Report on Fellowships granted to medievalists, 1997–2008

To: Council of the Medieval Academy of America

--For a .pdf version of this report, please click here--

This report covers grants to individual scholars from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, the National Humanities Center, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Getty Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation. Grants for study in various regions, Delmas grants for study of Venice and the Veneto for example, are not covered although they are lucrative sources of scholarly support and scholars should make efforts to identify these programs wherever possible. Granting institutions have shown varying degrees of cooperation with this study and this affects the completeness of the data presented. Most of the data is in the public domain, but not all. Ann Gaylin at ACLS and Caroline Walker Bynum and Marian Zelazny at the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, and Frank Shaw at NEH have been particularly helpful in sharing data and answering questions. I am indebted to them. [i.]

I have included study of Eurasia, 400 to 1500 c.e. I have excluded internal studies of China, having been convinced by sinologists that their chronologies differ substantially from those employed in the West: some China scholars date the centuries from the eleventh onward as modern, for example. I have included any study of China’s relations with the West during the relevant centuries and all studies of China and the Silk route. Successful grant proposals outside the European continent and the Mediterranean region are not so great in number that they distort findings significantly for those who are interested primarily in Europe.

Please note: I have chosen to list fellowships in the year received, which may follow the year in which the competition for fellowships was held. Nevertheless granting agencies are free to allow fellowships, like the Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowships for example, to be taken up in any of the three years succeeding the year of competition. Check with funding institutions for differing policies. [ii.]

National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships for individual scholars are open to United States citizens and foreign nationals, who have lived in the US for three years. Faculty or staff of colleges and universities, or of primary and secondary schools, or independent scholars and writers, who have completed their formal education, are eligible. NEH supplies information for the last seven years on its website. The years 1998 through 2000 have been reconstructed from successful grant applicants who checked the box “Medieval Studies” on their application form; it is not exhaustive for those years for that reason. Small grants of $6,000 have not been included.

American Council of Learned Societies provides grants to individual scholars in a number of programs. For ACLS Fellowships an applicant must be either a US citizen or a permanent resident who has lived in the United States continuously for at least three years by the application deadline date. The Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowships are open to all who hold the Ph.D. or equivalent and are employed in a tenure-track position at a degree-granting academic institution in the United States, remaining so for the duration of the fellowships. Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowships for Recently Tenured Scholars must hold the Ph.D. or equivalent and be employed in a tenured position at a degree-granting academic institution in the United States, remaining so for the duration of the fellowships. The Annual Report notes "Institutions and individuals contribute to the ACLS Fellowship Program and its endowment, including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Council's college and university Associates, and former Fellows and individual friends of the ACLS." Also the Digital Innovation Fellowship program has made one award in medieval studies for a collaborative project on the exact sciences in the premodern Islamic world. [iii.]

Of particular interest is a new program, the Mellon/ACLS Early Career Fellowships, which began with a 2006–2007 competition. This program awards fellowships in two categories: Dissertation Completion Fellowships and Recent Doctoral Recipients Fellowships. The first competition for the Dissertation Completion Fellowships took place last year (2006–2007); the first competition for Recent Doctoral Recipients is being held this year (2007–2008). Go to http://www.acls.org for more information on this new program.

ACLS grants to individual scholars (new Mellon/ACLS Early Career Fellowships are discussed further below).

American Philosophical Society recently initiated a program of Sabbatical Fellowship grants, approximately 16–20 a year. The program was initiated in 1998; grants were bestowed the following year.  Mellon Foundation monies support these awards. Citizens and residents of the United States and US citizens abroad are eligible. Foreign residents conducting projects to be carried out in the United States are eligible as well.  Grants are made to individuals rather than institutions. Grant awards may be small.

National Humanities Center provides a residential program that encourages participation in scholarly discourse since 1978. Forty fellows with resident grants from the United States and around the world spend an academic year at Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. NEH, ACLS, and the Mellon Foundation, among others, support fellowships.

Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey prides itself on sustaining Medieval Studies. The 40 places in the School of Historical Studies now attract about 300 applications a year, which makes it difficult to support all the worthy applications from medievalists. The IAS annual report states: "Members received support both from the Institute's own funds and from a variety of external sources, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, and the Delmas Foundation." The Institute attempts to balance fellowships among American and non-American scholars, and currently about 50% of fellows are non-American. Literary scholars, art historians, as well as historians may apply and are accepted into the program. In some years visitors to the Institute, who provide their own funding and are medievalists, augment these numbers.

