Summer School with POLIN Museum for Early Career Scholars

POLIN Museum is organizing a week-long program aimed at early-career scholars – doctoral students & post-docs – working in Jewish Studies or any other related field such as Jewish history, culture, literature, art, and so on.

The Summer School will bring together 16 participants from Europe, Israel and the North America to take part in workshops and field visits. The first component will allow participants to work on pre-circulated papers (e.g. a chapter from the PhD thesis) that they want to publish in a scholarly journal. Participants will also attend soft-skill workshops, including grant proposal writing and mastering public speaking. Participants will be made familiar with grants available in Europe, Israel and the United States. The third component will be experiential: visiting exhibitions and collections in Warsaw (POLIN Museum, Jewish Historical Institute), Jewish sites in Warsaw (former Ghetto and Jewish cemetery) and a day-long tour of Jewish Lublin. The Summer Session will also include time dedicated to socialization and integration, and a shabbat dinner at Warsaw’s Jewish Community Center.

Participants will be challenged to present their work, take constructive feedback, and give feedback to others. During the training sessions, expert guest speakers will provide instruction while also imploring participants to use what they have learned in practice on the spot, e.g. constructing project abstracts for grants. Participants will be immersed in the environment of museums and historical tourism that raise questions about presentation and preservation of important Jewish heritage sites, as well as bringing fundamental questions about memory politics to the fore.

Aims of the Summer School:

• teach early-career scholars skills rarely acquired in their academic institutions, such as grant writing, and preparing excellent and effective public lectures;
• allow scholars to present new research and receive substantial feedback;
• increase chances of young scholars to publish their work and receive funding for their research;
• introduce early-career scholars to new perspectives on Jewish history and heritage;
• create a cohort of scholars who are familiar with each other’s work;
• show early-career scholars career paths available outside of academia, such as museums;
• integration of doctoral students and recent PhDs in Jewish Studies from Europe, Israel, and North America.

Admission will be based on submission of a sample text to ensure the quality of the research presented at the Summer School.

The Summer School is free of charge and will provide accommodations and partial meals. POLIN Museum will also reimburse travel expenses according to the following limits:

• From North America: 5000 PLN
• From Israel: 1200 PLN
• From Europe: 800 PLN
• From Poland: 300 PLN

Application materials (in English):

• Short (1 pg. max) cover letter
• CV
• Writing sample (max. 10,000 words)

Applications should be sent to geop@polin.pl by March 3, 2025.

Participants: max. 16

Partners:

• Jewish Historical Institute Teatru NN
• The Summer School is organized within the Global Education Outreach Program.
• Global Education Outreach Program
• The Summer School is made possible with support from Taube Philanthropies, William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, Libitzky Family Foundation and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland.