colonial expansion by European powers, in the militarization of “the police,” or in racially charged violence in U.S. cities. We welcome applications from those interested in the materiality of violence more generally.

Fellowships range from $30,000 to $50,000, depending on rank, and include a $2,500 allowance for professional travel and research support and additional support for moving expenses.  Fellows are expected to be in residence from September to June. Fellows will have the opportunity to participate in workshops and conferences organized to explore the theme of the colloquium.   Interested individuals should submit to http://apply.interfolio.com/33692 a cover letter, CV, a statement of purpose describing their research interests and how they speak to the theme of the colloquium, writing sample, and three letters of recommendation to the Copeland Search Committee by March 1, 2016.