Houghton Library Visiting Fellowships

Scholars at all stages of their careers are invited to apply to pursue projects that require in-depth research on Houghton Library’s holdings, draw on staff expertise, and participate in intellectual life at Harvard.
Applications for the 2023-24 season
Houghton Library will open its fellowship application portal in early September for the 2023-2024 season. The deadline for application submission is Friday, January 20, 2023.
Apply now

Houghton Library supports research opening new perspectives on its collections.

2017-2018 Visiting Fellow​ Dr. Ermine Algaier and his research assistant Diana J. Rhubi in Houghton Library's reading room.​
2017-2018 Visiting Fellow​ Dr. Ermine Algaier and his research assistant Diana J. Rhubi in Houghton Library's reading room.​

The Visiting Fellowship program offers scholars at all stages of their careers funding to pursue projects that require in-depth research on the library’s holdings, as well as opportunities to draw on staff expertise and participate in intellectual life at Harvard.

Houghton provides fellows with access to other libraries at the University, and opportunities to exchange knowledge and promote their research through its publications, and scholarly and public programs.

Recent fellows' research topics speak to the breadth and depth of Houghton’s holdings—ranging from colonial-era Native American music to the collecting of Sanskrit manuscripts, and Iberian chivalric romances to celebrity pregnancy on the London stage.

Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse amount of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

The library particularly welcomes proposals that reexamine its collections through a global lens and/or demonstrate how the holdings of a rare book and manuscript library can contribute to discourse around contemporary social, political, and cultural issues. New fellowships on gender and sexuality studies in the performing arts, and early modern black lives underscore Houghton's commitment to diversifying perspectives on our collections.

Responsibilities

  • Fellows receive a $3,600 stipend and are expected to be in residence at Houghton for at least four weeks within their fellowship year (July through June), though these do not have to be consecutive weeks.
  • Fellows are also required to produce a written summary of their experience working with the collections.

For an insight into the Visiting Fellowship experience at Houghton, visit our blog.

Fellowship Opportunities

Thanks to the generosity of the library's benefactors, seventeen endowed fellowships support research in the following fields of study:

  • Beatrice, Benjamin, and Richard Bader Fellowship in the Visual Arts of the Theatre
  • W. Jackson Bate/ Douglas W. Bryant, American Society for Eighteenth‑Century Studies Fellowship; Successful applicants must either be an ASECS member in good standing or be willing to become a member in order to receive this fellowship.
  • José María Castañé Fellowship in 20th-century History
  • Maryette Charlton Fellowship for the Performing Arts; This fellowship is available to assist scholarly research on gender and sexuality in the performing arts.
  • William Dearborn Fellowship in American History
  • Rodney G. Dennis Fellowship in the Study of Manuscripts
  • The Ralph Waldo Emerson Fellowship
  • Eleanor M. Garvey Fellowship in Printing and Graphic Arts
  • Houghton Mifflin Fellowship in Publishing History
  • Donald and Mary Hyde Fellowship for Research in Early Modern Black Lives, including Africa and the African Diaspora, 1500-1800
  • Donald and Mary Hyde Fellowship for the Study of Dr. Samuel Johnson and his Circle
  • Joan Nordell Fellowship
  • Katharine F. Pantzer Jr. Fellowship in Descriptive Bibliography; This fellowship carries a stipend of $3,600 per month, up to twelve months (maximum $43,200). Fellows are expected to be in residence at Houghton Library for the duration of the fellowship.
  • The Theodore Roosevelt Association Fellowship for the Study of the Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt
  • Howard D. Rothschild Fellowship in Dance
  • Robert Gould Shaw Fellowship for the Harvard Theatre Collection
  • John M. Ward Fellowship in Dance and Music for the Theatre

Funding

Fellowship stipends of $3,600 are awarded to help support visiting fellows during the tenure of their appointment.

Eligibility

  • Open to candidates of all nationalities. Non-U.S. citizens awarded a fellowship are required to obtain a J-1 visa. Harvard University can sponsor the visa, but fellows are responsible for paying associated fees and will receive their stipend 2-3 weeks after arriving at Houghton Library.
  • Doctoral students, post-doctoral, academics and independent scholars, as well as curators, and other library, archive and museum professionals, are welcome to apply.
  • Fellowships normally are not granted to scholars who live within commuting distance of the library.
  • Scholars are welcome to apply each year. If awarded a fellowship, however, a period of 5 years must elapse before another fellowship may be awarded.
  • We particularly welcome applications from students and scholars from underrepresented groups in academia, including women, Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, first generation scholars, and persons with disabilities.

Apply

Applicants are asked to submit:

  • a project proposal (1,000 words maximum)
  • a preliminary list of Houghton collection materials
  • a curriculum vitae
  • one letter of reference

Please note: Other than the Pantzer Fellowship, applicants need not apply for specific fellowships, as the Selection Committee determines which fellowship is best suited to your research, if awarded a fellowship.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to save applications in progress; do not submit your application until it is complete.

Apply now

 

    Have questions?

