The Center for the Study of Law and Culture welcomes applications from scholars in any field who are interested in spending the academic year in residence at Columbia Law School working on scholarly projects relating to the CSLC’s 2008-2009 theme:  Legal Theologies.

In his Political Theology, Carl Schmitt famously argued that all the foundational ideas of modern political thought are best understood as secularized versions of theological concepts and categories.  Since its original appearance, Schmitt’s thesis has been further developed and deployed in a number of different intellectual disciplines and institutional domains.  Through a congeries of seminars, colloquia, roundtables and lectures, the CSLC will encourage and support sustained investigation and discussion of the concept of the theological as a critical framework for understanding contemporary configurations of law, culture and politics.  Topics we hope to explore during our 2008-2009 program year include (but are not limited to) law and the problem of theocracy; law as a religious system; clerical authority, juridical authority and the “priesthood of the law”; rights and righteousness; the “higher law background” of positive law; the “fidelity” debate; law, religion and narratives of origin; “Catholic” vs. “Protestant” modes of legal interpretation; law, religion and the question of judgment; law, religion and promises; legal theology and theological politics; market “fundamentalism” and modern law; the legal regulation of religion; retribution, redemption and rehabilitation; legal commands and religious commands; legal ritual and religious ritual; the theological foundations of legal secularism; and comparative legal theology.

The Center for the Study of Law and Culture invites applications from prospective fellows whose research addresses the implication of legal, religious, and political ideologies and practice.  We particularly encourage scholars whose work engages the question of legal theologies outside the .  The Law and Culture Fellowship is available to senior graduate students and post-doctoral candidates, including untenured faculty.

The Law & Culture Fellowship is available to senior graduate students and post-doctoral candidates, including untenured faculty.

Founded in the fall of 2000, the Center for the Study of Law and Culture is an initiative at Columbia Law School designed to facilitate interdisciplinary study, research and scholarship on the intersections of law and culture. Our goal is to make the CSLC an institutional site for coordinating and coalescing the important, yet dispersed, interrogations of the relationship between law and culture that are already being undertaken across disciplines at Columbia University.  By promoting and providing a home for cross-disciplinary engagement and collaboration, the CSLC will enrich each of our individual projects in law and culture studies.

Fellows will receive a stipend of $30,000, an office, computer, eligibility for university housing, and full access to university libraries, computer systems and recreational facilities. Fellows will be expected to participate in CSLC activities including presentation of a paper at the Center's Colloquium Series, and assistance in organizing Center events.

Applicants should submit: 
1- a curriculum vitae
2- a writing sample (in the English language, about 25 pages in length)
3- a research statement (of approximately 1,000 words) that: 
     - describes the proposed work during the fellowship period 
     - explains the project's significance to the topic of Legal Theologies
     - sets forth its interdisciplinary nature 
4- TWO letters of recommendation (if sent with application, letter should be sealed in letterhead envelope and signed over the flap by referee).  If more than two are sent, it is not guaranteed that all letters will be read.

Applications must be received at our office no later than:

February 15, 2008.

E-mail applications will be accepted.  Letters of recommendation may be sent under separate cover.   Incomplete applications will be immediately disqualified.

Direct questions and application materials to:
Center for the Study of Law and Culture
Columbia University
435 W. 116th Street
New York, N.Y. 10027
USA 
culture@law.columbia.edu

Women, people of color, non-US and independent scholars are particularly invited to apply.