Center-based Fellowships

For the WashU Community and External Scholars

A community of scholars

The Center for the Humanities hosts several fellowships designed to provide a supportive environment for innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship and research for faculty as well as postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate students. Time devoted exclusively to research and writing is integral to academic productivity. It allows scholars to travel to important sites, pore over far-flung archives, conduct interviews and otherwise become immersed in the pursuit of a research question. Scholars need time to reflect, analyze and make connections and, finally, share their discoveries with the world. While scholars engage in this kind of activity as a matter of course, the fellowship — a period of time free of administrative, service and teaching responsibilities — provides the opportunity to make significant strides. For our faculty and graduate fellows in residence, we provide both a physical and intellectual space for fellowship and research activities. These fellowship are part of our broader to goal to support a thriving humanities community by facilitating significant research and lasting connections between scholars on and off campus. 

Fellowships for the WashU Community

Faculty Fellowship
Tenure-line WashU faculty in the humanities and humanistic social sciences
The humanities center hosts up to six one-semester Faculty Fellowships, taking place during the fall or spring of each academic year. Up to two fellowships per year, included in that number, will be designated for a First Book Fellowship, during which invited scholars review the fellow’s manuscript in a seminar context, offer constructive criticism, and help her/him plan final revisions before submitting the manuscript to press. Next application cycle opens fall 2025.

Graduate Student Fellowship 
WashU PhD candidates in the humanities and humanistic social sciences
Graduate students writing dissertations in humanities disciplines spend a semester in residence with the humanities center during which they participate in the center’s intensive, interdisciplinary intellectual environment. Next application cycle opens spring 2025.

Divided City Graduate Summer Research Fellowship
WashU MA/PhD students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences, art, architecture, urban design and landscape architecture
With the support of the Here and Next initiative, a program of the Office of the Provost, this fellowship encourages interdisciplinary connections among graduate students in the humanities, architecture and urban design while funding two months of research on how segregation has and continues to play out as a set of spatial practices in cities, neighborhoods and public spaces. Next application cycle opens spring 2025.

Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship 
WashU students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences apply during their sophomore year
The Kling Program empowers students to pursue a funded humanities research project of their own design over the course of their third and fourth years, to engage in interdisciplinary work and conversations about the role of the humanities in college and in public life, and to polish their findings in the form of a published article. Next application cycle opens spring 2025.

Banned Books Fellowship 
WashU undergraduates in Arts & Sciences
Undergraduate students at all levels in Arts & Sciences engage in a research project on a topic of their choosing related to book banning, including the current, historical, local and international contexts. Students taking part in this paid research opportunity produce writing around their research topic and a presentation of their findings. Applications due December 1.

Tyson Environmental Humanities Undergraduate Research Fellowship
WashU undergraduates in Arts & Sciences
This fellowship is open to undergraduates at every level and every major in Arts & Sciences. Students in this project will be immersed in an active, ongoing archival research project to uncover and interpret aspects of Tyson’s history. Students will work collaboratively to process and interpret raw archival materials recently gathered from Tyson that document the site’s acquisition from the military by WashU in the 1960s, as well as maps and other records. Applications due December 1.

Fellowships for External Scholars

Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Modeling Interdisciplinary Inquiry (MII)
The Mellon Foundation and Washington University in St. Louis are proud to support MII Postdoctoral Fellows in the humanities and social sciences each year. The program is endowed by the Mellon Foundation and is designed to encourage interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching across the humanities and interpretive social sciences.

Postdoctoral Fellowship in African and African American Studies (AFAS) and Center for Humanities
The Department of African and African American Studies and the Center for Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis invites applications a one-year postdoctoral fellowship to support the activities of the year-long Seminar, “Black Studies, Academic Freedom, and the Future of the American University.” There is an option to apply for a second-year renewal to support the completion of the seminar proceedings and deliverables.

The fellow will play a key role in shaping the seminar by organizing, administering and actively participating in its activities, such as helping with guest speakers, compiling readings, archiving proceedings and facilitating sessions. This fellowship offers an opportunity for an emerging scholar in Black studies or a related humanities field to contribute to the intellectual development of the project while advancing their own research and engaged scholarship on the Seminar themes. The fellow is expected to be in residence and active in all aspects of the project. We seek applicants who hold a PhD or concentration in Black studies and whose research focuses on Black intellectual tradition, social movements, higher education or other areas outlined below.

The fellowship anticipates a yearlong (12 month) appointment, starting around July 1, 2026. Candidates must have completed all requirements for their doctoral degree by the start of the fellowship. The postdoctoral fellow will receive a competitive salary, research funds, office space and access to university resources.

Host Organization, CHCI-ACLS Fellowships
Fellows awarded funding by the American Council of Learned Societies 
The Center for the Humanities facilitates the labor of humanists by nurturing innovative research, transformative pedagogy, and vibrant community engagement locally and globally. WashU is a R1 institution, and our humanities scholars have partnered with colleagues in each of the university’s professional schools: social work, law, medicine, engineering, and art and architecture. The humanities center hosts faculty and graduate fellows each year and supports undergraduate research through the Kling fellows program and other efforts. Dedicated to bridging silos between disciplines as well as campus-community spaces, the center supports a number of programs that engage with WashU’s neighbors in St. Louis. Current initiatives focus on issues like community engagement, redesigning graduate education, urban humanities, reproductive justice, and global-local scholarly connections. We welcome scholars with projects related to those areas as well as those far afield. The center hosts workshops, lectures, panels, and informal gatherings to build community. Directed by Stephanie Kirk, the center’s team also includes several staff members and an executive committee of faculty.

As a host institution, the humanities center provides fellows with a fully equipped office, internet and library access, and opportunities for interaction with the local community of scholars, including faculty and graduate fellows who are in residence at the center every semester and meet regularly to discuss work in progress. We encourage fellows to join for a full semester to engage with the fellows cohort, the university and the St. Louis region. The city itself presents an ideal research location for scholars interested its Spanish and French colonial history, pioneering civil rights activism, deep musical legacy and rich literary heritage. Although the center does not offer any funding toward living expenses in St. Louis, staff can assist with finding accommodation for fellows. Potential fellows should contact Laura Perry, assistant director for research and public engagement.

BECHS-Africa Fellowship
Fellowship exchange program among the University of Ghana (lead institution), American University in Cairo, Stellenbosch University and Washington University
This fellowship, active in the years 2020–24, created a space for scholars in the humanities to enhance their research agenda in their early career years. The residential appointment at the collaborating institution allowed for targeted mentorship and guidance for the selected scholars by senior scholars, and providee an avenue for interaction and the sharing of research ideas and methodologies with peers.