McNeil Center Fellowship -- John Fea

Fellowship Announcement: McNeil Center for Early American Studies

Today I received announcements for two residential fellowships offered by the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Of particular note to readers of this blog is the “E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Fellowship in Early American Religious Studies.” This dissertation fellowship is open to Ph.D candidates in any discipline “researching any aspect of religion in North America in the Atlantic World.” And you have plenty of time to apply—the deadline is March 1, 2008.

The other fellowship is the two-year Barra Postdoctoral Fellowship for 2008-2010. The Barra Fellowship is not geared specifically to scholars studying religion, but I know that the Center is certainly open to considering those working in this area. The deadline is November 1, 2007 and I believe the search committee conducts preliminary interviews at the AHA.

On a personal note, I was a fellow at the McNeil Center in the late 1990s and I cannot say enough positive things about the experience. This is a wonderful community of early American scholars convened by Dan Richter, the Center’s director. (Richard Dunn, the founding director, ran the Center during my stint as a fellow). My seventeen months in residence at Penn gave me opportunities to write, research, visit archives, present my work, share dissertation drafts, and network with other scholars. I am very grateful for the experience. If you do early American history I encourage you to apply. For more details, see the McNeil Center website.