The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania is offering residential fellowships for their 2025–26 year, with the theme: New Frontiers in Contemporary Jewish Life: Cultural Expansions, Encounters, and Experiments. (Click this link for full information.)
The Center supports individual research projects while encouraging conversation and collaboration through seminars, conferences, and other forms of intellectual exchange. The fellowship is open to scholars from across the globe and at all career levels from newly minted Ph.D.s to senior scholars. The Katz Center welcomes proposals coming from any disciplinary perspective, including anthropology, sociology, history, education studies, ethics, religious studies, political science, digital humanities, and the study of Jewish literature, art, or film. The fellowship is also open to applications focused on the study of experiences and new realities in Israel and for Jews globally in light of October 7 and its aftermath.
Selected fellows are provided with a stipend and the time and resources needed to pursue their individual projects (including an office, computer, and library privileges at the University of Pennsylvania), and are expected to actively engage in the intellectual life of the fellowship community. All applicants must have a doctoral degree in hand by the start of the fellowship. Fellows are expected to live in Philadelphia for the term of their fellowship which can run for the entire academic year (September–April) or for a single semester.
Additionally, the center has announced a new postdoctoral fellowship focused on the study of contemporary antisemitism that will combine teaching, public scholarship, and research in the field of contemporary antisemitism studies. (Click the link for full information.)
The appointment, renewable for up to three years, combines teaching students, helping to develop learning opportunities and other resources for the broader public, and serving as a source of expertise within and beyond the university. The person in the role will also serve as an adviser to the Katz Center as it seeks to develop a concurrent multiyear initiative to support new research in the study of antisemitism.
The ideal candidate for the position will be a scholar/educator with strong research and teaching, and an ability to make connections to the broader scholarly treatment of racism, prejudice, and hatred, as well as the study of how to address and overcome them.
The search will continue until a suitable candidate is found, with a start date either in the spring semester of 2025 or the fall of 2025. Applications received by September 27 will be assured of consideration. As a way of enriching the experience, the person selected for the role will be invited to join the cohort of the Center’s fellowship year in 2025–26 focused on contemporary Jewish life.