CALL FOR APPLICATIONS McGill University

Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures Stipend for PhD Students in Italian

Deadline

Winter Admission: October 15 (Canadian/Permanent Resident); September 15 (International) 2013.

Application

Should you decide to formally apply, all supplemental application materials and supporting documents must be uploaded directly to the McGill admissions processing system (complete instructions: www.mcgill.ca/gradapplicants/apply/submitting-your-documents).

Description

PhD students with a solid background in Latin and Italian and a dissertation project dealing with Early Modern intellectual and religious history are invited to apply for a 2 years (2014-6) scholarship at the department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at McGill University. The program is part of “The Renaissance of Self-Transformation” - a SSHRC funded project focusing on the relationship between Western esotericism and monastic spirituality in Early Modern Italy. Along with working on a dissertation closely related to the research program, students will also be funded to: 1. translate, edit and annotate a body of Latin texts into English 2. publish a co-authored article and a scholarly review 3. present a paper at an academic conference, and 4. organize an outreach project on religious pluralism. Top priority will be given to dissertation projects focusing on: Early Modern religious orders, their history and their spirituality (e.g. Jesuits, Barnabites, Theatines, or the Observance in general); Western Esotericism (e.g. Hermeticism, Neo-Platonism, Cabala, and the contemporary debate concerning this subject); the interplay of literature and spirituality in specific authors (e.g. Giles of Viterbo, Giovan Francesco Pico, Francesco Zorzi, Giordano Bruno etc.). Reading knowledge of Greek or Hebrew will be a major plus point.

Required Documents

• A one page research proposal in English. • Online application form. • Application fee. You must pay a $100 non-refundable fee or your application will not be

processed. • All university transcripts. Those transcripts not in English or French must be

accompanied by a certified English or French translation (prepared by a licensed translator).

• Two letters of recommendation. Those letters not in English or French must be accompanied by a certified English or French translation (prepared by a licensed translator). On the application form you must provide the names and email addresses of at least two professors who are familiar with your academic work. McGill will contact these referees and invite them to upload references on your behalf. Please note that although you can list public domain addresses such as Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo Mail on the application form, references uploaded from these addresses will not be accepted by the Department. Therefore you must list a valid institutional or corporate e-mail address for your referees.

• One or two samples of written work (in PDF format). This can be in the form of a graded paper, a chapter from a thesis, or an academic article.

• TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) scores for non-native English applicants. This is a requirement of all students applying whose native language is other than English. Results must be on file by application deadline – Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies no longer process applications without official results. Minimum score of 575 or 231 computer based scale. Please note that permanent residents may be required to submit a TOEFL score. IELTS scores are also acceptable: a band score of 6.5 or greater (Academic module).

Stipend

15000 CAD/ year, plus 402 dollars/year in benefits (PGSS supplemental health and dental plan). Additional funding is available for one conference and one research trip to be held in the course of the second year.

Contact

Please contact Matteo Soranzo (matteo.soranzo@mcgill.ca) for any further inquiry and to schedule an interview.