Postdoctoral fellowships are one to three year positions available at universities which fund your research or teaching. Usually, these are only available to post-doctoral students within the first few years (typically 3) after receiving a PhD. There are some fellowships which are designed for mid or later career as well. Postdocs provide a unique opportunity for you to spend the first few years after getting your PhD working on publishing and developing a solid foundation for when you go on the tenure track job market.
In rhetoric and communication studies, postdocs have not been traditionally pursued. Because of the wide availability of postdocs and the competitive job market for tenure track positions, this is a viable option you should consider. You can read about the history of the humanities post doc here.
This page provides an overview of available external fellowships in the humanities which as a rhetoric student you can apply to. You should also check out the wiki for Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Humanities, which updates every year with a rolling list of some of available post doc positions. As with job calls, certain schools may have certain fellowships available that they do not publicly post to listserv’s except for on their jobs website or job forums, so this is not an exhaustive list although it is very comprehensive.
Typically, postdoc applications are due early fall, so plan accordingly.
Diversity Post-Docs
Minority Postdoc database
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