CADBURY RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP 2020 FOR RESEARCHERS IN AFRICAN INSTITUTIONS (FULLY-FUNDED)
Applications are open for the Cadbury Research Fellowship 2020 for Researchers in African Institutions (Fully-Funded) at the University of Birmingham. The University of Birmingham (Birmingham University) is the first public research university in the UK to succeed royal chart of the United Kingdom – after 75 years of its establishment.
Additionally, in 2019, QS world university ranking ranked Birmingham University at 14th among UK universities and 79th worldwide.
Birmingham University is widely renowned for its world-class research and is among the founding members of Russell Group and Universitas21. Aside from research, this University delivers high class and innovative studies in bachelor’s, masters and Ph.D. The university offers over 500 courses under various schools like Science, Engineering, Business, Health, Arts, Humanities, etc.
The Department of African Studies and Anthropology has been running the annual Cadbury Research Fellowship programme since 2002. Having created its research theme for the year, the department visits fellowship applications and selects early-career scholars who are currently based in African institutions.
The Cadbury Research Fellowship 2020 for Researchers in African Institutions (Fully-Funded) and conference care with processes of interpretation in African societies and African studies, which is linked to the conference ‘Making Sense: Language, Text and Interpretation in African Studies’ at the University of Birmingham.
It is concerned with processes of interpretation in African societies and African studies. The Cadbury programme (and conference) invites contributions that engage this order of questions in reference to concrete processes and projects of research.
When visiting fellows arrive within the department, they take part in a series of developmental activities which are organised around the annual research theme and are hospitable members of educational staff and postgraduate students.
These activities may include presentations of work-in-progress, reading groups, writing groups, speaker events, research methods sessions, and one-to-one meetings. The ultimate element of the programme is a world conference, at which fellows present their work, alongside other speakers from around the world.
The department is grateful to the Cadbury family for its bequest which allows us to fund this annual programme. It welcomes researchers coming from various disciplines and inter-disciplinary backgrounds in all African regions and historical periods.
The organisers particularly encourage applications from researchers who work on select sources in an African language (including Arabic and other languages utilized in Africa). And who can perform a critical semantic analysis of the meanings, interpretations and uses of this material?
Cadbury Research Fellowship programme applications are going to be selected on the idea of their interest and originality with regards to questions of interpretation: how can the meanings of what we call our sources to be accessed?
What problems arise within the process of interpreting? How is that the researcher positioned in reference to the authors of his/her sources, and therefore the users and audiences of the knowledge s/he analyses and/or produces? and the way researchers represent the phenomena they study – are their interpretations of new representations?
How are they associated with the first meanings conveyed by the producers of their sources? How do the authors of what we call ‘sources’ convey meaning in their written and oral texts? How do these meanings develop in historically specific semantic worlds? How is meaning transformed through translations, reinterpretations and struggles over meaning?
How is that the world made sense of in African languages and epistemic traditions, and what changes when analysts – African and non-African – add up of African texts and societies in several discursive contexts? they want to debate what makes the understanding of African societies possible; what’s at stake when different types of exegetes interpret the past or this of Africa.
Application Deadline: 7th February 2020.
Eligible Countries: African countries
To be taken at (country): UK
Type: Fellowship
Number of Awardees: Not specified
ELIGIBILITY:
The organisers are trying to find young professional scholars whose research would be carried out at the residential fellowship for up to four weeks at the University of Birmingham. Applicants must be based in an African institution. T
hey ought to be within the early stages of their academic careers (that is, they ought to have completed a PhD within the last four years, or now be on the brink of completing one) and that they must demonstrate that their research has relevancy to the theme outlined above.
Value of Fellowship:
The Cadbury fellows will have the opportunity to use the University’s excellent library resources, discuss their work with academic staff and postgraduate students at DASA, and contribute to the intellectual life of the department by participating in numerous events which will be organised during the period of the fellowships. Fellowships will cover return airfare, accommodation and living costs for a period of 4 weeks.
Duration of Fellowship:
The Cadbury fellowship programme will begin on or after 27 April 2020 and would end between 24 May and 6 June 2020. The three-day international conference is scheduled for 21, 22 and 23 May 2020.
Selection Criteria
Fellowship applications are going to be selected on the idea of their interest and originality with regards to questions of interpretation:
How can the meanings of what we call our sources to be accessed?
What problems arise within the process of interpreting?
How is that the researcher positioned in reference to the authors of his/her sources, and therefore the users and audiences of the knowledge s/he analyses and/or produces?
And how do researchers represent the phenomena they study – are their interpretations of new representations?
How are they associated with the first meanings conveyed by the producers of their sources?
How to Apply:
If you’d wish to be considered for the 2020 scheme, please send your application by email to Dr Ceri Whatley on c.n.whatley@bham.ac.uk by 7 February 2020. In your email, please allow us to skills you learned about this programme and ensure that, if selected, you’d be ready to come to Birmingham during the fellowship period 27 April 2020 to 6 June 2020. Attached to your email should be two documents:
A research project description of 1500 words, describing: a) the research that you have already done, b) the precise aspect that you simply seek to develop during the fellowship, and c) how this relates to the theme of Language, Text and Interpretation in African Studies.
A CV of no quite 3 pages including the names and contacts of two referees
For more information, visit Cadbury Fellowship