    Peter X. Accardo

    2022-2023 Visiting Fellows

    Beatrice, Benjamin, and Richard Bader Fellowship in the Visual Arts of the Theatre

    • Dr. Alison Fitzgerald, Permanent Lecturer (Associate Professor), Department of History, Maynooth University
      Spectacles and Shows: Exhibitions and Entertainment in Georgian Ireland 1600–1800
    • Sasha Whittaker, PhD Candidate in Art & Archaeology, Princeton University
      George Hoyningen-Huene and the Cultural Politics of Dance Photography

     

    Robert Gould Shaw Fellowship for the Harvard Theatre Collection

    • Ryan Bachman, PhD Candidate in History of American Civilization, University of Delaware
      “From Canton”: Chinese Export Waxworks in American Museums
    • Rhae Lynn Barnes, Assistant Professor in American Cultural History, Department of History, Princeton University
      Darkology: “When the American Dream Wore Blackface”

    John M. Ward Fellowship in Dance and Music for the Theatre

    • Taryn Dubois, PhD Candidate in Historical Musicology, Yale University
      Sounding an Embodied Modernity: Corporeality and National Identity in Late-Nineteenth Century Italian Theatrical Dance

    Howard D. Rothschild Fellowship in Dance

    • Phil Chan, Co-Founder of Final Bow for Yellowface, Carleton College
      Costuming the Orient
    • Amina Mohammed (Mina Magda), PhD Candidate in Philosophy, Slavic Languages, and Literatures
      The Body Eclectic: Negrophilia, Russophilia, and the Making of Modernism

    Maryette Charlton Fellowship for the Performing Arts

    • Dr. David G. Rugger, Musicology, Visiting Lecturer of Music History and Voice, Butler University
      Simple Man: Klaus Nomi’s Life and Art

    Eleanor M. Garvey Fellowship in Printing and Graphic Arts

    • Emily Arthur, Associate Professor of Art, University of Wisconsin
      Secrets of Havell: Making Prints for “The Birds of America”
    • Dr. William Ma, University of California, Berkeley
      Race and Ethnicity, Imperial Landscapes, and Print Technologies in the French-made Qianlong Battle Prints
    • Dr. Vanessa Wilkie, William A. Moffett Curator of Medieval Manuscripts and British History, Huntington Library
      Emblems, Icons, and the Elites Who Loved Them: Manuscript Visual Culture in the English Renaissance

    Donald and Mary Hyde Fellowship

    • Philippe Bernhard Schmid, PhD Candidate in Modern History, University of St. Andrews
      Reforming the Library: Learned Collecting and the Organization of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe

    W. Jackson Bate/ Douglas W. Bryant/ American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS)

    • Agnieszka Anna Ficek, PhD Candidate in Art History, City University of New York
      From Allegory to Revolution: The Inca Empire in the Eighteenth-Century French Imagination

    Ralph Waldo Emerson Fellowship

    • Eagan Dean, PhD. Candidate in English Literatures, Rutgers University
      Women in the Nineteenth Century and the Anti-Politics of Reprinting, 1845–1970

    Theodore Roosevelt Association Fellowship for the Study of the Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt

    • David Welky, Professor of History, University of Central Arkansas
      Teddy and Bamie: The Roosevelt Siblings Who Defined an Era

    William Dearborn Fellowship in American History

    • Dr. Nicolas Cuvi, Principal Senior Research Professor in Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences at FLACSO
      Circulation of Knowledge in Tropical America: Networks of Local Actors, Naturalists, Geographers, Geologists and Anthropologists (1850–1950)

    Rodney G. Dennis Fellowship in the Study of Manuscripts

    • Irem Yildiz, PhD Candidate in Philosophy Oriental Studies, St. Antony’s College
      The Role of American Missionary Activities in the Training of Blind Children: Networks of Schools in the Late Ottoman Empire (1845–1914)

    Houghton Mifflin Fellowship in Publishing History

    • Alec Pollak, PhD Candidate in English Literatures, Cornell University
      Right to Repair: Literary Estates, Copyright Law, and Authorial Afterlives

    Joan Nordell Fellowship

    • Dr. Azelina Flint, Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Creative Writing, Lancaster University
      Portrait of the Artist as a Transatlantic Women: May Alcott Nieriker
    • Damanpreet Pelia, PhD Candidate in American Studies, Yale University
      Market of Souls: Missionaries and the Making of Nineteenth-Century Panjab

    Katharine F. Pantzer Jr. Fellowship in Descriptive Bibliography

    • James Phillip Ascher, PhD Candidate in English Language and Literature, University of Virginia
      A Descriptive Bibliography of the Philosophical Transactions Volumes 1–11 (1665–76)
    • Elena Fogolin, PhD Candidate in Humanities and Cultural Heritage, University of Udine, Italy / Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany
      German Printers in Rome in the 1470s–1480s: Book Output and Circulation
    • Dr. Luis Rueda Galán, Ph.D. in Art History, École pratique des hautes études, Paris (Université PSL) / Universidad de Jaén
      The Paper Temple. ‘In Ezechielem Explanationes’ and the (re)Construction of History
    • Kadin Henningsen, PhD Candidate in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Book History, Transgender Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
      Biblionormativity and Trans* Capacity: Gender, Race, and the Material Book in Nineteenth-Century America, 1840–1910
    • Devrim Ümit, PhD Candidate in Transnational History, Modern Middle Eastern History, Ottoman Empire, and Modern Turkey, Columbia University
      The Annotated Bibliography of the American Protestant Missionary Network in Ottoman Turkey, 1876–1914
    • Dr. Molly G. Yarn, PhD in English, University of Cambridge
      Women Printers and the English Book Trade, 1640–1665