1. Humanities Research Center
  2. Research
  3. Residential Fellowships
  4. Application Information

Application Information

Residency: 2024-2025
Annual Theme, 2024-25: No theme
Deadline: November 1st, 2023

The HRC invites applications for faculty residential fellowships during the 2024-25 academic year. The HRC fosters interdisciplinary work, both within the humanistic disciplines, and between the humanities, the arts, and the social sciences. The selected residential fellows will form an intellectual community of faculty of diverse academic ranks and departmental affiliations who will contribute to and learn from each other’s work as they pursue individual research projects. The goal of the HRC residential fellowship is to bring fresh perspectives from the humanities, arts, and social sciences to advance scholarly conversations across a range of disciplines. Although our fellowship themes have engaged the annual theme at the HRC in the last 3 years, this year, applicants can submit research proposals on any topic related to the humanities. Our plan is to alternate themed calls for proposals with open calls. With this broad scope, the HRC aims to put scholars across various areas in conversation with each other in creative and intellectually generative ways. The resulting work will underscore the dynamic potential of humanistic scholarship to rethink methodological, theoretical, and disciplinary boundaries. Projects will be chosen based on compatibility and synergy with other submitted proposals, the quality of the proposals, and the needs of the applicants.

Eligibility

With support from the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation (OVPRI) and the College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS), the HRC plans to continue to fund 4 residential fellows from CHS, who will pursue or complete article- or book-length projects and 2 faculty members outside the CHS — in the social sciences, the arts, or other disciplines — who are engaged in humanistic projects. The HRC will provide stipends to the selected candidates, which can be used for release from teaching and/or professional development. Previous HRC residential fellows are not eligible to apply. HRC Advisory Board members are eligible to apply but will not be involved in the evaluation process. Fellows will meet every week to discuss work in progress during the 2024-2025 academic year, will attend HRC events regularly, and will be required to give public presentations about their projects during or following their residency at the center. We ask that publications resulting from this fellowship program include an acknowledgment of the center’s support.The fellows will also submit a report of their activities during the fellowship year by May 1st, 2025.

Apply

A complete application will consist of the following, submitted as a single PDF document:

  1. Cover page (applicant’s name, rank, department/school, contact information, title)
  2. 200-word abstract
  3. 1,000-word project proposal
  4. 1-page work plan for the year
  5. Short bibliography (up to 2 pages)
  6. Curriculum vitae (up to 4 pages)
  7. a short paragraph describing your contributions to the intellectual life of the HRC in the last three years (panels, grant teams, research groups, labs, webinars, Research Fridays, Meet VCU's Authors presentations, mentoring, community engagement work, etc.)
  8. Support from department chair (or equivalent); email is acceptable

Submit full applications (one PDF document) to cstanciu@vcu.edu by November 1st, 2023.

Application Review

Applications will be reviewed by a committee of faculty, including the previous year’s fellows, appointed by the center director. The applications will be evaluated on the following criteria:

  • Scholarly/creative excellence and promise of the project
  • Applicant’s readiness to pursue proposed research
  • Quality of the proposal
  • Demonstrated need for support
  • Explanation of how the experience of an HRC fellowship will benefit the applicant and the project