A Fellow of St Catharine’s has been awarded an Early Career Research Fellowship by the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH). The award will enable Dr Sura Qadiri (2018), Dawson College Assistant Professor and Director of Studies in Modern & Medieval Languages at St Catharine’s, to take research leave in Lent Term 2026.
Dr Sura Qadiri
Established in 2001, CRASSH has grown into one of the largest humanities institutes in the world, with a global reputation for excellence. Its Early Career Fellowship scheme awards an extra term’s research leave and is open to all University Teaching Officers and College Teaching Officers who have been in post for fewer than five years at the date of application. Up to five awards are made each year, with the value of each award set at £2,500 to fund alternative teaching arrangements while the winner focuses on their research activities.
Joanna Page, Director of CRASSH and Professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge, said:
“Our Early Career Fellowships scheme enables University Teaching Officers and College Teaching Officers in the first few years of their post to build a significant research profile at this crucial stage in their career. Early Career Fellows join the CRASSH community for that term, which provides them with a stimulating, interdisciplinary environment in which to advance a research project or to begin a new one. We are very much looking forward to welcoming Dr Qadiri to CRASSH and keen to hear more about her fascinating work on postsecular poetics in French and Francophone literature.”
Dr Qadiri specialises in postcolonial literature, particularly from the Maghreb, as well as contemporary French literature that addresses the theme of social diversity. The award will support work on her current book manuscript, ‘Postsecular Poetics: Reading Religion in French and Francophone Literature’, under contract with Liverpool University Press.
She added, “This will be a really valuable opportunity to have some time to work on my book, and also to share and exchange ideas as a member of the interdisciplinary community at CRASSH.”
