For the 2009-2010 Academic Year
The Paul Klemperer Fellowship in the History of Medicine
and
The Audrey and William H. Helfand Fellowship in the Medical Humanities
PLEASE NOTE - The Audrey and William H. Helfand Fellowship will be on hold for the 2009-2010 application cycle. Please check back in the fall of 2009 for information regarding the 2010-2011 cycle.
Each year, The New York Academy of Medicine offers the Paul Klemperer Fellowship in the History of Medicine and the Audrey and William H. Helfand Fellowship in the Medical Humanities to support work in history and the humanities as they relate to health, medicine, and the biomedical sciences.
The Klemperer Fellowship supports research using the NYAM Library's resources for scholarly study of the history of medicine. It is intended specifically for a scholar in residence at the NYAM Library. The Helfand Fellowship supports work in the humanities as they apply to medicine and health, including works of non-fiction, visual or performing arts, biography and memoir, as well as scholarly research in a humanistic discipline other than the history of medicine. Although residence is not obligatory, preference will be given applicants whose projects require use of the resources of the NYAM Library and who plan to spend time at NYAM. To see a list of recent fellows, click here.
Each Helfand or Klemperer fellow receives a stipend of $5,000 to support travel, lodging and incidental expenses for a flexible period between June 1, 2009 and May 31, 2010. Besides completing a research or creative project, each fellow will be expected to make a public presentation at NYAM and submit a final report. We invite applications from anyone, regardless of citizenship, academic discipline, or academic status. Preference will be given to (1) those whose research will take advantage of resources that are uniquely available at NYAM, and (2) individuals in the early stages of their careers.
The application process is the same for both fellowships. Our selection committee, comprising prominent historians and medical humanities scholars, will choose both fellows from a common pool of applications. These fellowships are awarded directly to the individual applicant and not to the institution where he or she may normally be employed. None of the fellowship money is to be used for institutional overhead.
Applications must be received by NYAM by Tuesday March 3, 2009; candidates will be informed of the results by May 5, 2009.
Application forms and instructions are available online. Potential applicants for either fellowship are encouraged to visit the NYAM website to further acquaint themselves with NYAM and its library. When using the online catalog of the NYAM Library, please be aware that entries for a considerable portion of the collections have not yet been converted to electronic form.
Please tell others about our fellowships! Download and print a color flyer of this announcement, in pdf format.
Requests for application forms (for those unable to access the forms through the web) or further information should be addressed to:
Historical Collections
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10029
Email: history@nyam.org Telephone: 212-822-7313
The New York Academy Library
NYAM maintains one of the largest medical libraries in the United States with a collection of more than 700,000 volumes, 275,000 portraits and illustrations and 183,000 pamphlets. The Historical Collections Department contains 50,000 volumes in the history of medicine, science and other health-related disciplines. Of these, rare materials dating from 1700 B.C. to the twentieth century number approximately 32,000 volumes. Especially well -represented are medical Americana and classic works in the history of Western European medicine and public health. Primary source materials include more than 2,000 manuscripts, most notably the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, along with photographs and medical artifacts. Secondary sources include an extensive history of medicine reference collection and 95 current journal subscriptions in the history of the health sciences. Besides NYAM's own archives, the collection also houses the archives of many health-related institutions and organizations, which serve as a primary resource for the history of health administration, public health, medical education, and medical practice in New York. The general collections of the Library include one of the world's largest collections of literature on clinical medicine and related fields for the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century.
The New York Academy of Medicine is a not-for-profit educational institution established in 1847 to enhance the health of the public. With its membership of 2,700 leading practitioners, medical researchers, administrators, health sciences educators and other health care professionals, the Academy is a leader in addressing issues important to health in the United States, especially problems associated with urban environments. In-house program staff engage in research and service work in such areas as epidemiology, health policy, public health, bioethics, school health, history of medicine and the medical humanities. Staff seminars and other occasions to meet and discuss work sustain an active intellectual life at NYAM.
