USS FULBRIGHT AMERICAN STUDIES INSTITUTES, 2001

The American Institute in Taiwan Cultural and Information Section and the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange are pleased to invite candidates with an advanced command of English to apply for one of the 2001 Fulbright American Studies Institute programs.  The Fulbright Summer institute programs are designed for mid-career university-level educators.  Each institute will last six weeks, with varying dates ranging from June 1 to August 11, 2001.

A list of the institutes planned for this summer along with a sample application form are shown below.

Detailed program summaries have been sent by mail to individual universities and colleges.  You may also contact the Cultural Affairs Office at (02) 2332-7081, ext. 211/216 for details.

The United States through Literature: Reading America （透過美國文學進行美國研究）

1. Institute Objectives 研習會目標

The seminar is designed to provide participants with a deeper understanding of American life and institutions, past and present, in order to strengthen curricula and to improve the quality of teaching about the U.S. in college, university and secondary school classrooms abroad. This seminar is intended to assist faculty from overseas colleges and universities who are seeking to establish or enhance programs that focus on American literature and civilization at their home institutions.

2. Program Description 研習會簡介

Because most participants will come departments of language and literature, the institute will explore themes in American civilization using literature and literary studies as the primary disciplinary vehicle. At the same time, the program's literary focus will be sufficiently interdisciplinary or multi-disciplinary in scope to allow grantees to explore broad themes in the history, society, and culture of the United States. The primary works of literature to be examined will therefore be supplemented not only by background readings in literary history and criticism, but also by the writings of historians, political scientists, and sociologists. The institute itself is intended to be a model of how to pursue scholarly investigation of the U.S.

The main program theme will be "Reading America." The program will examine vital aspects of American society at the beginning of the new millennium, and will explore America's society, culture, and its political and civic principles. Though American novels and poetry will be frequently referred to, the primary lens through which the theme will be explored are nonfiction American literature and other documentary forms. The focus on nonfiction literature is due to the fact that it represents the oldest and perhaps the most specifically "American" genre of literary production in this country but also because nonfiction writing most fully expresses the continuous American dream.

Participants in this institute can expect an intensive program and will engage in seven different forms of activity: substantive lecture/seminar sessions at New School University; on-site studies; reading workshops; one-on-one course development sessions; computer instruction; study tour trips to New Mexico and Washington, D.C. and, cultural activities.

The program will be cover the following six substantive sections:
Constituting America
Imagining America
Becoming American
Contesting America
Globalizing America
Local America: The Borderland Culture

The Institute will commence on Friday, June 1 and end on Tuesday, July 10, 2001.

3. Housing and meal arrangements

During the academic residency segment in New York, grantees will be housed in convenient and comfortable accommodations at the New School's best residence hall - Loeb Hall. Grantees will be housed two in a suite which includes two individual bedrooms. Grantees will be provided with a meal allowance that enable them to utilize a rich diversity of local restaurants that can accommodate all budgets and culinary desires. Grantees can eat in the restaurants or order take-out meals to bring along to the dining area of the New School.

4. Funding

Participants will receive funding for all institute costs, including: international travel and allowances; domestic travel and ground transportation; book, cultural, mailing and incidental allowances; admissions; housing and subsistence. They will receive insurance coverage of US$50, 000 with $25 deductible; pre-existing conditions are not covered.

5. Program requirements and restrictions

Participants are expected to attend the entire program. They are also expected to attend all lectures and non-optional organized activities, and to complete assigned readings. Family members and/or friends cannot accompany participants on any part of the program. Teaching methodology and pedagogical techniques will not be addressed formally in the institute. Candidates should be made aware that the institute is very intensive and that there will be very little time for personal pursuits unrelated to the program. While the equivalent of one day a week will be set-aside for mentored curricular research and independent study, the institute should not be viewed as a research program. It is important that these requirements and restrictions be made clear to all candidates before nominations are submitted.

