Description
Applications are invited for 1-3 month visiting fellowships at Chawton House Library to be taken up from October 2007 onwards. The deadline for applications for the first of these fellowships is May 30th 2007. All Visiting Fellows will be offered accommodation in the Elizabethan stables at Chawton House Library, and office space in the main Library building.
Chawton House Library is a charitable research centre with a unique collection of books focusing on women’s writing in English from 1600 to 1830. Set in the manor house that once belonged to Jane Austen's brother, the Library's main aim is to promote and facilitate study in the field of early women's writing. The specialist collection of early editions is freely accessible to the public, and the Library runs a programme of events and activities relating both to the estate and the collection. For more information please see www.chawton.org.
The aim of these fellowships is to enable individuals to undertake significant research in the long eighteenth century. A focus on women’s writing or lives in the period would be particularly welcomed, although other projects of research in the period will be considered. They would be of interest to members of university and college faculties on leave from their institutions and graduate students for whom a stay at Chawton would be beneficial in completing the thesis or dissertation required for their degree.
All Visiting Fellows would be expected to stay in Chawton for the duration of their fellowship, and will find the tranquillity of the location especially conducive to their work. The Library is a train ride from the British Library, London, and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. There are close academic links with the University of Southampton, and visiting fellows will be encouraged to present their work in progress at a seminar in Southampton.
A typed letter of application, including the preferred dates of study and a brief research proposal (not to exceed three pages) and a current curriculum vitae, should be sent for the attention of the Director of Chawton House Library, Heather Shearer, and the Chawton House Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Gillian Dow. The applicant should also arrange to have two confidential letters of recommendation sent direct to the Library. For informal enquiries about the holdings in the collection, please contact the librarian Helen Scott – helen.scott@chawton.net or Gillian Dow – gillian.dow@chawton.net
The selection committee includes the Trustees of Chawton House Library and Faculty members of the University of Southampton which has considerable strengths in eighteenth-century history and literature and runs a successful interdisciplinary MA in eighteenth-century studies. For more information, see http://www.english.soton.ac.uk/.
Visiting Fellows will be expected to donate a copy of the manuscript or published work resulting from their stay to the Library collection, as well as to give a paper on their work in progress at the Library during their residency. |