Grant Opportunities

The Amherst-Folger Postbaccalaureate Fellowship provides one Amherst College graduate with nine months of professional development at two world-class institutions—the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. Designed to support career exploration in the humanities, the opportunity offers project-based work that will be responsive to both the skills and potential of the selected candidate, and the work of their mentors at the Folger and Dumbarton Oaks. All fellows will have the opportunity to work closely with staff in the Folger’s collections, research, or exhibitions teams, and departmental assignments at Dumbarton Oaks may include hands-on work in curation and exhibit preparation, research and publication, collection development or conservation, marketing and communication, or education and public outreach initiatives. Application deadline: December 6, 2021.

National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Stipends support individuals pursuing advanced research that contributes to scholarly knowledge or to the public’s understanding of the humanities. Recipients usually produce scholarly articles, monographs on specialized subjects, books on broad topics, archaeological site reports, translations, editions, or other scholarly tools.

These stipends provide $6,000 for two consecutive months of full-time research and writing. Recipients must work full-time on their projects for two months and may hold other research grants supporting the same project during this time. Summer stipends normally support work carried out during the summer months, but arrangements can be made for other times of the year.

Contact Lisa Stoffer or Mary Elizabeth Strunk in the Grants Office for more information and tips for preparing a competitive NEH proposal. 

Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) Global Humanities Institutes (GHI) are multi-year projects devoted to a research theme, method, practice, or problem in the humanities that would benefit directly from a sustained international and collaborative approach. CHCI supports teams of scholars representing three or four humanities centers or institutes, preferably located in at least three different world regions to develop a research program and model for inclusive collaborative work in the humanities. The centerpiece of each collaboration will be an in-person meeting (a summer or winter institute), flexible in format, that will last a maximum of two weeks and include both members of the convening research team and additional participants from other organizations that are affiliated with CHCI member centers. Expressions of interest due September 30, 2021.

The New England Humanities Consortium (NEHC) promotes and strengthens intellectual collaboration, interdisciplinary exchange, and innovative educational, intercultural, and curricular programming among New England Humanities centers and institutes, and the faculty, students, and regional, national, and global communities they serve. The Consortium includes Amherst College, Brown University, Colby College, Dartmouth College, Middlebury College, Northeastern University, Smith College, Tufts University, the University of Connecticut, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Rhode Island, the University of Vermont, Wellesley College, and Wheaton College.

The NEHC is offering competitive seed grants fo research initiatives in the humanities that seek to capitalize on the collaborative potential of the consortium. Applications seeking to sustain, and build on previously funded NEHC initiatives are also welcome. Awards of up to $5,000 will be made. Deadline: September 15, 2021.

From increased service loads to social barriers and challenges in pursuing critical research, the specific constraints that Black, Indigenous and people of color face in academia as scholars and administrators create considerable obstacles to their retention and success. Nevertheless, we know that the crucial research, teaching, service, and decision-making duties these early career scholars and administrators undertake are vital for transforming the cultures of our campuses and communities into more equitable places for all. To this end, the FOCWG mentorship program aims to partner early-to-mid-career professors and administrators with trained senior mentors to create enduring professional relationships that will provide guidance, resources, and support to early career scholars and administrators as they cement their foothold in academia. Deadline: July 31, 2021.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has invited Amherst College to submit curricular-development proposals under its Humanities for All Times initiative. The goal of the initiative is to increase humanities enrollments among a broad and diverse undergraduate population by clearly articulating the distinctive aims and methods of humanistic analysis and demonstrating the importance of such analysis for the social-justice objectives to which so many students are rightly committed. Approximately 10 grants of up to $1.5 million with a two- to three-year duration will be awarded to teams generating innovative curricula, pedagogies, projects, and, where relevant, scholarship that meet the terms of the call. Collaborations with partner organizations both within and beyond the academy are encouraged. 

The Center for Humanistic Inquiry is collecting proposal ideas and will coordinate efforts with the Grants Office and other partners to help applicants develop their proposals. Up to three proposals can be submitted by the college to Mellon. Submit your initial ideas, at any stage of development, no later than Friday, May 21 at 4:30 p.m. (login required)

Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the New England Humanities Consortium (NEHC), and the University of Connecticut, the Faculty of Color Working Group (FOCWG) invites applications for a virtual symposium hosted by Tufts University and scheduled for Wednesday May 26 – Friday May 28, 2021. The symposium's theme is “Politics, Pedagogy, and the Public Humanities” and includes a keynote by Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Princeton), workshops by Dr. Noliwe Rooks (Cornell), Dr. Gabrielle Foreman (Penn State), Dr. Kyla Wazana Tompkins (Pomona), Dr. E. Patrick Johnson (Northwestern), and Dr. Nicole Aljoe (Northeastern), social hours, and opportunities for one-on-one meetings with publishers.  Symposium participants will receive a stipend of $500 to help defray any costs incurred in attending and to reward active participation across the three days. An application is required for attendance--deadline: April 23.

The 2021 National Humanities Conference offers an occasion for thinking about borders and how the humanities can help us understand how they are constructed, the challenges they pose, and ultimately explore ways they can be crossed. Conference dates: November 11-14, 2021. Deadline to submit proposals to present: April 19, 2021.

The New England Humanities Consortium (NEHC) is offering competitive seed grants for research initiatives in the humanities that seek to capitalize on the collaborative network of the consortium. Awards of up to $5,000 will be made. Priority will be given to applications demonstrating concrete plans for consortium membership involvement. Such involvement can take different forms, but will typically constitute direct collaboration between two or more member institutions and/or active and solicitation of faculty, staff, or students from member institutions. Applications are welcome from individuals or teams, but the PI must be on the faculty of a NEHC member institution. Potential areas of funding interest include the following:

• Collaborative research projects
• Summer Seminars
• Study or working groups
• Shared speakers across institutions
• Collaborative course design
• Exhibitions

Application deadline: Extended to May 15, 2020

The Center for Humanistic Inquiry (CHI) and the Center for Community Engagement (CCE) are accepting applications for a new Public Humanities Research Seminar. With generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this seminar will support community engagement and public scholarship aimed at making students more effective citizens who: 1) reflect on how the ideas they have studied apply in new settings and contexts; 2) have direct opportunities to collaborate with and learn from community members very different from themselves; and 3) gain practice sharing what they have learned with a broad range of audiences beyond the academy. Seminar participants will develop an intellectual framework for public work, learn to build sustainable collaborations with community organizations, and integrate public work into teaching by designing (or significantly revising) a course to include a public scholarship component. Participants will begin meeting this spring and will meet twice each term through the 2020-21 school year. They will receive a $3,500 stipend for their work over the course of the seminar, including the development or revision of a course. Proposals are due by 12:00 p.m. Monday, February 10. Applicants must be Amherst College faculty members who can commit to offering the course they develop at least once during the next two years.