What's new

The IRCPL Dissertation Fellowship provides students with $5,000 towards the completion of their dissertation over the course of an academic semester (typically the fall semester). IRCPL Dissertation Fellows are expected to attend a monthly seminar with the Director of IRCPL, in which they will have the opportunity to present a chapter on which they are working and receive feedback.

Applications for the 2022 Dissertation Fellowship are due on Wednesday, May 18th, 2022.

The Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life is pleased to announce a master class for students in the Columbia University community on the topic of Indigenous Environmental Justice: Transforming Sustainability, Empowering Climate Action. The master class will be run by Kyle Powys Whyte, Professor of Environment and Sustainability and George Willis Pack at the University of Michigan.

This master class will take place over four sessions, each of 75 minutes, on February 9th, February 23rd, March 9th, and April 6th.

Deadline for applications: January 18, 2022

The Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life will host a public writing workshop over three to four sessions during the spring 2022 semester. The aim of the workshop is to provide graduate students with advice and support in producing a sample op-ed or book review essay aimed at a broad, non-specialist audience. This sample might be used for job applications (academic and non-academic) or for submission to a publication.

Participants will receive the input of Columbia faculty with experience writing for such news outlets as the New York Times and the Guardian, as well as periodicals and online venues such as the Nation, the New York Review of Books, Public Books, and the Immanent Frame.

Apply by December 1, 2021.

Extended deadline: Monday, May 24, 2021.
Public Humanities Fellows will each work closely with one of the community, arts, or religious organizations participating in the ZIP Code Memory Project to organize group meetings and discussions, reparative memory workshops, larger public roundtables and memorial events, the building of an interactive website, and a final exhibition. Fellows receive a stipend of $4000.

This fellowship is offered in partnership with Heyman/SOF and CSSD.

Graduate students: apply by March 11, 2021. The fellowship provides each student a maximum of $4,000 to cover expenses related to their research during the Summer of 2021 (including living expenses). No travel is allowed, per Columbia policy.

Undergraduate students: apply by March 25, 2021. The fellowship provides a maximum of $2,500 to support research or an internship that focuses on any aspect of religion or secularism. Please note that graduating seniors are not eligible for this fellowship.

Email Marianna at mp3699@columbia.edu with any questions.

The Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life invites submissions for a two-day roundtable on “Religion and Climate Change,” to be held virtually on March 25-26, 2021. The first roundtable invites scholars whose work addresses religious, spiritual and theological engagements with the climate crisis, broadly conceived. The second roundtable engages scholars examining the intersections, overlaps, or commonalities between science and/or environmentalism and religion and the ways in which beliefs are engaged. Participants will not be asked to write a paper, but will present a brief summary of their ongoing work for discussion.

Interested participants should submit a 300-word abstract and two-page Curriculum Vitae to Marianna Pecoraro at mp3699@columbia.edu by January 21, 2021. Submissions from early career researchers (including PhD students) are especially encouraged.

With a challenging academic year ahead, the Center for Science and Society, the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life, and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society will offer new grants for proposals that cultivate student engagement and enhance the online learning experience for Columbia students and instructors.

All Columbia and Barnard faculty, instructors, undergraduate and graduate students, TAs, research fellows and postdocs (if teaching or taking a class in the 2020-21 academic year) are eligible to apply.

Learn more here. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

IRCPL is working with the Office of the Provost to provide seed grant funding for faculty and/or academic units within the Columbia community that engage with issues of structural racism. The goal of this initiative is to provide resources to enable collaborative dialogue, action, and insight for systemic change towards racial equity. Awards will be funded up to $5,000.

IRCPL will support 1-2 projects that focus in some significant way on the intersection of race/racism and issues connected to religion, belief and/or secularism.

Submission deadline: September 17, 2020.
See more information here.

The Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University is seeking submissions to its second annual Claremont Prize for the Study of Religion. The prize is dedicated to the publication of first books by early career scholars working in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences. Submissions can be on any aspect of the study of religion, including the study of secularism. Prize-winners will be invited to IRCPL to participate in a workshop and the books will appear in IRCPL’s series, “Religion, Culture, and Public Life,” published by Columbia University Press.

