2008-2009 FACULTY AND GRADUATE STUDENT FELLOWSHIPS: PLACE AND POLITICS
The CUNY Center for Place, Culture, and Politics invites fellowship applications for the academic year 2008-09 from all academic disciplines. All full-time CUNY faculty and Level III doctoral students are eligible.
DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 20, 2008
The Center
The Center for Place, Culture and Politics, established in 2000, is an interdisciplinary center which provides an intellectual forum for the discussion of a wide range of vital contemporary issues. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, questions of space and place have come to play a crucial role in politics and public culture. Each academic year, a group of faculty and graduate student fellows explore a specific theme at the Center. At a weekly seminar, we read relevant materials and fellows present their own work and explore the work of others related to the theme. The Center also hosts prominent national and international scholars and activists who have done significant work related to the theme. These Distinguished Lecturers present a public lecture and meet with the fellows at their weekly seminar, and we also host conferences. Previous Distinguished Lecturers and conference participants have included Gayatri Spivak, Derek Gregory, Daniel Ellsberg, Eyal Weizman, Vandana Shiva, Nancy Fraser, Gar Alperowitz, Naomi Klein, and many others. In addition, the Center sponsors research working groups, including an ongoing group on The Right to the City. We organize edited volumes, and hold book celebrations for authors as well as other scholarly events.
With this year’s theme, the Center returns to its central focus on the politics of place and space. Throughout most of the twentieth century the question of place was generally subordinated to the power of economic, social and cultural change. The politics of space were understood in a broadly geopolitical register of place versus place, whether at highly local or national or global scale. Place was the repository of social dynamism located elsewhere. Since the 1970s, however, the reciprocal power of place has been increasingly recognized – place as an active progenitor of social relations, cultural identity, political possibility. The dialectic of place and politics is now an active focus of research not just in geography but across the social sciences and humanities. In addition to social scientific investigations of the politics of place, the language of space and place has become a stock source of metaphors in both the humanities and social sciences.
A central focus of this work is uneven geographical development. How do places change in the fabric of interlinked social, political and economic relations? How are we to understand the dramatic rise of national economies such as China, South Korea and India vis-a-vis the decline of regional economies in Europe and North America? How do we evaluate 1990s claims of globalization alongside arguments concerning the end of the nation state? Does neoliberalism usher in a new local connection with place even amidst expanded global relations? How do we understand the connection to place in a world that breaks up connections to place? What kinds of new connections to place are being built? What effect has the policy of regional identity-building had in Europe?
We invite fellowship proposals addressed to the theme of “Place and Politics”. The following topics are suggestive and not at all definitive:
place and daily lifethe economics of place
global/local
class places, raced places
place and time
place-based social movements
war and place
the politics of scale
place as mundane
after globalization
place in China
place and revolution
Fellowships and Eligibility
The Center will appoint six faculty fellows and six graduate student fellows. Fellows will be drawn from throughout the social sciences, humanities and sciences. Faculty fellows will receive one course release for the year of their fellowship, and Graduate fellows will receive a stipend of $10,000. All full-time CUNY faculty are eligible for the fellowship. All level III GSUC students are eligible for Graduate fellowships. Fellows are expected to attend the weekly seminars, distinguished lectures and Center conferences, and to present their research at one of the weekly seminars. The Center seminar meets on Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 12 noon, and it is a condition of the fellowship that fellows leave this time free in their 2008-09 teaching schedules. Distinguished lectures will generally be held on Tuesdays at 6pm followed by a reception, and prospective fellows should also keep this time slot free.
Deadline
The deadline for applications is Wednesday, February 20, 2008.
Application forms
Graduate Student Application
PDF
Faculty Application
PDF
For further information, please contact Padmini Biswas at:
CUNY Graduate Center
Center for Place, Culture and Politics
365 Fifth Avenue, Room 6408
New York, NY 10016
Phone: (212) 817-1880
e-mail: pcp@gc.cuny.edu
2008-2009 POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS: PLACE AND POLITICS
The Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York announces a postdoctoral position for the academic year 2008-9 on the theme of “Place and Politics” in the context of a general concern for understanding processes of uneven geographical development at a variety of geographical scales.
Postdoctoral appointments are residential and normally run for the academic year September-May. In addition to the salary of $ 47,995 and a research space, Postdocs have access to all CUNY research facilities. To be eligible, candidates should have their doctoral degree in hand and must have received their degree within five years of taking up the appointment. In addition to conducting their own research, Fellows will be expected to attend and contribute to the weekly seminar and support other initiatives of the Center, such as the promotion of conferences and symposia. They will also be expected to teach a one semester graduate seminar on a topic of their choice.
To apply, please send a 1000 word research plan; a curriculum vitae; a representative article or dissertation chapter; and three letters of recommendation to:
David Harvey
Center for Place, Culture and Politics
The Graduate Center
The City University of New York
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Deadline
The deadline for postdoctoral applications is April 15, 2008. Awards will be announced by May 1st.
CUNY is an equal opportunity employer.
