Max Hayward Visiting Fellowship
Max Hayward Visiting Fellowship 2025-26
Deadline: Friday 28 February 2025
Applications are invited for the Max Hayward Visiting Fellowship at the Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre (RESC), St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, for the academic year 2025/26. The holder is expected to engage in research, criticism, editing, translation, preparation of a thesis for publication, or other forms of scholarship which will embrace themes on literature and/or culture in one or more of the following: Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia.
Applicants should have completed a doctorate at the time of application, have an advanced knowledge of literature/culture in Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, and have demonstrated research excellence in a discipline relevant to the study of literature, culture or society. The Fellow will pursue and present their own interest in the context of the academic life of RESC and the College. A good working knowledge of English is essential.
The fellowship is awarded for three terms from 13 October 2025 until 20 June 2026. It carries an expenses allowance of £22,000, plus other College entitlements. The Fellow is expected to reside in Oxford, to take an active part in the academic life of RESC and the College, and to convene one of the termly series of seminars organized by RESC on some aspect of culture or society, to be agreed with the Director of the Centre.
Further Details
Applications should be submitted by email as a single pdf with your name clearly visible at the top of each page, and should include:
* A clear research proposal which should specify the research question, approach, methodology, and intended outcome of the proposed research (3-5 pages)
* Curriculum Vitae
* Two names of referees with contact details. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ask referees to send their references directly by the same closing date to the email address below.
Applications should be emailed to Mr Richard Ramage, Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre Librarian and Administrator: richard.ramage@sant.ox.ac.uk
The application deadline is midnight on Friday 28 February 2025. Interviews with shortlisted candidates will be conducted in Oxford on Wednesday 26 March 2025.
1. Allowance
An expenses allowance of £22,000 is paid by the College to the Fellow. Please note that the taxation treatment in the UK and elsewhere will depend on the individual circumstances of the candidate.
Independent personal advice should be taken as necessary and any liability that arises is the responsibility of the candidate. The grant is paid monthly over the period of the Fellowship by standing order and the Fellow should let the College Accountant have details of their bank account so that the appropriate arrangements can be made.
2. Entitlements
During the period of your Fellowship you are entitled to:
- The right to use the University and St Antony’s College’s academic facilities, in particular, library and computer services;
- The right to use St Antony’s College’s catering facilities (see below);
- The right to use the College’s Combined Common Room;
- Attend the termly College Members’ Dinner which is free of charge. This dinner is normally held on the Wednesday evening in the first week of the University Term;
- Lunch in College free of charge. Lunch and dinner are served daily in Hall, except on Saturdays, when only lunch is served. On Sundays no meals are served. You are also welcome to eat dinner in the College Hall at your own expense on other evenings when dinner is served;
- Eight free High Table dinners per term, and you may invite up to three guests to any one dinner which may be set against this entitlement. Dinners are held every Tuesday and Friday during the eight weeks of Term and they are an important part of College life. You are also welcome to attend additional High Table dinners, for which separate charges are made. The College also hosts Guest Table on Monday nights in term. This is an occasion when participants in the Monday seminar series can dine in College.
All facilities become available to you from the start date of the period of your attachment and not before.
3. Centre Attachment
The Max Hayward Fellow will be attached to the Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre. A College workroom is not provided as part of the Fellowship.
4. Accommodation
The College does not provide accommodation as part of the Fellowship. You can contact the College Accommodation Office (accommodation@sant.ox.ac.uk) to enquire about the availability of rooms owned by the College, or if you need any advice about finding accommodation in Oxford.
Max Hayward Visiting Fellowship holders 1984 – 2023
- 1984 – 1985 Raymond Cooke: Preparation for publication of doctoral thesis entitled ‘The poetic world of Velimir Khlebnikov: an interpretation’
- March 1985 Andrzej Drawicz*: Revised edition of Soviet Literature 1917-1967: Russian Writers (* Dr Drawicz was elected to the Fellowship for a year in December 1981 but was subsequently interned in Poland).
- 1986 – 1987 Riitta Pittman: Preparation for publication of doctoral thesis on ‘Mikhail Bulgakov: the theme of evil in Master i Margarita’
- 1989-1990 Stanley Rabinowitz: A study of turn-of-the-century Russian literary journals and their role in the emergence of Symbolism
- 1993 Rosamund Bartlett: Preparation for publication of doctoral thesis on ‘Wagner and Russia: a study of the influence of Wagner’s music and ideas on the artistic and cultural life of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1841-1941’
- 1994 – 1995 Craig Brandist: A study of the carnivalesque elements in the prose works of late 1920s and early 1930s Soviet literature
- 1996 – 1997 Svetlana Carsten: Completion of thesis on ‘The generation of the 1960s in Soviet literature’ and preparation for publication
- 1998 – 1999 Barbara Henry: Anti-semitism and anti-theatricality: Yiddish theatre in turn-of-the-century Russia
- 2000 – 2001 Rachel Clogg: Preparation for publication of doctoral thesis on ‘Abkhazian cultural identity in the twentieth century: the case of Fazil’ Iskander’.
- 2003 Polly Jones: Preparation for publication of doctoral thesis on ‘Strategies of de-mythologisation in post-Stalinism and post-Communism: a comparison of de-Stalinisation and de-Leninisation’
- 2004 – 2005 Polly McMichael: Preparation for publication of doctoral thesis on ‘Rock music in Leningrad, 1972-1987’
- 2006 – 2007 Elena Katz: Preparation for publication of manuscript, ‘Neither with Them, Nor without Them. Russian Writers and the Jew at the Age of Realism’.
- 2008 – 2009 Stephanie Solywoda: Preparation for publication of doctoral thesis, Internal Visions, External Changes: Russian Religious Philosophy from 1905-1940.
- 2010 – 2011 Oliver Ready: Work on monograph on 1990s prose-writers, for Peter Lang monograph series Russian Transformations: Literature, Culture and Ideas. Dr Ready teaches Russian literature for the Slavonic Sub-Faculty at the University of Oxford, and is a renowned translator of Russian literature. From 2011-2022 he was a Research Fellow at St Antony’s, directing the Russkiy Mir Programme from 2011-2014, and convening many successful cultural events for RESC.
- 2013 – 2014 Uilleam Blacker: Preparation of monograph entitled Ghosts of Others: Urban Postmemory in Russia and Eastern Europe. Dr Blacker is now Associate Professor in Ukrainian and East European Culture at UCL-SSEES.
- 2016 – 2017 Claire Knight: Preparation of monograph Stalin’s Final Films: Soviet Cinema and Stalinism After the War, 1945-53. Dr Knight teaches Russian and Soviet political, social, and cultural history at the University of Bristol, plus methodologies of film analysis at MA level.
- 2019 – 2021 Maria Chehonadskih: Preparation for publication of manuscript entitled ‘The Encyclopaedia of Poor Life: Andrei Platonov’s Philosophical Prose and Alexander Bogdanov’s Tektology’. (NB Dr Chehonadskih’s tenure of the Fellowship was extended due to the Covid pandemic) . Dr Chehonadskih teaches in the Modern Languages and Cultures Department, Queen Mary University of London.
- 2022 – 2023 Darya Tsymbalyuk: Preparation for publication of doctoral thesis, Multispecies ruptures: stories of displacement and human-plant relations from Donbas, Ukraine (a study of experiences of displacement among migrants from war in Donbas, Ukraine, and artistic responses through the medium of human-plant relations). Dr Tsymbalyuk is Assistant Professor at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago
