The Jackman Humanities Institute is pleased to invite applications for a postdoctoral fellowship in New Media and Public Humanities (NMPH), designed to support recent Ph.D. graduates from humanities disciplines who are engaged in new media and/or other journalism initiatives to bring humanities research out of the classroom or academic monograph and into discussion in public fora and across multiple media platforms.
Deadline for Applications: November 28, 2024 at 4:00pm EST
2025-26: Dystopia and Trust
A new millennium, rapid advances in science and technology, and a new determination to fight social injustice could have encouraged dreams of utopia. Instead, as though from the predictable plot of some pulp sci-fi or true crime story, they seem to have delivered a nightmarish dystopia. Easy information has given way to facile misinformation, the promise of solidarity to faction and polarization, democracy to authoritarianism, supremacism, and the kleptocracy of the 1%. People all over the world have lost trust, not only in many major institutions of societies, but also in each other. Are these trends reversible? Can widespread political and social trust be achieved, within and across societies? If not, with what consequence? If so, how should the subjective, social scientific, and philosophical dimensions of our dystopia be analyzed and re-imagined? What possible utopia has our dystopia, if it is one, betrayed?
One NMPH postdoctoral fellow will be selected for a twelve-month residency at the Jackman Humanities Institute. The NMPH postdoctoral fellow is expected to conduct active research on the theme of “Dystopia and Trust” and to propose, write, and publish innovative media projects that take humanities research into the public domain.
The postdoctoral fellowship is an award of $71,275 CAD plus benefits. The NMPH postdoctoral fellowship is tenable for one academic year (July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026), and the holder is expected to be in residence September 2025 to May 2026. As a residential fellow, the New Media and Public Humanities postdoctoral fellow will be provided with an office at the JHI on the 10th floor of the Jackman Humanities Building. The NMPH postdoctoral fellow will be expected to participate in activities with faculty, postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate fellows, including weekly lunch seminars and occasional other workshops and lectures.
Moving expenses are not provided. The JHI will provide an office, University of Toronto Library access, faculty mentoring, and administrative support. Teaching is not a component of this fellowship, but incumbents may apply for sessional positions in their home disciplines as available.
Eligibility
- Doctoral degree in humanities, writing, media studies, or journalism completed between July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2025. If you graduated before July 1, 2015, you are not eligible to apply. If you will be enrolled as a full or part-time student during the period of the fellowship, you are not eligible to apply. If you hold a tenured or tenure-track position already, you are not eligible to apply.
- A public media record going back to at least July 1, 2023.
- The JHI NMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship 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.
- Doctoral candidates and Ph.D. recipients from the University of Toronto are eligible to apply.
- The Jackman Humanities Institute interprets “Humanities” as a broad category, including political theory, interpretive social science, music, and the arts.
Selection Criteria
We are seeking individuals whose intellectual scope moves between formal academic research and professional journalism. The JHI is a site for interdisciplinary humanities research conversations, and we are therefore interested in candidates who have a record of publication in non-academic venues as well as an academic background in the humanities or qualitative social sciences. Selection will be based upon accomplishment according to career stage, evidence of public media engagement, and the relevance of the applicant’s interests and media record to the annual theme of “Dystopia and Trust.”
Procedure
You will be asked to upload the following documents in your application, formatted as a single pdf file (check our FAQs below for directions on length and formatting):
- A project proposal that outlines a media project or series of projects relevant to the 2025-2026 annual theme, Dystopia and Trust, to be undertaken at the Jackman Humanities Institute (4-6 pages, maximum 6,000 words)
- A full resumé with demonstrated background in the Humanities that includes a full listing of both academic and non-academic publications and media endeavors.
- A writing sample (published, non-academic preferred; an academic article or dissertation chapter may be provided if necessary)
- (Optional) For online samples of your work such as audio or video files, please include URL links and a brief description for each.
