Property and Poverty.

What is property - a cornerstone of personal freedom, a glue that keeps communities together, or a tool for oppression? Is it an institution rooted in the nature of society or an invention of the state? Does property require poverty as its corollary? The Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University seeks applications from scholars researching the history of property and dispossession, wealth and poverty, and the practices of owning and disowning things, people, bodies, and ideas.

The Davis Center invites applications from historians studying the intellectual, legal, religious, cultural, and economic histories of property and poverty, and from social historians who explore the world of the impoverished, the practices of poor relief, the causes of poverty, and the mechanisms of dispossession. All approaches are welcome, including but not limited: the history of intellectual property and copyright, the history of the commons, the lived experience of poverty, various forms of individual and collective ownership and resistance to them, the administrative and informational technologies enabling the development of property, and the religious and moral aspects of poverty and ownership. Intellectual, environmental, and economic historians, as well as historians of art, gender, race, sexuality from antiquity to the modern period, whose work engages with these subjects, are encouraged to apply.

The Davis Center offers appointments for either one semester (usually September-January or January-June) or the academic year. Though the Center can normally offer funding for only a single semester, it welcomes the residence of year-long Fellows who combine Center support with funds from elsewhere. Applicants are encouraged to apply for external funds or sabbatical support and to apply for a year's Fellowship if they have a reasonable expectation of bringing additional funds with them.

The Davis Center fellowships are residential. Fellows are required to live in Princeton or the local vicinity or demonstrate to the program's satisfaction the ability to be on campus on a daily basis in order to take an active part in the exchange of ideas with Fellows and others in the university community. The most important intellectual forum of the Center is the weekly Davis Seminar, which meets on Friday mornings during the fall and spring terms for lively and wide-ranging discussion of work by invited outside scholars and by the Fellows themselves. It is the core seminar of the History Department, attended not only by Fellows but also by faculty from the History and other departments at Princeton, graduate students, members of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, faculty from nearby universities, and others. Fellows are expected to attend the weekly seminar and present a paper on their ongoing projects at one of its sessions.

Fellows have the privileges of a member of the History Department. They are given offices in a cluster of offices assigned to the Davis Center. The Davis Center does not manage housing for its Fellows, but it assists Fellows in finding appropriate housing through the University Housing Office and private landlords if a Fellow wishes. Fellowships are normally awarded to employed scholars who are expected to return to their positions. Verification of employment will be requested prior to approval by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty. PhD required.

The deadline for receipt of applications and letters of recommendation for fellowships for 2027/2028 is December 1, 2026, 11:59 p.m. EST. Applicants must submit a CV, cover letter, research proposal, abstract of proposal, and contact information for three references. Applicants should also indicate their preferred term of visit and their project title on the appropriate forms.

These positions are subject to the University's background check policy. The work location for these positions is in-person on campus at Princeton University.The work location for these positions is in-person on campus at Princeton University. These positions are not eligible for sponsorship of an H-1B visa requiring consular processing.