Postdoctoral Fellows
The Thomas Jefferson Society of Postdoctoral Fellows allows young scholars the opportunity to teach in a collegial interdisciplinary setting while continuing their own research. Fellowships are awarded to scholars in all areas of the liberal arts who have in the past 7 years completed doctoral dissertations on one or more of the great books and have shown a commitment to the interdisciplinary study and teaching of the great books. The fellowships normally carry a teaching load of one course each semester and are renewable for a second year.
This fellowship continues the postdoctoral fellowship program begun by the Jefferson Center’s predecessor, the Program in Western Civilization and American Institutions. In September 2008, that program brought to UT Austin its first four postdoctoral fellows, who have enriched the intellectual life of the college and taught courses in philosophy, political philosophy, and religion.
Application Information
We are currently recruiting for a postdoctoral fellow in religious thought.
Current Fellows
Lesley-Anne Dyer
Lesley-Anne Dyer specializes in medieval Biblical and Platonic exegesis and is now teaching CTI's "The Bible and Its Interpreters" course. She recently graduated with her PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of Notre Dame and has an MPhil in Theology and Religious Studies from the University of Cambridge. Her current book project for PIMS (Toronto) is entitled, Translating Eternity in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, which examines the interpretation of Genesis and Plato's Timaeus in twelfth-century thought from Anselm of Canterbury to Bernard Silvestris. Although she has lived many places in her life and loves to travel, she attended Baylor University as an undergraduate and considers Texas to be home.
Tom van Malssen
Born and raised in Delfzijl, the Netherlands, Tom van Malssen studied Law at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RUG), before turning to philosophy in an effort to understand the questions the law either answers or prohibits asking. In order for this effort to bear fruit, he turned to Professor Heinrich Meier, who teaches philosophy at Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich (LMU). In the summer of 2011 Van Malssen received his PhD in philosophy with the highest honors (“summa cum laude”). Running counter to certain current preconceptions, his dissertation attempts to show by the example of Francis Bacon that philosophers in modern times neither marched past unconquered fortresses, nor passed by un-abandoned hopes. Besides being interested in perennial works of art, Dr. Van Malssen studies philosophy’s encounter with politics, morality and religion.
