Fellowships: The African Humanities Program (AHP)

Fellowship Details

• Applicants must be Africans residing and working in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, or Uganda.
• Funding is available for dissertation completion and for postdoctoral research and writing.
• Applicants for dissertation-completion fellowships should be in the final year of writing the dissertation at a university in Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, or Uganda (but not South Africa).
• Applicants for postdoctoral research/writing fellowships must be working in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, or Uganda.
• Projects must be in the humanities.
• Projects must be carried out in Africa.

Please see the competition announcement for further details on eligibility, submission of applications, and selection criteria.

The African Humanities Program (AHP) seeks to revitalize the humanities in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda through fellowship competitions and meetings associated with them. The AHP is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Fellowship awards to promising African scholars are the centerpiece of the African Humanities Program. Approximately forty such fellowships will be awarded annually. In future years, funding will become available to subsidize the publication of manuscripts completed under terms of AHP fellowships.

The AHP organizes meetings in Africa in cooperation with host institutions to publicize the fellowship program and to discuss new trends in humanities research. In the first two years of the program (2008 and 2009), meetings were held at universities in Ghana (University of Ghana-Legon), in Nigeria (University of Ibadan, Bayero University Kano, and Amadu Bello University in Zaria), in South Africa (University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Johannesburg in Johannesburg, the East London campus of Ft. Hare University, the University of the Western Cape and University of Cape Town in Cape Town), in Tanzania (the University of Dar es Salaam), and in Uganda (Makarere University in Kampala). At the meetings senior African scholars from a variety of disciplines advise on the fine-tuning of the fellowship programs and lead workshops in application preparation. Younger scholars learn about the AHP fellowship program and gain practical advice in workshops as well as participating in discussions about new directions in the humanities and about standards of quality in humanities research. Through the activities of the African Humanities Program, ACLS promotes local and transnational cooperation among humanities scholars at all stages of career, with the aim of developing a self-sustaining continent-wide network of African humanities scholars.

The African Humanities Program is inspired by a commitment to the humanities as a core component of higher education and research in Africa, essential to progress and development. The ACLS defines the humanities as the study of human cultures, languages, and histories through the use of qualitative methods. Among the disciplines contributing to humanities scholarship are anthropology, history, literature, religion, philosophy and the performing arts.

Application forms and instructions are available on the ACLS website. Printed versions of forms and instructions may be obtained from the African Humanities Program by email. ACLS encourages the submission of applications via email.

• Instructions and Application Form (Doc)
• Instructions and Application Form (PDF)

Application forms and instructions are also available on the ACLS website: http://www.acls.org/programs/ahp
For printed versions or further information, please email [ ahp@acls.org ] the African Humanities Program.

Deadline for receipt of applications at ACLS: December 1, 2009

Info source: http://www.acls.org/grants/Default.aspx?id=3210