- 100-word research description
- 100-word biographical statement
You will be asked to provide the names and email addresses of two referees who can provide confidential letters of reference. Your referees will receive an automated request for their letters, which will be due on December 7, 2023. Please ask your referees to watch for our request email.
You will be able to SAVE your application and return to edit it before the deadline. When you SAVE, copy the special code that appears on the screen. You will receive an email receipt that contains a link to enable you to return by using this code. When you are finished, please SUBMIT your application. After you SUBMIT your application, you will not be able to re-enter it. Please remember to SUBMIT your application before the deadline.
Deadline
All applications must be submitted by November 28, 2024 at 4:00 p.m. (EST). Faxed, emailed, and paper applications will not be considered.
Questions?
- Questions about the scope and expectations of this fellowship? Email JHI Director, Professor Alison Keith
- Questions about the JHI and the application process? Email JHI Associate Director, Dr. Kimberley Yates
- Technical questions about the application form? Email JHI Communications Officer, Sonja Johnston
FAQs About the New Media and Public Humanities (NMPH) Postdoctoral Fellowship
You MUST submit all files as a single, compiled pdf file. This is necessary to ensure that your application will be readable. Please do not send files with security settings that prevent printing. Beyond that, here are some general suggestions.
JHI receives applications from across many disciplines and from around the world. Standards vary, and we prefer not to set rigid rules in the matter. Please know that you will not be disqualified from applying if your documents do not comply with the following guidelines.
Make your documents easy to read: use 11- or 12-point type, and 1.5 or double spacing. Avoid unnecessarily complicated fonts.
- Project Proposal (4-6 pages): Explain in detail what you would like to accomplish while you are a fellow. Your project should be relevant to the annual theme of Dystopia and Trust. Tell us about your anticipated goals and timeline for this project, and about the methodology that you will use to do it. It is perfectly acceptable to propose a thesis-to-book overhaul.
- Resumé (as long as necessary): this is your full record of achievement, both in academic and non-academic writing. Please include all publications (both peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed), research presentations, and previous public facing writing of any nature. The focus here is more on research than on teaching.
- Writing Sample (length varies with content): This could be a chapter from your thesis, or a published article, or an example of public-facing writing. You can include a sample of your writing or provide a brief introduction and a URL (or multiple URLs) that show your public-facing writing in your application document.
- Short bio and summary of project (maximum 100 words each): if you are selected, these texts will be used for publicity puposes.
Yes. You can, if you choose to SAVE but not SUBMIT your application until the deadline. If you click SAVE, you will be given a numerical code and be emailed a link. Record this code (it will not be sent with the email). You will have to enter the code to continue your application. JHI staff members do not have access to your code and cannot generate a new code if you lose it. When you are finished, remember to SUBMIT your application before the deadline.
If you receive an offer of this fellowship, it will be contingent on your having completed all outstanding doctoral work before July 1, 2025. This means that if you apply but have not defended, we will be in touch with your Chair or supervisor to confirm your defense date (it must be before May 1, 2025) and post-defense status. If you defend and have revisions to make, you must complete them successfully before July 1, 2025.
You are not eligible to apply. This fellowship is offered with a ten-year window of eligibility that tracks from the date when the fellowship begins on July 1, 2025.
The JHI will require your in-person attendance at a fellows’ lunch each Thursday 12-2 from the beginning of September until the end of April (there are two weeks in December when the University will close for the holidays). If you are also teaching, please check for the dates when you must be in Toronto with your unit.
There is no funding for moving expenses. You are welcome to apply for up to two one-semester courses of sessional teaching in any unit appropriate to your field of doctoral study. Sessional job postings will appear on the CUPE 3902 (Unit 3) Opportunities web page.
For questions relating to the scope and expectations of this fellowship, email JHI Director Professor Alison Keith; for questions about the application process, email Associate Director Dr. Kimberley Yates; for technical questions about the online application form, email Communications Officer Sonja Johnston.