The Committee on Globalization and Social Change is Currently Accepting Applications for 2016–17 Mid-Career Faculty and Dissertation Fellowships. 

Application deadline is noon on March 4th, 2016. 

The Committee on Globalization and Social Change (CGSC) invites applications from recently tenured-faculty, CUNY doctoral students, and PhDs eligible for Postdoctoral Fellowships, who would like to participate in a research seminar on the theme “Refuge”.

*Fellows will be expected to participate in the weekly Committee seminar, held Tuesday mornings 10:30 am – 12:30 pm. Please note: Ability to attend seminars on Tuesday mornings is a prerequisite of eligibility. During the fall semester, the seminar focuses on readings and presentations by visitors. In the spring fellows will present their work in progress for group discussion. Fellows are also expected to do their best to attend corresponding public events.

Seminar Description

The theme for the 2016-17 Committee on Globalization and Social Change seminar is Refuge.  From the Haitian Revolution in the 18th century to the Cold War and the present day, refugees from Latin American and Caribbean countries to the US and to neighboring countries, as well as those who are internally displaced through violence, have participated in making and remaking boundaries, as well as notions of identity, freedom, and citizenship in the Americas. Since World War I, successive crises of what Hannah Arendt called stateless peoples, ranging from the partition of India to that of Palestine have presented significant humanitarian, political, and theoretical challenges.  Arguably, however, the current refugee crisis affecting Syria, Somalia, Chad, and Yemen, among other places, is the most severe since World War II and has presented a profound challenge to the unity and stability of the European Union.  The need to find refuge under conditions of economic need, political persecution and violence is a fundamental dimension of globalization. The objective of this year’s seminar is to describe, debate and theorize refuge and the complex status of those forced to seek it outside their homes. In addition to readings directly addressing the contemporary conditions of refugees the following corollary issues will be considered:

• Post-nationality or in Étienne Balibar’s terms, transnational citizenship.  How does the widespread plight of refugees call for new theories and practices of political belonging?  Should the nation-state be the primary form of refuge?
• Displacement. What are the material and affective challenges, and perhaps opportunities, of mass displacements? And how is refuge constructed, even in transit?
• Temporality.  Refugees often experience a different relation to home from that of emigrants in terms of their desire for return.  How do refugees experience a future, and a past in ways that are distinct from the subject of diaspora or of migration?
• Heritage. As we have witnessed in the Taliban’s desecration of Buddhist sculptures and the destruction and sale of ancient artifacts by ISIS, conflict can lead to the irreparable loss of cultural patrimony.  How does this symbolic violence relate to that suffered by refugees?  And can museums, as places of refuge for objects, serve also as political or historical models?

Committee Description

The CGSC is a transdisciplinary group whose collective work is not driven by any specific theory or ideology. We begin with the observation that existing categories and analytic frameworks are inadequate to grasp the dynamics of our historical present.

We are thus interested not only in questioning conventional assumptions in light of contemporary developments but also in the possibility of reclaiming, reworking, and refunctioning seemingly outmoded concepts in and for these times. Given our interest

in reflecting on the relationship between inherited concepts, critical theory, the contemporary situation, and political futures, we believe it will be fruitful to think together about the question of “Refuge” today, beyond the familiar debates between abstract universal humanism and concrete cultural particularism.

 We thus welcome applications from faculty and doctoral candidates for whom the question of “Refuge” figures in some significant way in their research. We are interested in scholars from any field whose thinking crosses traditional academic boundaries and whose work is empirically rich and theoretically informed.

Dissertation Fellowship

Applications are invited from doctoral candidates in the humanities and humanistic social sciences such as anthropology, religion, sociology, philosophy, political science, history, English, art history, theater, and comparative literature who engage and transect our seminar topic. This fellowship is only open to Graduate Center doctoral candidates (i.e. you must be Level III. There are no exceptions). Fellows will be expected to participate in the weekly Committee seminar as well as ongoing lectures and symposia. Committee seminars meet on Tuesday mornings, 10:30 am to 12:30 pm. It is a condition of the fellowship that fellows leave this time free in their schedules.

With generous support from the Provost’s Office and the Graduate Center, CUNY, successful candidates will be granted $10,000 total for Fall 2016-Spring 2017 in return for a commitment to fully participate in the work of the Committee and in the weekly seminar. The basis for selection of participants will rest primarily on the relevance to the overall project of the work proposal submitted by applicants. In accord with the interdisciplinary aim of the program, selections will also be made with an eye to maintaining disciplinary diversity.

See here for more information on eligibility and requirements, and for detailed application instructions.

Mid-Career Faculty Fellowship

Applications are invited from scholars of the humanities and humanistic social sciences such as anthropology, religion, sociology, philosophy, political science, history, English, art history, theater, and comparative literature who engage and transect our seminar topic. With generous support from the Provost’s Office and the Graduate Center, CUNY, successful candidates will be granted two course releases from college teaching requirements, to be distributed across the Fall 2016 and Spring 2017 semesters at their department’s discretion, in return for a commitment to fully participate in the work of the Committee and in the weekly seminar.

The basis for selection of participants will rest primarily on the relevance to the overall project of the work proposal submitted by applicants. In accord with the interdisciplinary aim of the program, selections will also be made with an eye to maintaining disciplinary diversity. Applicants must be tenured, and preference will be given to faculty in the early stages of career development (i.e. within ten years of receiving tenure). Fellows will be expected to participate in the weekly Committee seminar as well as ongoing lectures and symposia. Committee seminars meet on Tuesday mornings, 10:30 am to 12:30 pm. It is a condition of the fellowship that fellows leave this time free in their teaching schedules.

See here for detailed application instructions.