External Faculty Fellowships at the Stanford Humanities Center

• Research projects must be in the humanities (view definition of the humanities in FAQ); creative arts projects are not eligible. The Center is open to projects employing information technology in humanities research.
• All applicants must have a PhD and be at least three years beyond receipt of the degree at the start of the fellowship year. Junior fellowships are for scholars who will be at least three and no more than ten years beyond receipt of the Ph.D. by the start of the fellowship year. Senior fellowships are for established scholars who are more than ten years beyond receipt of the PhD.
• External faculty fellowships are offered once only. Former external faculty fellows are not eligible to reapply.

Requirements:

• Fellowships are for one full academic year, and require the fellow to be in residence during Autumn, Winter, and Spring Quarters (mid-September to mid-June). We do not consider applications for different amounts of time.
• Since we are a residential center, where intellectual life depends on collegial interaction, external fellows are required to live within a ten-mile radius of Stanford University. Fellows are also expected to attend lunch regularly and to participate in weekly research presentations.
• During the year, faculty fellows are required to make an intellectual contribution to the Stanford community, usually by participating in a Geballe Research Workshop at the Humanities Center. Precise details regarding the intellectual contribution will be determined with the Center's Associate Director after fellowships are awarded.

Stipends:

• Fellows are awarded stipends of up to $60,000 and a housing and moving allowance of up to $20,000. Applicants who require additional support are expected to seek supplementary funding in the form of external grants or sabbatical or other contributions from home institutions.
• The Center is unable to provide or finance medical insurance. Fellows are required to make individual arrangements for reasonable coverage during their fellowship year.

Application Process:

• Applications should be submitted via our online application system. Access to the system will open in August. If you would like to receive a notice when the online application system opens, please click here. All applications must be in English. We discourage the submission of additional materials with your application and cannot return such materials to you.
• Applicants will be notified when their applications have been received, and will be notified of the fellowship competition outcome in late March.

Application Content:

1. Contact and biographical information about the applicant
2. A curriculum vitae of no more than 10 pages
3. A statement the significance of your project to knowledge in the humanities, broadly considered (100-word maximum).
4. A brief description (not more than 1,000 words) of a research project. State clearly the objectives, significance, methodology, and originality of the project in a manner clear to nonspecialists (the selection committee is composed of a range of scholars from humanities fields and may not include specialists in your field). For sample project proposals, view: Project Proposal 1 (PDF); Project Proposal 2 (PDF).
5. Three reference letters. Applicants are advised to have no more than one reference letter from an individual at their home institution. Reference letters should be written in English. If this is impossible, we reserve the right to request a translation. Referees are encouraged to submit letters through our online application system. Referees who wish to submit their letter of reference via email should send letters to shc-fellowships@stanford.edu. Reference letters must be received at the Center by the application deadline. Consideration of letters received after that date cannot be guaranteed.

Application Criteria:

Fellows will be chosen by a multidisciplinary selection committee after an initial screening process by experts in the various disciplines. Applications will be judged based on the following factors:

1. The promise of the specific research project being proposed.
2. The research project's potential interest to scholars in different fields of the humanities.
3. The originality and intellectual distinction of the candidate's previous work.
4. The applicant's perceived ability to engage in collegial interaction and to contribute to the discussion of presentations.
5. Applicants who have received a major research grant within the last three years generally will not be as competitive as other applicants.
6. For more information, contact the fellowship administrator.