Guggenheim Foundation awards encourage work in all fields, for example fiction and science, as well as scholarship in the humanities and related social sciences. Guggenheim holds two competitions, one for citizens of the United States and Canada and one for permanent residents (the statement on the web page is somewhat misleading on this issue but Canadians are included) and a second program with awards for Latin America and the Caribbean. While this is a large program, broad eligibility means brisk competition for awards.

Getty Foundation supports the plastic arts and art history. The Getty’s stated purpose is to “provide support for individuals and institutions through out the world to promote scholarship in the history of art.” This mandate is interpreted broadly enough so that cultural studies are welcome. Data is available from 2004 to 2007.

Mellon Foundation supports scholarly research generously but primarily through other granting agencies. The Institute for Advanced Study receives institutional support for resident fellowships. Mellon money supports ACLS Fellowships, American Philosophical Society Sabbatical Fellowships, and fellowships at the National Humanities Center. In recent years Mellon has instituted two new competitions of its own: the Mellon Fellowships for Emeriti Faculty and the Mellon Fellowships for New Directions in Scholarship. Both held their first competitions in 2003. Nominations are forwarded from a group of invited colleges and universities in the United States each year. Medievalists have been well rewarded in the program for emeriti faculty, considering that the program makes 14 to 21 grants a year; see below. The New Directions in Scholarship program has awarded one out of eight grants to a medievalist for 2004 and two out of ten grants to medievalists for 2006. Medievalist could make a better showing in this latter program.

Mellon Fellowships for Emeriti Faculty awards only.

Conclusions. Tenured senior medievalists are well supported by individual grants whether in resident programs or through opportunities to pursue individual research and writing projects. Some programs have seen recent enlargement in the size of fellowships with cost of living increases in mind.

Cross-program analysis suggests that an individual who wins a competition with one granting agency may well win an award from a second, and even a third, agency in the same year. I can only applaud the quality of the grant proposals in these instances, but it also suggests to me that a greater number of applications might provide grant readers with a richer selection of proposals. Competitions over the past ten years have yielded substantially more successful proposals for women scholars than for men. This reflects recent recruitment into our field and strong interest in women’s studies and gender among medievalists. Nonetheless it also suggests that we should encourage men in our field to apply for grants.

Medievalists should encourage graduate students and newly minted Ph.D.s to apply for grants. It is difficult to enumerate awards to students and recent degree holders in our field because candidates are less likely to be members of the Medieval Academy of America and granting agencies are less likely to list the titles of student projects. Nevertheless the little evidence I could glean suggests medievalists do less well in this arena. I suggest that senior scholars mentor students and young colleagues in the art of applying for fellowship support. The ACLS Early Career Fellowship Program's Recent Doctoral Recipients Fellowships holds its first competition in late 2007, with awards to be determined in the spring, for Fellowships to be held in either 2008–2009 or 2009–2010. The first competition for Dissertation Completion Fellowships in this program was held last year, so Fellows (or alternates) in that competition, along with awardees in other competitive dissertation completion fellowships of national stature, may now apply for the second stage award. Encourage medieval scholars to apply.

Respectfully submitted,
Susan Mosher Stuard
Professor of History, emerita
Haverford College
Medieval Council of America representative to the ACLS

i. Travel grants, which are short term, were not included in this study. The study includes research about topics from 400 to 1500 c.e. Topics without chronological indicators of any sort were excluded. Longitudinal studies, from ancient through modern times were excluded unless there was strong indication that the medieval era would receive significant attention. Studies that begin or end with the Middle Ages were included, for example, first through the tenth century, c.e. or 1350 to 1700. Scholarship on St. Augustine (d. 430) and subsequent saints is included in the study.

ii. Decisions on taking multiple grant monies may be made on a case-by-case basis by some granting agencies. Sometimes serial grants are permitted. This is a sensitive area and granting agencies may not always be fully informed about multiple grants received by any one individual.

iii. "Islamic Scientific Manuscripts Initiative (ISMI) Database Project." The project description reads: This international collaborative project makes available an online resource on the exact sciences in the premodern Islamic world. Providing information on the social, religious, intellectual, and political contexts in which this material was produced as well as its influence on other cultures, the research is accessible without charge to researchers in the field and to the public worldwide. The database includes works of 1700 scientists (astronomers, mathematicians, physicists, geographers) who span the entire Islamic world, from the eighth to the nineteenth centuries.

--For a .pdf version of this report, please click here--