Critical Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship

University of Toronto

The Jackman Humanities Institute (JHI) at the University of Toronto, in partnership with DH@UofT—the new iteration of the Critical Digital Humanities Initiative (CDHI)—is pleased to invite applications for a postdoctoral fellowship in Digital Humanities, designed for recent graduates with a project that fits the JHI’s annual theme, “Doubles, Doppelgangers”.

The Critical Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship is a twelve-month position, from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027, supervised by Professors Kenzie Burchell (Faculty Lead of DH@UofT and Associate Professor of Journalism and Information Studies) and the Director of the Jackman Humanities Institute. The Critical Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow may seek additional research supervision from within U of T according to their own interests. They will have access to an office, equipment and collaborative digital working space at JHI.

After four successful years building research and teaching strengths at the University of Toronto through programming, mentorship, and advocacy, the CDHI is being redesigned and relaunched as DH@UofT, a new tri-campus centre in partnership with the University of Toronto Scarborough Library's Digital Scholarship Unit (DSU). Our vision is to forge a new paradigm of critical digital humanities scholarship, bringing together the humanities’ critique of power and historical perspectives with adjacent social science approaches and emerging digital tools for socially transformative research. Our mission is to create a large, active, and inclusive network of digital humanities researchers at U of T and to make U of T a world leader in critical digital humanities research, teaching, and training.

DH@UofT defines digital humanities broadly, to include both critical praxis and the analysis of digitality. At the University of Toronto, our approach to critical digital humanities foregrounds creative practice, co-creation, public engagement, and community-based research. The Critical Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow will have an established track record in their own discipline and/or the digital humanities. They will pursue their own research while at the U of T and work to foster the critical communities of scholarship in collaboration with the DH@UofT team.

Eligibility
• Applicants must have completed their doctorate within five years of the beginning of the fellowship on July 1, 2026. Applicants who will defend their thesis before the end of May 2026 are eligible, but a letter from their supervisor or Chair may be requested. Any award will be conditional on a successful defense.
• Applicants who received their PhD prior to July 1, 2020 are ineligible.
• Applicants who are graduates or candidates of doctoral programs at the University of Toronto are eligible.
• This position is not open to those who hold a tenure-track position.
• The Critical Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship is open to citizens of all countries. The University of Toronto is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from racialized persons / persons of colour, women, Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ+ persons, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas. Engagement as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto is covered by the terms of the CUPE 3902 Unit 5 Collective Agreement.
• The Jackman Humanities Institute interprets “Humanities” as a broad category, including political theory, interpretive social science, music, and the arts.

Funding and Benefits
The postdoctoral fellowship is an award of $73,258 CAD plus benefits

Responsibilities and Expectations
As a residential fellow, the Critical Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow will:
• Have an office at the JHI on the 10th floor of the Jackman Humanities Building
• Be in residence at the JHI for the academic year (September to June)
• Participate regularly in JHI events, including weekly lunches, workshops and occasional public events
• Present research at a fellows’ lunch seminar
• Participate in the life of the Institute
• Produce a brief report summarizing fellowship research by end of May 2026 for inclusion in JHI’s Annual Report
• Moving expenses are not provided. The JHI will provide an office, University of Toronto Library access, faculty mentoring, and administrative support
• Teaching is not a component of this fellowship, but the incumbent is welcome to seek up to two one-semester courses as a sessional instructor with the appropriate unit(s) at the University of Toronto

The Critical Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow will also draw upon their disciplinary expertise and upon training provided by the JHI, DH@UofT, and U of T Libraries to connect and strengthen DH projects across the tri-campus university. The Critical Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow will spend 15 hours per week as a member of the DH@UofT Executive Team, where they will:
• Run regular roundtables and workshops on digital humanities topics
• Edit the bi-weekly DH@UofT newsletter
• Organize, facilitate, and participate in other tri-campus DH training initiatives
• Facilitate introductions and connections between researchers within DH@UofT
• Join DH@UofT events, such as visiting speakers, workshops, and conferences
• Attend weekly DH@UofT Executive Team meetings
• Participate in planning the future shape and directions of DH@UofT

Application Components
All applicants are to complete the online application with the following documents in a single PDF:
• Letter of Application
• Research proposal relevant to the annual theme of Doubles, Doppelgangers
• Statement of Digital Humanities Research Interest, with specific reference to work in Critical DH
• Curriculum vitae
• Research Sample

You will be asked to provide the names and email addresses of two referees who can provide confidential letters of reference. When you submit your application, your referees will receive an automated request for their letters, which will be due December 2, 2025. Please ask your referees to look for our request email.

You will also be asked for a short bio and summary of your project (maximum 100 words each). If you are selected, these texts will be used for publicity purposes.

APPLICATION LINK: https://www.humanities.utoronto.ca/news/2026-27-critical-digital-humanities-postdoctoral-fellowship

Selection Criteria
The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate excellence in teaching and research and have an established track record in the digital humanities, with a focus on critical DH. They will understand the history, development, and current state of the field; be able to assess institutional processes and policies; be willing to work with a range of scholars in and outside of their own field; desire to learn and pursue research in an interdisciplinary, collaborative environment; and be committed to open-source development and open access scholarship.

Application Timeline
• Application Open: Tuesday, September 2, 2025
• Application Deadline: Tuesday, November 25, 2025, at 4:00pm EDT
• Referee Deadline: Tuesday, December 2, 2025
• Fellowship Period: July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027

Contact and Additional Resources
• About DH@UofT: Contact Faculty Lead, Dr. Kenzie Burchell (kenzie.burchell@utoronto.ca)
• About the JHI or this fellowship opportunity: Contact JHI Associate Director, Dr. Kimberley Yates (jhi.associate@utoronto.ca)
• Technical questions about the application form or process: Contact JHI Communications Officer Sonja Johnston (jhi.communications@utoronto.ca)

2026-27 Annual Theme: Doubles, Doppelgangers
Doubles, mirror images, and infinite recursive nesting of identical structures are omnipresent in nature and in culture. Our stories rely on concepts such as the play within a play, game within a game, dream within a dream, mise en abyme, self-representation, halls of mirrors, replicas/worlds in miniature, imposters, cycles, microhistories and metanarratives. Within our reflections on mind, thought, and metaphysics, we explore reality as (nested) simulation, infinite or eternal spaces or beings, cosmologies where each thing reflects/contains each other thing, hauntings/ghostly echoes/premonitions, and reflections into infinity. Our reflections of nature, whether human, biological, or computational, rely crucially on notions of recursion, recurrence, fractals, and the distortions that accrue across them (mutation, tradition, drift). In disciplines across the humanities, we observe the use of fractals, spirals, images contained in themselves, doubles, reflections (of reflections of reflections), and rhizomes. What might an exploration of doubles and recursion reveal about the ways that we reflect our realities?