I'm specifically looking for first use of the wording "scholar in residence" even though sometimes such a position is called a "visiting scholar" or "visiting professor."
I would agree that Ancient Greece is a place to search, especially with the scholars who were invited to Alexandria, but I have not found such a reference. Similarly, in Florence, scholars were invited especially during the humanist movement, but again, no such reference.
No doubt there were scholars in residence in ancient Egypt and China as well as ancient Greece, but whether or not there were, they wouldn’t have been referred to by the English phrase. Descartes was a scholar in residence but whether anything he was then called in Latin or French would have been translatable into the English of his day as “scholar in residence” is unlikely. The OED’s earliest citation for the phrase “in residence” (in “canon in residence”) is 1727, but not specifically in the sense of a temporary attachment to an institution; for that sense of “in residence”, the OED’s earliest citation is 1927 (“poet in residence”).
Karl Pfeifer, thank you. But my OED doesn't have the date 1727 attached to "poet-in-residence." Mine is 2nd ed., CD-ROM, V4.0 (2009). Under "residence" (2b), it says "Cf. also poet-in-residence (poet 1e)." Furthermore, for Canon in Residence it lists 1892. Would you share what OED you are using?
I used the 2015 online edition of the OED.
Although “visiting scholar” and “scholar in residence” are sometimes used interchangeably, it is my sense that “scholar in residence” has a broader application. “Visiting scholar” connotes “academic institution”, whereas “scholar in residence” is also much used outside such academic settings (e.g. public libraries, corporations).
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Linguistics
- Composition Studies
- Publication