Call for Applications: 2019-2020 Teaching Fellowship at Cornell University

 

Call for Application

2019-2020 Teaching Fellowship
Cornell University

The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research invites proposals for its 2019-2020 Teaching Fellowship that will provide support for one member of the Cornell University faculty to integrate testimonies from the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive (VHA) into a new or existing course. This fellowship is only available to full-time faculty at Cornell University.

The Teaching Fellowship provides financial support and specialized assistance to faculty members who wish to integrate life-history testimonies into their courses. The fellowship is open to all disciplinary and methodological approaches. Proposals will be judged according to the centrality of the VHA testimonies to the course content. Preference will be given to classes that will be taught in the spring semester of 2020, classes offered on an ongoing basis, and classes in which research utilizing the VHA is assigned to students.

The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive holds over 54,000 video testimonies of survivors and other eyewitnesses of the Holocaust, the Rwandan and Armenian genocides, and the Nanjing Massacre in China. The Archive also includes smaller collections of testimonies of the survivors of the Cambodian and Guatemalan genocides, South Sudan Civil War, Central African Republic Conflict, and the 2017 anti-Rohingya mass violence. In addition, the VHA includes a growing collection of testimonies about contemporary experiences of antisemitism. The interviews span 43 languages and 65 countries. They encompass the experiences not only of survivors in these contexts of mass violence, but also of witnesses, liberators, aid providers, and war crimes trials participants. These interviews are life histories, and as such their subject matter includes the history and culture of the countries of the interviewees’ birth and their lives before, during and after genocide. The interviews average two hours in length and offer a wealth of possibilities for integration into many disciplines’ coursework. More information about accessing the VHA at Cornell is available at https://guides.library.cornell.edu/vhahome.

The stipend will be awarded in the amount of $2,500. The fellow will be invited to spend one week in residence at the Center in December 2019 or January 2020 to receive specialized research assistance in preparing for the course. Flight and hotel for this visit will be paid by the Center. Awarded faculty will be expected to submit their course syllabi, give a public presentation about their course experience at the end of the fellowship period, and foster continued use of the VHA at Cornell University.
 
Up to three other competitive applicants will be awarded small grants to integrate the VHA testimonies into their courses. The recipients will receive research assistance and will be expected to attend an in-person workshop at Cornell University in October, submit their course syllabi, and submit a short report at the conclusion of their course experience.

To submit an application, please send a cover letter, current CV, and proposal (2-3 pages) by October 7, 2019 to cagr@usc.edu.

For further information about the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, please consult the Center website at https://sfi.usc.edu/cagr.