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Call for Applications: Postdoctoral Fellowship at LUMS Gurmani Center

Call for Applications for Postdoctoral Fellowship in South Asian Languages and Literature
The Gurmani Centre for Languages and Literature at the Lahore University of Management Sciences calls for applications:

Postdoctoral Fellowship
This is a nine-month fully-funded position. Fellows will be eligible for faculty housing subject to availability. The fellowship stipend will be Pak Rs. 150,000 per month (approximately equivalent to USD 1500 per month). In addition, the fellow would be entitled to an economy-class return fare to and from Lahore. With the living cost in Lahore, this amount can provide for quite comfortable living.

Requirements
The candidates must have ideally completed the requirements for a PhD by the start of the fellowship. Those who have submitted their PhDs, or are about to, can also apply. While PhDs from any Humanities discipline—History, Comparative Literature, Area Studies, etc—can apply, the candidate’s work must closely engage with South Asian languages and/or literatures. In addition to English, the candidates must also have working knowledge of at least one South Asian language though those with more languages will be preferred. Moreover, the candidates must have research interests in Pakistan.

Description
The Gurmani Centre at LUMS, Lahore aims to support the advancement of knowledge in the field of South Asian languages and literatures. This postdoctoral fellowship is designed with the goal of providing a platform to academics interested in doing research in Lahore and Pakistan but lacking institutional support. The fellow at the Centre would be expected to conduct archival or other form of research work based in Pakistan; spark interest in the subject through organizing and/or giving occasional talks; and participate in and contribute to academic discussion at the university. The position also involves teaching two undergraduate courses in the relevant area of expertise. The courses can be taught over two semesters or both in one semester. The subject of the courses should fit in with the other courses being offered at the Centre and the University. The principle medium of instruction and the working language at the university is English; however, Urdu is also an alternate medium of instruction.

How to Apply:
The application package must include a cover letter describing your research interests and relevance to this fellowship; a curriculum vitae; transcripts of all graduate institutions attended;   a two-page summary of the PhD thesis; sample syllabi of potential courses you might want to teach; and an exposition of your research project(s) that you plan to continue/start/finish at the Gurmani Centre. Please email application files toyasmeen@lums.edu.pk.

About the Gurmani Centre:
The Gurmani Centre for Languages and Literature (GCLL) at the Lahore University of Management Sciences was initiated by the Gurmani Foundation in April 2010 for the advancement of Arabic, Persian, Urdu and other Pakistani languages. The Centre is part of the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences (MGSHSS) and promotes languages and their literatures through teaching, research/publication, and its outreach programme.

The Centre has two publications: one annual research journal titled Buny?d (in Urdu and English), rerecognized by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan; and one student magazine called Num?d. The Centre also promotes research and translation work by supporting authors, editors, and translators and promotes interest in such works by organizing public talks, literary events, and workshops. The Centre has also organized various academic conferences—such as one on the occasion of Manto’s Centennial as well as on the important modern Urdu poets Majid Amjad and Meeraji—and has published a collection of research articles including those produced for the conferences among others: Nay? Urdu Afsan?, for example, was published in 2012 (Lahore: Sang-e Meel Publications).

The Gurmani Centre is also home to the revived Berkeley Urdu Language Program in Pakistan administered jointly by the University of California at Berkeley, the American Institute for Pakistan Studies and MGSHSS at LUMS.

For more detail about the courses, people, and activities of the Centre please visit: http://lums.edu.pk/mgshss/gurmani/

About the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences (MGHSS):
The LUMS Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences (MGSHSS) is a small liberal-arts school known for having the strongest department of humanities and social Science in Pakistan. (MGSHSS also includes a separate Department of Economics with an undergraduate and a Master’s level graduate program). Employing a multidisciplinary approach, the DHSS aims to impart high-quality liberal arts education to its undergraduates. The Department currently offers undergraduate majors in English, History, Anthropology and Sociology, Political Science, and Economics and Politics with additional minors in Psychology and Philosophy. While the school is an undergraduate teaching institution, the faculty at DHSS is committed to academic research, and encourages students in the same vein. Exposure to studies and research at the MGSHSS has led many students to join academia and complete PhDs in the Humanities and Social Sciences and many of them hold prominent academic positions worldwide. With forty-eight permanent faculty members, and about fifteen adjuncts, DHSS is a small but vibrant academic community. Given its location in Lahore, Pakistan, most of DHSS faculty—History, English, Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science—focus their research on South Asia and particularly on Pakistan. This provides various opportunities of interdisciplinary academic collaboration and engagement and thus proves to be a unique and strong network for research and teaching of South Asian languages and literatures. For more information on the school please visit the website at: http://lums.edu.pk/mgshss/

Kamal A Munir
Dean, Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS

Date: 
Monday, October 12, 2015 - 12:00pm