For the Spring 2023 semester, BCSR is offering eight fellowships of $3,750 each for graduate students to explore the relationship between democracy and theology through a focus on religion and health. Led by two BCSR faculty members (Ronit Y. Stahl and Munir Jiwa), students will meet bi-weekly to read key texts in the history of religion, explore research topics, and meet Berkeley and visiting faculty working in the field. Awardees will form a cohort of graduate students from diverse disciplines that share an interest in the study of religion and theology.
The Spring 2023 semester’s New Directions group will concentrate on the intersection of religion and health, broadly construed. Whether through the lens of individuals or institutions, religious leaders, spiritual communities, and theological ideas engage with and encounter ideas and claims about medicine, health, and wellness. Students from relevant humanistic or social science disciplines interested in the study of religion in any period and geographical region are encouraged to apply and will be supported in making connections between this material and their own research interests. There will also be opportunities to participate in a new public outreach program based at the BCSR, that will aim to inform publics in the Bay Area about contemporary scholarly study of religion.
- All graduate students are eligible, including prior New Directions participants.
- Student participants will receive a stipend of $3,750, payable in a lump sum in early Spring 2023.
- The selected cohort (eight students) will convene with faculty members for bi-weekly evening meetings during the Spring 2023 semester.
- New Directions applications must include:
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- A CV
- A one-page statement of interest
- The name of a BCSR-affiliated faculty member, or a graduate student advisor who will serve as a reference (formal letters of recommendation are not required)
Applications should be sent to info.bcsr@berkeley.edu by October 21 at 5 PM.