The Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish History and the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica at the University of Florida are pleased to invite applications for short-term research fellowships during the 2017-2018 academic year. Researchers studying different aspects of the Jewish experience in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the southern regions of the United States from the sixteenth century until present day will have the opportunity to spend a maximum period of a month researching in the Price Library. They will have access to the other special and area studies collections of the University of Florida and other library services. Recipients will be expected to deliver a public talk and/or seminar at UF during or after their research visit which will be recognized with an honorarium payment. Recipients of the fellowship will be invited to return and participate in a conference on the Jewish experience in the Americas during fall 2018.
The Price Library was founded in 1981 and is located in the Department of the Special and Area Studies Collections of the George A. Smathers Library at the University of Florida. Today it holds about 110,000 items and its online collections include over 180,000 digital pages. This diverse collection, which offers in-depth insights into numerous fields of research within Jewish studies, is considered the foremost Jewish studies research library in the southeastern United States. The Price Library also collaborates closely with UF’s prestigious Florida and Latin American and Caribbean collections, and thanks to a generous Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Price Library is now focusing its collecting activities on recording and preserving Jewish history in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Florida. This fellowship program created by the Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish history aims to help researchers develop new scholarship within these geographical fields based on the Price Library’s holdings.
Preference will be given to advanced graduate students and recent PhDs. We ask applicants to study the Price Library collections and the other UF collections they may want to use during their research http://cms.uflib.ufl.edu/. Please consult the Price Library’s archives, digital collections, and the materials in UF’s other digital collections, such as the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), and the Cuban Collection. Applications should not exceed 1000 words and should include the description of the project, and an explanation of how it complements earlier research in the field and what new element it brings to the respective field. Please, indicate the period you plan or prefer to spend in the Price Library. Finally, we ask applicants to attach a CV to their project applications.
We encourage researchers working on themes related to the following topics: migration, community and religious life, institutions (e.g. cemeteries, synagogues); literature in Yiddish, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew; food (production, consumption, cuisine); Sephardi experience in the colonial period, transatlantic connections from the colonial era until today, Jewish presses, memory and commemoration, and antisemitism. Proposals of research conducted on other subjects are equally welcome.
Expenses covered: The Research Fellowship covers long distance and local transportation and lodging. The entire Research Fellowship stipend, including honorarium, transportation and lodging does not exceed $5,000. Deadline of application: August 15, 2017.
Successful applicants will be informed by October 15, 2017.
Please send your application to Rebecca Jefferson at [email protected] and Katalin Rac at [email protected].
Questions and comments should be sent to the same address.
