Sacred Soundscapes:
Music, Poetry, and Aurality within
African and Middle Eastern Religious Cultures
The African and Middle Eastern Division (AMED) of the Library of Congress invites applications for short-term postdoctoral and senior fellowships on the theme of sacred soundscapes, defined in the broadest terms. There is no limitation regarding the time period covered but projects must relate primarily to the Library’s African, Middle Eastern, Hebraic and Central Asian collections. Researchers are encouraged to propose projects that utilize new methodologies, interdisciplinary approaches, or comparative perspectives to explore religious culture manifested in sonic traditions. Topics may include but are not limited to sacred music, poetry, spoken word, chanting, performance, mysticism and spiritual practices.
The fellowships are part of the Enhancing Public Understanding of Religious Cultures initiative, which aims in part to support innovative scholarship of some of the most understudied and misunderstood parts of the world through the collections of the Library of Congress. Four fellowships will be awarded each year on different annual themes through a competitive selection process.
This program is made possible through the generous support of the Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative at the Lilly Endowment.
Eligibility:
Fellowships will be offered to individuals with doctoral degrees in the humanities or social sciences. To qualify for a Senior Scholar Fellowship, candidates must have held a doctoral or equivalent degree for at least seven years and have a strong record of publication. For an Emerging Scholar fellowship, individuals can be up to seven years beyond their doctoral or equivalent degree.
Applicants who are not U.S. residents but who otherwise meet the above academic qualifications may also apply and be considered for a fellowship, contingent upon the applicant's visa eligibility.
Stipend & Tenure:
All appointments must start in 2025. Senior scholars are eligible for a stipend of $5,000 for a minimum residency of two weeks.
Emerging postdoctoral scholars are eligible for a stipend of $7,000 for a minimum residency of one month.
Deadline:
All application materials must be submitted by 11:59PM EST on January 20, 2025, including 2 letters of recommendation. Successful applicants will be notified by March 15, 2025.
Application
To apply, please visit: https://www.loc.gov/research-centers/african-and-middle-eastern/about-this-research-center/fellowship-information/
For questions or clarifications, please write to Nadine Sfarjalani at [email protected]
Specialists in the African and Middle Eastern division are available to discuss questions about the collections. Contact them at: https://ask.loc.gov/africa-middle-east
About the African and Middle East Division, Library of Congress:
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, films and video, audio recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The African and Middle Eastern Division (AMED) provides access to collections of unmatched depth and breadth documenting the literatures, cultures and histories of regions extending from the southern tip of Africa to the Mediterranean coast, across the Middle East to Central Asia, and to the Indian Ocean Islands. It maintains custody of more than 650,000 volumes printed in the non- Roman alphabet languages of the region, including books, periodicals, newspapers on microforms, cuneiform tablets, manuscripts, incunabula (printed before 1501) and other early African and Middle Eastern publications. The division holds more than 300,000 volumes in Hebrew and its cognates, more than 450,000 volumes in Arabic, as well as extensive language materials in Persian, Armenian, Georgian, Turkish, Turkic Central Asian, Amharic, Ge’ez, Tigrinya, Kiswahili, Somali, and Oromo. Additionally, the division holds a collection of more than 40,000 African pamphlets documenting historical, cultural, and political developments on the continent, and provides access to rich collections in other major African languages such as Hausa, Yoruba, Wolof, Lingala, Bamana, Malagasy, Zulu, and hundreds of others