MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale
Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition

Bonn/Yale Anton Wilhelm Amo Fellowship

Call for Applications

The Bonn/Yale Anton Wilhelm Amo Fellowship 2022-2023

The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition (GLC), part of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, in partnership with the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), proudly announce the Second Bonn/Yale Anton Wilhelm Amo Fellowship. The Bonn Center hosts the Cluster of Excellence “Beyond Slavery and Freedom. Asymmetric Dependencies in Pre-modern Societies,” funded by the German Excellence Strategy.

Named after the African scholar Anton Wilhelm Amo, this residential fellowship is based in Germany and is open to all scholars with expertise in racial slavery in the southern United States from the colonial period through the American Civil War. Applicants MUST have received the Ph.D. prior to the beginning of their appointment. Both established and younger scholars are encouraged to apply. Fellows are expected to spend the majority of their time in residence at Bonn, Germany, from October 2022 through September 2023. Deadline to apply is April 15, 2022. The fellowship is administered through the BCDSS and application materials must be sent to Bonn; details are below.

The Fellow is a member of the Heinz Heinen Kolleg – Center for Advanced Study at the BCDSS that hosts 10 international scholars whose research focuses on various forms of slavery or severe asymmetrical dependency throughout human history and in various cultural contexts. In addition to working on his or her own research project, the Fellow will teach one course related to their research and hold related office hours for students. Ideally, the Fellow will also complete a significant publication during their residency. The Fellow is expected to participate in the intellectual life of the BCDSS and the larger university community. The Fellow will offer one public presentation during their tenure at Bonn which is recorded for a podcast.

Anton Wilhelm Amo was born around 1700 on the African Gold Coast in the town of Axim in present-day Ghana. He was brought to Germany by the Dutch West India Company in 1707 as and enslaved child and given as a gift to Duke August Wilhelm and Ludwig Rudolf von Wolfenbüttel. Amo was the first African-born person known to have attended a European university. He obtained a doctorate degree in philosophy and held lectures at the universities of Halle and Jena. Having spent forty years of his life in Germany, Amo returned to his place of birth where he died after 1753.

Frank J. Cirillo, the first Bonn-Yale-Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Fellow, earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Virginia. His dissertation explored the impact of the American Civil War upon the radical abolitionists whose movement had fostered the conflict over slavery in the antebellum United States. In the course of his research and teaching, Frank has held prior fellowships and positions at Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Abolition, and Emancipation, the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, the New-York Historical Society, The New School for Social Research, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the University of Virginia’s Nau Center for Civil War History.

 

Who is eligible to apply?

  • Postdoctoral Researchers
  • Senior Scholars
  • with expertise in racial slavery in the southern United States from the colonial period through the American Civil War.
  • a monthly stipend of € 2,400 for postdocs (up to four years after the dissertation), a monthly stipend of € 3,000 for postdocs (more than four years after the dissertation, assistant/associate professors), a monthly stipend of € 3,600 for full professors;
  • travel allowance (outward and return journey);
  • basic accommodation;
  • a working space including a desktop computer at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies;
  • the opportunity to organize a workshop in Bonn and apply for its funding;
  • support in organizational matters upon arrival;
  • support in finding day care for children.
    1. a statement (max. 4 pages) outlining the candidate’s academic interest in the field of dependency and slavery studies; a project description; the relevance for the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies; the preferred time period to be spent in Bonn
    2. the candidate’s concise Curriculum Vitae (max. 2 pages)
    3. a list of principal publications
    4. two letters of recommendation (sent separately to application[at]dependency.uni-bonn.de)
  • a statement (max. 4 pages) outlining the candidate’s academic interest in the field of dependency and slavery studies; a project description; the relevance for the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies the preferred time period to be spent in Bonn
  • the candidate’s concise Curriculum Vitae (max. 2 pages)
  • a list of principal publications