Fellowships for Scholars AcademicYear 2011-2012
http://sss.ias.edu/applications
IAS School of Social Science The Institute for Advanced Study is an independent private institution founded in 1930 to create a community of scholars focused on intellectual inquiry, free from teaching and other university obligations. Each year scholars from around the world apply to come to the Institute to pursue their own
research.
Those who are chosen are offered a membership for a set period and a stipend. Members receive access to the extensive resources of the Institute, including offices, access to libraries, subsidized restaurant and housing facilities, and some secretarial services.
The School of Social Science each year invites as Members up to twenty visiting scholars who constitute a genuinely interdisciplinary and international group. A completed doctorate or equivalent is required by the application deadline, and memberships are awarded at both the junior and senior levels.
Memberships are awarded for the full academic year only. Visiting Members are expected to pursue only their own research, while the School organizes a weekly seminar at which Members as well as invited guests present their ongoing work. The School is not wedded to any particular intellectual or disciplinary approach. It welcomes applications in economics, political science, law, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. It encourages social scientific work with a historical and
humanistic bent and also considers applications in history, philosophy, literary criticism, literature, and linguistics. The following thematic focus is neither an exclusive nor excluding theme; it is expected that only onethird of the accepted scholars will pursue work relating to this theme. Applications are strongly encouraged from scholars across the social sciences, whether or not their research corresponds to the theme.
Theme 2011--2012: MORALITIES
Moral issues–viewed broadly–have become crucial in the public sphere. Whether they concern abortion, stem cell research, defense of human rights, control of immigration, penal treatment of delinquency, social responses to poverty, humanitarian justifications for war or interpretation of the financial crisis, moral arguments and moral sentiments are constantly mobilized in policy decisions. The inscription of this recent evolution in a longer history of the formation of moral
subjectivities certainly needs to be explored. Similarly, encounters and conflicts
between moral models should be analyzed.
The politics of moralities manifests itself in the everyday life of institutions. Justice, police, prison, education, medicine, mental health, and social work are privileged domains for the study of moral economies. Situations of violence, suffering, exclusion, discrimination, and stigmatization also involve the
construction of moral communities and boundaries, moral categories and judgments. In all these cases, moralities are not given realities: they are combined with affects and norms, just as the moral sphere is closely linked to law and religion. Social scientists themselves are personally involved in these moral issues. Interest in moral issues is certainly not recent. Philosophers have always dealt with morality; historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and economists have analyzed the formation and implementation of moral norms and values; and emerging fields, such as moral psychology and neuroethics, propose innovative understandings.
* But how can we articulate these disciplinary paradigms? How could the study of morality move beyond formal dilemmas to comprehend the ordinary functioning of social action?
* How could the interpretation of moralities resist reduction to a choice between relativism and universalism?
* How are moral economies permanently negotiated and transformed in confrontations with each other?
* How are moral and political issues increasingly associated, particularly around human rights and humanitarian intervention?
* How can social scientists continue to develop their critical approach when accounting for situations and facts so morally loaded? Under the direction of James D. Wolfensohn Professor Didier Fassin, these are some issues the seminar—-which is the second part of a two year cycle on "Values in a Changing World"—-will examine. Funding for Members Stipends are individually negotiated, taking into account the applicant's base salary and the level of sabbatical and other grant support he or she can secure. In setting compensation, the School attempts to provide half of the
current academic base salary for all Members, up to a maximum of $65,000.
In the upcoming academic year, the Institute will again take part in a program sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies: the Frederick Burkhardt Fellowships. These fellowships support more adventurous, more wide-ranging and longer-term patterns of research than are current in the humanities and related social sciences. Applicants must submit to ACLS a research plan typically covering a 3 - 5 year period, during which time one year could be spent as a Member at the
Institute, either in the School of Historical Studies or the School of Social Science. Qualified candidates who would like to apply for affiliation with either School of the Institute for Advanced Study under the auspices of this program should visit the ACLS website (www.acls.org)
For more information see
http://sss.ias.edu/applications
Application Deadline:
November 1, 2010
Applications must be submitted
through the online application
system, available at
www.sss.ias.edu/applications
Please quote 10 Academic Resources Daily in your application to this opportunity!
