Visiting Member Awards for 2011-2012

The School of Social Science each year invites as Members up to twenty scholars from a large applicant pool. Visiting Members are expected to pursue their own research, but the School organizes a seminar on the year’s focus and a weekly lunch at which Members as well as invited guests present their on-going work. The School is not wedded to any particular intellectual or disciplinary approach. It welcomes applications in economics, political science, law, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. It encourages social scientific work with an historical and humanistic bent and also entertains applications in history, philosophy, literary criticism, literature, and linguistics.

Memberships are for the full academic year; we regret that we cannot consider applications for a single term. The group is interdisciplinary and international, with memberships awarded at both the junior and senior level. Applicants must possess a Ph.D. or equivalent (for example, in some fields the terminal degree may be an M.F.A., or the applicant may possess a foreign degree, or have achieved a level of professional reputation that would merit consideration) by the deadline of November 1, 2010. Former Members in the School of Social Science should note that one can only be a Member once.

The theme for 2011-12 is Moralities. Moral issues–viewed broadly–have become crucial in the public sphere. Whether they concern abortion, stem cell research, defense of human rights, control of immigration, penal treatment of delinquency, social responses to poverty, humanitarian justifications for war or interpretation of the financial crisis, moral arguments and moral sentiments are constantly mobilized in policy decisions. The inscription of this recent evolution in a longer history of the formation of moral subjectivities certainly needs to be explored. Similarly, encounters and conflicts between moral models should be analyzed.

The politics of moralities manifests itself in the everyday life of institutions. Justice, police, prison, education, medicine, mental health, and social work are privileged domains for the study of moral economies. Situations of violence, suffering, exclusion, discrimination, and stigmatization also involve the construction of moral communities and boundaries, moral categories and judgments. In all these cases, moralities are not given realities: they are combined with affects and norms, just as the moral sphere is closely linked to law and religion. Social scientists themselves are personally involved in these moral issues.

Interest in moral issues is certainly not recent. Philosophers have always dealt with morality; historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and economists have analyzed the formation and implementation of moral norms and values; and emerging fields, such as moral psychology and neuroethics, propose innovative understandings. But how can we articulate these disciplinary paradigms? How could the study of morality move beyond formal dilemmas to comprehend the ordinary functioning of social action? How could the interpretation of moralities resist reduction to a choice between relativism and universalism? How are moral economies permanently negotiated and transformed in confrontations with each other? How are moral and political issues increasingly associated, particularly around human rights and humanitarian intervention? How can social scientists continue to develop their critical approach when accounting for situations and facts so morally loaded? Under the direction of James D. Wolfensohn Professor Didier Fassin, these are some issues the seminar—which is the second part of a two-year cycle on “Values in a Changing World”—will examine.

Please note that applications which do not fall within the parameters of the theme for 2011-2012 will also receive full consideration.

Each year our Membership stipends vary, depending on available funds, the needs of individual Members, and the support they can get from outside agencies. Stipend support will not exceed $65,000, and since our funds are always limited, we are rarely able to meet current salary levels. We therefore strongly encourage you to apply for outside support as part of this application process, and to find out in advance about your institution’s policies on matching fellowship awards. The success of your application, however, in no way depends upon securing such support. Memberships are funded by the Institute for Advanced Study, as well as other sources. If you are a recently-tenured faculty member, you may also wish to consider applying to the ACLS for the Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship.

Applications must be submitted through the Institute's online application system (https://applications.ias.edu) by November 1, 2010.

The Institute for Advanced Study was founded in 1930 as a community of postdoctoral scholars where intellectual inquiry could be carried out in the most favorable circumstances. It provides libraries, offices, personal computers, seminar and lecture rooms, subsidized restaurant and housing facilities, and some secretarial services.