6. Candidate qualifications

1. Highly motivated and experienced foreign university faculty, (from departments of English, literature, American Studies or other relevant fields) including teachers; teacher trainers; department chairs; curriculum developers; and textbook writers. They must have the ability and willingness to incorporate information about U.S. society, culture and institutions in their teaching and curriculum development activities.
2. The ideal candidate will be an experienced professional with little or no prior study experience in the U.S., whose home institution is seeking to introduce aspects of U.S. studies into its curriculum; to develop new courses in the subject of the institute; or, to enhance and update existing courses on the United States. In this respect, while the individual nominee's scholarly and professional credentials are an important consideration in determining the suitability for acceptance, how participation in the institute will enhance course offerings in U. S. studies at the nominee's home institution is equally important.
3. Scholars both with and without extensive previous knowledge about the U.S. will benefit from this American Studies institute. While senior faculty members are eligible applicants, first consideration will be given to younger and mid-career faculty, and to persons who are likely to be comfortable with campus life and an active six-week post-graduate level academic program.

7. To apply for the institute

Submit the following information by letter, fax, or e-mail. The application form may be viewed and  downloaded from http://ait.org.tw/ait/cis/cismain.htm. The application deadline is March 15, 2001.

1. Nominee's full name in English and Chinese;
2. Home address, telephone and e-mail;
3. Date and place of birth;
4. Gender;
5. Medical, physical, dietary or other personal considerations;
6. Present position and title;
7. Current institutional affiliation and complete address;
8. Work experience, including previous positions and titles;
9. Education, academic and professional training, including degrees earned and fields of specialization;
10. Active Professional memberships
11. Short list of relevant publications;
12. Previous travel and study or research experience in the United States, including dates and an indication as to whether such travel was supported by U. S. government funds;
13. Evidence of fluency in written and oral English;
14. One-page statement of applicant's objectives for participating in the program;
15. Nominee's curriculum vitae in English.

To submit an application or to request more program details, all interested scholars are welcome to contact Cultural Affairs Specialist Judy Chow or Morris Huang, AIT Cultural and Information Section, No. 54, Nan Hai Road [台北市南海路54號], Taipei, Taiwan, Tel: (02) 2332-7981 ext. 211/215; fax: (02) 2305-2120; e-mail: taipei@mail.ait.org.tw

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Contemporary American Literature當代美國文學

1. Institute Objectives 研習會目標

The program will offer a multi-dimensional and academically rigorous examination of contemporary American literature and criticism (using "postmodernism" as the basic thematic approach) through a integrated and intensive series of lectures, readings, interactive discussions, site visits, and faculty-assisted curricular research and independent study opportunities.

2. Program Description 研習會簡介

This seminar will examine a wide range of contemporary U.S. literary texts both for their contribution to the tradition and the body of U.S. literature as a vibrant, living art form, and for the ways in which the literature provides a window on and a mirror of contemporary U.S. society, values, and cultural debates.

Questions to be considered:

What are the distinctive characteristics of contemporary American literature?
What, if anything, is new or different about it?
How does it relate to, respond to, and/or rebel against the American literary canon?
In what ways is it a continuation of, in what ways a break with the work of the great American modernists of the first half of this century, such as Faulkner and Eliot, Hemingway and Wallace Stevens?
How do current American writers change our ideas of literature, and of language?
How might courses about their work at once give some sense of its vast range and at the same time reflect any emerging critical consensus as to what is most important or likely to be lasting in it?
What are the distinctive aspects of American culture today as reflected in, commented upon, shaped or criticized by contemporary American literature?
How has the change from a modern industrial to a postmodern information economy changed our lives and American literature?
How is our present shaped by our past, and how does contemporary U.S. literature represent this shaping?
How does contemporary American literature relate to broader artistic and philosophical contexts?
In what ways is it similar to (or different from) other contemporary American art (visual art, performance art, architecture, or such forms of popular art as Hollywood film, television, and music video)?
In What ways does it participate in, or lead, and in what ways differ from, or resist, that complex of changes in western art and philosophy in general known as "postmodernism"?
While much valuable commentary on postmodernism has come from European intellectuals, in practice as a way of art and of life is it recognized as having a specifically American character?
What is specifically American about postmodern literature?
What is or is not programmatically postmodern about contemporary American literature?
How does contemporary American literature participate in the nation's great cultural debates in our time? How does it reflect, embody, perform, and criticize U.S. values? How does it fit into the great tradition of U.S. literature as a place of , a stage and a forum for social commentary and critique? 

