The Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion at the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs invites applications for a one-year Postdoctoral Research Fellowship beginning in Fall 2027, with the possibility of renewal for a second year based on satisfactory performance and funding availability.

The Ansari Institute seeks a promising scholar whose research examines the role of religion in addressing the fragmentations that shape contemporary global affairs. The fellowship is part of the Institute’s emerging “integral repair” research agenda, which asks how religious traditions, communities, practices, and institutions contribute to—or complicate—efforts to repair the fragmentation of the human person, the relationship between humanity and the natural world, and polarization across political communities.

About

Applicants may work in any discipline or interdisciplinary field and may focus on any religious tradition, geographic region, or relevant comparative context. The position welcomes candidates who are knowledgeable of or interested in learning more about Catholic Social Doctrine. We are particularly interested in scholarship that engages one or more of three broad areas:

Religion and Integral Human Development

Questions of human dignity and flourishing, meaning and purpose, poverty and inequality, education, work, migration, technology and artificial intelligence, community and belonging, and the material and non-material dimensions of human development. A developing initiative in this area, Pedagogies of Muslim Humanities, seeks to bring Islamic theological and intellectual traditions into sustained conversation with the humanities, arts, sciences, and contemporary questions of human flourishing.



Knowledge of or interest in Islamic intellectual traditions, Muslim education, the humanities, or related areas is welcome but not required.

Religion and Integral Ecology

The relationships among religion, ecology, climate, land, agriculture, sustainability, environmental justice, Indigenous knowledge, stewardship, reciprocity, and the moral and spiritual dimensions of humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Current work includes the Sowing Hope Research Platform and research connected to the Bethany Land Institute in Uganda, exploring how ecological restoration, regenerative agriculture, livelihoods, community, and spiritual formation can be understood together. Knowledge of or interest in religion and ecology, African contexts, sustainability, or related areas is welcome but not required.

Religion and Integral Politics

The role of religion in political and civic life, including democracy and authoritarianism, peacebuilding and reconciliation, nationalism, migration, diplomacy, religious freedom, political theology, multilateralism, social trust, and conceptions of the common good. A developing research initiative will examine the international politics and foreign policy of Pope Leo XIV, including Vatican diplomacy, the role of local churches and religious actors in international affairs, and the possibilities and limits of religious diplomacy and interreligious cooperation.



Knowledge of or interest in the Holy See, religion and international relations, diplomacy, peacebuilding, or related areas is welcome but not required.

The Institute welcomes work that takes religious traditions seriously on their own terms while bringing them into conversation with the interdisciplinary study of global affairs. Particularly compelling projects will combine rigorous scholarship with attention to lived religious communities, institutions, practices, or public life and will contribute to Ansari’s larger inquiry into where and how the integral repair is taking place in a fragmented world.

Responsibilities

The appointment is designed primarily to provide the fellow with time and an intellectual community in which to advance their research to facilitate publication of the research through a manuscript or journal articles. The fellow will also be expected to support the implementation of a signature research project in one of the three broad areas outlined above; contribute, as appropriate, to public-facing activities related to the Institute’s research agenda; participate actively in the intellectual life of the Ansari Institute, its Contending Modernities research initiative, and the Keough School; present work in Institute seminars and workshops; engage with Ansari faculty, Faculty Fellows, visiting scholars, and students; and develop connections with University-wide initiatives such as the Global Catholic Research Initiative, Just Transformations to Sustainability, the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative, and other relevant academic units.

Qualifications

- a strong record of, or transparent potential for, innovative and rigorous scholarship;
- a research agenda that engages r

📌 Postdoctoral Research Associate in Religion and the Work of Repair (Notre-Dame)
🏢 University of Notre Dame
📍 Notre-Dame