The RSSS Philosophy Program recently advertised some post-doctoral and research fellowships. The text of the advertisement circulated in Jobs for Philosophers is as follows:
Australian National University
PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM, RESEARCH SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCESPostdoctoral Fellow/Research Fellow Fixed-Term Level A/B
The Philosophy Program, Research School of Social Sciences, seeks to appoint two or more research-only Postdoctoral/Research Fellows (Level A/B). The fellows will be appointed in association with projects directed by Professors David Chalmers (on consciousness and related topics) and Daniel Stoljar and Frank Jackson (on philosophical progress). Candidates should hold a Ph.D. in philosophy or a related discipline prior to appointment, and should specialize in the philosophy of mind or language, metaphilosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, or cognitive science. Appointment will be for up to three years. The School will consider proposals to fill the positions by secondment, and particularly welcomes applications from women. Full details, including details on how to apply, are available at http://consc.net/fellows.html. Closing date: January 14, 2011.
The "full details" mentioned above (including an online application procedure) are available at the ANU website.
Note: as well as applying online, please e-mail all application materials to anuphil2011@gmail.com. This will ensure that we receive all materials in a timely fashion. We encourage you to send materials as soon as you can. We would appreciate it if you could have letters of recommendation e-mailed to that address as well, if possible.
Answers to other questions:
(1) The projects concern Consciousness (directed by Chalmers) and Philosophical Progress (directed by Stoljar and Jackson). It's not required that applicants have a history of working directly on these issues, however. The fellowship projects are construed very broadly, and we are interested in applications from a wide range of areas (the consciousness project has employed philosophers of language, metaphysicians, and epistemologists in the past, for example, who have been doing research that isn't directly on consciousness). If in doubt, apply!
(2) The starting date is fairly flexible, but most likely sometime in mid-2011. You're required to have PhD in hand by the start of the appointment.
(3) It is possible to hold this sort of fellowship while holding a position at another institution. A number of post-doctoral fellows appointed in the Program have held such positions, including Tim Bayne (Macquarie), John Bengson (Wisconsin), Berit Brogaard (Missouri), Kenny Easwaran (USC), Andy Egan (Michigan), Dan Korman (Illinois), Fiona Macpherson (Glasgow), Adam Pautz (Texas), Raul Saucedo (Cornell), Nico Silins (Cornell), Declan Smithies (Ohio State), and Mike Titelbaum (Wisconsin). (The Centre for Consciousness website has a full list of post-docs in the Centre to date, plus other information.) Of course you will need permission from the other institution for this sort of arrangement. But the ANU end is fairly flexible. Appointment lengths of from one to three years are possible, and it may also be possible to break an appointment into periods of a year or so separated by time elsewhere.
(4) The appointed fellows will be expected to take full part in the extraordinarily active philosophical culture of the RSSS Philosophy Program.
(5) Although the regulations do not require it, it would be helpful if applicants were to send writing samples and have a dossier of recommendation letters sent to the email address above, at least if they have such a dossier readily available. If not, then we will contact recommenders for shortlisted applicants.
(6) Note that there are seven "selection citeria" listed towad the
end of the official web page for the position. It is university
policy that applicants must address these criteria explicitly. So we
advise you to do this, but we note that your responses need not be
long: a couple of sentences or a paragraph each is fine.