3. Housing and meal arrangements

During the residential program on the Louisville campus, grantees will be lodged in private rooms in a university housing facility.  The will share a bathroom with one other grantee. Participants will be given a subsistence allowance that will allow them to take meals at the campus dining facility, eat at local restaurants, or cook for themselves.

4. Funding

Participants will receive funding for all institute costs, including: international travel and allowances; domestic travel and ground transportation; book, cultural, mailing and incidental allowances; admissions; housing and subsistence. They will receive insurance coverage of US$50, 000 with $25 deductible; pre-existing conditions are not covered.

5. Program requirements and restrictions

Participants are expected to attend the entire program. They are also expected to attend all lectures and non-optional organized activities, and to complete assigned readings. Family members and/or friends cannot accompany participants on any part of the program. Teaching methodology and pedagogical techniques will not be addressed formally in the institute. Candidates should be made aware that the institute is very intensive and that there will be very little time for personal pursuits unrelated to the program. While the equivalent of one day a week will be set-aside for mentored curricular research and independent study, the institute should not be viewed as a research program. It is important that these requirements and restrictions be made clear to all candidates before nominations are submitted.

6. Candidate qualifications

1. Candidates should be active and highly motivated foreign university level educators, including teachers, department chairs (most likely form educational institutions where the study of the U.S. is relatively well-developed), curriculum developers, and textbook writers, whose professional duties require significant knowledge of U.S. civilization. They must have the ability and desire to include content about the U.S. particularly contemporary American literature and criticism, in their teaching and curriculum development activities.
2. The ideal candidate will be an experienced professional who currently (or intends in the near future) to include content about the U.S.  in their teaching, but who has little or no prior study of travel experience in the U.S. While candidates may not have in-depth knowledge of contemporary American literature, they should have some experience in teaching or writing about American literature in general.
3. Candidates must have significant prior knowledge of American literature and of literary theory, criticism and practice. They must also have very strong English-language ability due to the advanced nature of this program's academic content and terminology, in addition to the level and difficulty of the required readings.
4. While senior faculty members are eligible applicants, first consideration will be given to younger and mid-career faculty, and to persons who are likely to be comfortable with campus life and an active six-week post-graduate level academic program.

7. To apply for the institute

Submit the following information by letter, fax, or e-mail. The application form may be viewed and  downloaded from http://ait.org.tw/ait/cis/cismain.htm. The application deadline is March 15, 2001.

1. Nominee's full name in English and Chinese;
2. Home address, telephone and e-mail;
3. Date and place of birth;
4. Gender;
5. Medical, physical, dietary or other personal considerations;
6. Present position and title;
7. Current institutional affiliation and complete address;
8. Work experience, including previous positions and titles;
9. Education, academic and professional training, including degrees earned and fields of specialization;
10. Active Professional memberships
11. Short list of relevant publications;
12. Previous travel and study or research experience in the United States, including dates and an indication as to whether such travel was supported by U. S. government funds;
13. Evidence of fluency in written and oral English;
14. One-page statement of applicant's objectives for participating in the program;
15. Nominee's curriculum vitae in English.

To submit an application or to request more program details, all interested scholars are welcome to contact Cultural Affairs Specialist Judy Chow or Morris Huang, AIT Cultural and Information Section, No. 54, Nan Hai Road [台北市南海路54號], Taipei, Taiwan, Tel: (02) 2332-7981 ext. 211/215; fax: (02) 2305-2120; e-mail: taipei@mail.ait.org.tw

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