Fellowships and Awards

ESSWE PhD prize
Nominations are invited for the second biennial ESSWE PhD Thesis prize, awarded by the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism.

The prize will be given for an outstanding PhD thesis completed between 1 January 2009 and 1 March 2011 on any aspect of Western Esotericism.
The prizewinner will receive an award of € 500,- and a certificate, to be presented at the ESSWE conference in Szeged, Hungary 6-10 July 2011. The thesis will also be recommended for publication in the ARIES Book Series.
Nominations must be made by electronic mail to the Chair of the Prize Committee, Andreas Kilcher (ETH, Zürich, akilcher@ethz.ch) by 1 March 2011. More information on the ESSWE website:  http://www.esswe.org/news_detail.php?news_id=59

Fellowship UCLA
The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and the California Masonic Foundation has announced a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA from September 1, 2011 through August 31, 2012. The position is open to a recent Ph.D. with a strong interest in the history of civil society, fraternalism and freemasonry. This postdoctoral fellow will teach two courses in either American (North or South) or European or African history with emphasis on Freemasonry. The course will be designed in consultation with Prof. Margaret C. Jacob, Distinguished Professor of History. A $50,000 stipend, office space for the nine-month period, and a modest relocation fee will be provided. The postdoctoral fellow must remain in residence while classes are in session. For more information about the program visit: http://www.freemasonryandcivilsociety.ucla.edu/
Applicants should submit a CV and three letters of recommendation to Prof. Margaret Jacob, Bunche Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095 by January 10, 2011. UCLA is an AA/EOE. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply.

Essay award
The Masonic Study Center Reward Fernando Pessoa is annually attributed and is destined to reward authors of academic essays or other research into freemasonry. Contributions may be written in in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish. Deadline is 22 December 2010. More information: alvaro.carva at cgd.pt. [With thanks to Andreas Onnerfors]

OVN research grant 2010

The OVN Foundation has awarded a research grant to to Joyce Stoffelsma, a student of western esotericism at the University of Amsterdam. The grant will allow Stoffelsma to make a professional inventory of the historical archive of the Dutch Federation of the International Order of Co-Masonry 'Le Droit Humain'. This inventory will make the archives dating from 1904 until 1945 accessible for future research. The project is made possible by kind cooperation of Le Droit Humain and The Hague's Municipal Archive. See earlier posts ons this blog for more information. Dr. Marco Pasi of the (chair for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents) at the University of Amsterdam will oversee the progress of the project.

OVN Research Grant

The OVN Foundation regularly makes research grants available to students and scholars in the field of the study of freemasonry. Before the end of the year, an new call for candidates will be circulated. In previous years scholars were invited to submit their own research proposals, resulting in a large number of international applications. This time, the grant will be dedicated to a specific purpose: inventorying the historical archive of the Dutch Federation of Le Droit Humain between 1904 and 1949, in order to make this collection accessible for research. As all the relevant material is written in Dutch, this time the application procedure will be open to Dutch candidates only.
In future, the OVN aims to alternate between rewarding grants for original research proposals submitted candidates and dedicating grants to resolving a practical problem or hiatus in the field of study, such as making masonic collections available for research. As the OVN has recently expanded its aims to include western esoteric currents related to freemasonry, a broader scope of research subjects will be accepted in the future. For more information: info@stichtingovn.nl.