Deadline: September 14, 2020.

2020 SCHOLARSHIP FUND

The 2020 Scholarship Fund places an emphasis on meeting unexpected expenses, on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, that are affecting students’ ability to pursue their research and writing. Each award is $3,000. See more details here.

Deadline: Monday, May 25, 2020 at 12pm.

DISSERTATION FELLOWSHIP

The IRCPL Dissertation Fellowship provides students with $5,000 towards the completion of the dissertation. The fellowship is available to students registered full-time at Columbia GSAS who have completed the 5th year of the PhD program. See more details here.

Deadline: Monday, June 15, 2020 at 12pm.

Email Marianna Pecoraro at mp3699@columbia.edu with any questions.

Graduate students: apply by February 5, 2020. The fellowship provides each student a maximum of $4,000 to cover expenses directly related to their research, including travel, lodging, and materials during the Summer of 2020.

Undergraduate students: apply by March 25, 2020. The fellowship provides a maximum of $2,500 to support research or an internship that focuses on any aspect of religion or secularism. Please note that graduating seniors are not eligible for this fellowship. 

Faculty: apply by February 20, 2020. Joint Projects will provide up to $15,000 for research projects, seminars, conferences, working groups, and other programs that bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars.

Email Marianna at mp3699@columbia.edu with any questions.

We invite scholars from any discipline to submit paper proposals for a two-day workshop, “Panjab at the Limits of Indian History,” to be held at Columbia University in New York City on April 24-25, 2020. This workshop is a partnership between IRCPL, Alliance Program and Sciences Po - Centre de recherches internationales. The workshop seeks to explore “Panjab” and “Panjabi” amid the assumptions, contradictions and elisions of the conventional study of South Asia. We are interested in papers that examine how various beliefs, practices and traditions emerging from Panjab call into question categories such as “nation,” “religion,” “language,” “capitalism,” “borders” and even “history,” and thereby offer potentially new ways to conceptualize the past and present.

Interested participants should submit a 300-word abstract and two-page Curriculum Vitae to Marianna Pecoraro at mp3699@columbia.edu by January 10, 2020.

Graduate students: apply by February 5, 2020. The fellowship provides each student a maximum of $4,000 to cover expenses directly related to their research, including travel, lodging, and materials during the Summer of 2020.

Undergraduate students: apply by March 25, 2020. The fellowship provides a maximum of $2,500 to support research or an internship that focuses on any aspect of religion or secularism. Please note that graduating seniors are not eligible for this fellowship. 

Email Marianna at mp3699@columbia.edu with any questions.

IRCPL is hosting three info sessions on the graduate seminar “Punjab and Religion,” taught by Dr. Rajbir Judge:

* Tuesday, October 22
* Monday, October 28
* Thursday, November 7

During Spring Break, students will travel to various sites in East Punjab to consider the contradictory and disputed nature of Punjab’s religious traditions while remaining attentive to the many intricate historical legacies that saturate the Punjab landscape. Travel expenses will be covered by IRCPL.

Attendance to one info session is required to enroll in the class. Register here.

The Claremont Prize is dedicated to the publication of first books by early career scholars working on any aspect of the study of religion, in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences. Prize-winners will be invited to IRCPL to participate in a workshop and the books will appear in IRCPL’s series, “Religion, Culture, and Public Life,” published by Columbia University Press.

Email your application to mp3699@columbia.edu by October 1, 2019.

The Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University is seeking submissions to its new Claremont Prize for the Study of Religion. The prize is dedicated to the publication of first books by early career scholars working in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences. Submissions can be on any aspect of the study of religion, including the study of secularism. Prize-winners will be invited to IRCPL to participate in a workshop and the books will appear in IRCPL’s series, “Religion, Culture, and Public Life,” published by Columbia University Press.

Deadline: October 1, 2019.