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Fellowships and Postdocs for Creative Practice & Scholarly Inquiry

 Fellowships Supporting Scholarly Research

American Council of Learned Societies Nonresidential Fellowships

ACLS is a leading private institution supporting scholars in the humanities and related social sciences, providing fellowships and grants through 12 programs (sampling provided below). All postdoctoral fellowships require Ph.D. or equivalent experience.

  • ACLS Fellowships
    The awards are portable and are tenable at the fellow's home institution, abroad, or at another appropriate site for research. An ACLS Fellowship may be held concurrently with other fellowships and grants and any sabbatical pay, up to an amount equal to the candidate's current academic year salary. Multiple fellowship programs specifically awarded for research in English and American literature, Chinese arts and letters, modern Chinese history, International and Area Studies, US history, and music studies. ACLS Fellowships are intended as salary replacement to help scholars devote six to twelve continuous months to full-time research and writing.
     
  • Getty/ ACLS Post-doctoral Fellowships in the History of Art
    Supports an academic year of research and/or writing by early career scholars for a project that will make a substantial and original contribution to the understanding of art and its history. The ultimate goal of the project should be a major piece of scholarly work by the applicant.
  • Mellon/ACLS Public Fellows Competition for Recent PhDs
    The program will place up to 25 recent PhDs from the humanities and humanistic social sciences in two-year term staff positions at partnering organizations in government and the nonprofit sector. Fellows will participate in the substantive work of these organizations and receive professional mentoring.

  • The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies 
    There are multiple postdoc and research fellowships in this category. 

Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art: Residential Fellowships (Washington, DC)

Fellowships for senior fellows, visiting senior fellows, research associates, postdoctoral fellows, and predoctoral fellows for scholars conducting research in the field. Fellows and professors who relocate to Washington are provided with housing in apartments near the National Gallery of Art, subject to availability and with studies in the East Building of the Gallery. Lectures, colloquia, shoptalks, and other scholarly gatherings complement the fellowship program.  Paul Mellon and Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellowships support research in the history, theory, and criticism of the visual arts of any geographic area and of any period. Samuel H. Kress Senior Fellowships support research on European art before the early 19th century. The William C. Seitz Senior Fellowship primarily supports research on modern and contemporary art. CASVA also offers a postdoctoral program for junior scholars and short-term (2 months or less) visiting senior fellowships.

A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

The Center currently offers one postdoctoral fellowship biennially for two consecutive academic years. The A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow will reside in Washington. During both years of a two-year residency the A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow carries out research and writing for publication and designs and directs an intensive weeklong seminar for the seven predoctoral fellows in residence at the Center. In the second academic year, while continuing research and writing in residence, the fellow is expected to teach one course by arrangement at a neighboring university in addition to directing a weeklong seminar for the predoctoral fellows at the Center, which may repeat the one designed and directed in the first academic year.

Ailsa Mellon Bruce Predoctoral Fellowships for Historians of American Art to Travel Abroad

The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts offers up to four fellowships to doctoral students in art history who are studying aspects of art and architecture of the United States, including native and pre-Revolutionary America. This fellowship is for a period of four to six weeks of continuous travel abroad in areas such as Africa, Asia, or South America, as well as Europe, to sites of historical and cultural interest, including museums, exhibitions, collections, and monuments. The travel fellowship is intended to encourage a breadth of art-historical experience beyond the candidate's major field, not for the advancement of a dissertation.

Getty Scholar Grants (Residential)

Getty Scholar Grants are for established scholars, or writers who have attained distinction in their fields. Recipients are in residence at the Getty Research Institute or Getty Villa, where they pursue their own projects free from academic obligations, make use of Getty collections, join their colleagues in a weekly meeting devoted to an annual research theme, and participate in the intellectual life of the Getty.

Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowships in the History of Art  

Fellowships intended to support an academic year of research and/or writing by early career scholars for a project that will make a substantial and original contribution to the understanding of art and its history. The ultimate goal of the project should be a major piece of scholarly work by the applicant. ACLS does not fund creative work (e.g., novels or films), textbooks, straightforward translation, or pedagogical projects. ACLS will award 10 fellowships, each with a salary-replacement stipend of $60,000, plus $5,000 for research and travel during the award period. The fellowships are portable and are tenable at the fellow's home institution, abroad, or at another appropriate site for the work proposed. Awards also will include a one-week residence at the Getty Research Institute following the fellowship period.

The Meadows/Center for Spain in America (CSA) Curatorial Fellowship
Pre- & Post-doctoral fellowships in Spanish Art at the Meadows Museum at SMU in Dallas. The Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica (CEEH) and the Center for Spain in America (CSA) encourage studies on Spanish history, art and literature by establishing doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships at European and American universities, as well as at research centers whose holdings are particularly relevant to the knowledge of Spanish culture. They likewise establish assistantships for curatorial work at museums with significant holdings of Spanish painting.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Art History Fellowships (Residential)

Fellowships at the Metropolitan Museum (New York City) are an opportunity for a community of scholars from around the world to use the Museum as a place for exchange, research, and professional advancement. Applicants submit a specific research proposal that makes use of the Museum's collection and/or resources, and accepted fellows spend the majority of their time working on that project. Additional fellowships are available in specific areas of art history.

• Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellowship

This two-year fellowship at The Met provides curatorial training and an opportunity for the fellow to engage with a community of scholars from around the world. The fellow is fully integrated into one of the Museum's curatorial departments, while devoting his or her time to a specific Met project. The individual works directly with one or more curators, who serve as supervisors and mentors throughout the term of the fellowship.

Fellowships in Art History and Visual Culture

Applicants submit a specific, independent research project that makes use of the Museum's collection and resources. Accepted fellows spend the majority of their time working on their proposed project. The Met offers a special interdisciplinary fellowship supported by the Slifka Foundation for training that joins art-historical research with technical investigation of the Museum's Northern Renaissance paintings and is distinct from the Interdisciplinary Fellowship, which carries a separate application and requirements. The Museum also offers a small number of Theodore Rousseau Fellowships for travel abroad to conduct research related to paintings in European collections. The majority of fellows will have an opportunity to assist the hosting curatorial departments with projects that complement their approved proposal. Not all departments request this assistance.

• Research Scholarship in Photograph Conservation

The Research Scholar in Photograph Conservation works on-site in the photograph conservation lab of the Sherman Fairchild Center for Works on Paper and Photograph Conservation. The Research Scholar is fully integrated into the community of art history and conservation fellows and takes part in research sharing and workshops that explore the inner workings of The Met.

National Humanities Center Fellowship (Residential)

The Center, located in Research Triangle Park, NC, annually welcomes up to forty scholars from all fields of the humanities. Individually, the Fellows pursue their own research and writing. Together, they create a stimulating community of intellectual discourse. Fellowship applicants must have a PhD or equivalent scholarly credentials along with a strong record of peer-reviewed work, normally a published monograph or other major project. Emerging scholars as well as senior scholars are encouraged to apply. In addition to researchers from all fields of the humanities, the Center invites scholars from the natural and social sciences, the arts, the professions, and public life who are engaged in humanistic projects to apply. Applicants from all parts of the world are welcome; U.S. citizenship is not a requirement.

Stanford University Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowships Humanities Center Fellowships (Residential)

The Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship is a two-year term (with the possibility of a third). Fellows teach two courses per year in one of Stanford’s fifteen humanities departments, and are expected to participate in the intellectual life of the program and will be affiliated with the Stanford Humanities Center. Program admissions focus on selected fields of scholarship in each application year (on a rotating basis). 

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (Harvard University) Fellowship (Residential)

One year residential fellowship. Each of the more than 850 fellows who have been in residence at the Radcliffe Institute has pursued an independent project, but the collaborative experience unites all of them. Scholars, scientists, and artists work on individual projects, or in clusters, to generate new research, publications, art, and more. The theme of citizenship—local, national, and global— is a two-year initiative across the programs of the Radcliffe Institute and fellows in all academic disciplines, professions, and creative arts are encouraged to apply with projects that involve the study of women, gender, and society.  Additionally, applications that draw on the resources of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, which is part of the Radcliffe Institute and one of the foremost archives on women’s history will be prioritized. Visual, film, and video artists may apply to come for either one or two semesters.

Smithsonian Institution Fellowships (Residential)

The Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program supports independent research and study related to Smithsonian facilities, experts, or collection for the increase and diffusion of knowledge. SI Fellowships are awarded annually to scholars wishing to conduct independent study or research at one or more of the Smithsonian’s 19 units and research centers. Senior Researcher Fellowships must have held a Ph.D. or equivalent for at least 7 years. Postdoctoral awards are also available.  Applicant must propose research that is conducted at the Smithsonian in an area of research outlined in the publication, Smithsonian Opportunities for Research and Study (SORS). The program is open to US citizens and Non-US citizens.

Major Fellowships for Arts Faculty 

John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship

"Midcareer" awards intended for men and women who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts. The Foundation understands advanced professionals to be those who as writers, scholars, or scientists have a significant record of publication, or as artists, playwrights, filmmakers, photographers, composers, or the like, have a significant record of exhibition or performance of their work. Open to citizens and permanent residents of the U.S. and Canada.

Yale University Institute of Sacred Music Fellowships (Residential)

The ISM Fellows (Senior and Postdoctoral) are scholars, religious leaders, and artists at all career stages whose work is in or is moving to the fields of sacred music, liturgical/ritual studies, or religion and the arts. Scholars in the humanities or the social or natural sciences, whose work is directly related to these areas, are also encouraged to apply. Fellows have the opportunity to pursue their scholarly or artistic projects within a vibrant, interdisciplinary community, and they may have the option to teach. The work of the Institute touches a broad array of disciplines, including: Anthropology ~ Art ~ Architecture ~ Composition ~ Creative Writing ~ Ethnomusicology ~ Film Studies ~ History of Art or Architecture ~ Languages ~ Literature ~ Liturgical Studies ~ Musicology ~ Religious Studies ~ Ritual Studies ~ Sociology ~ Theatre Studies ~ Theology ~ World Religions among many more. Yale especially encourages applications from women and underrepresented minorities