The Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas
The Harry Ransom Center, the acclaimed research library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, is now accepting applications for its annual research fellowships in the humanities. The Ransom Center’s fellowship program was established in 1989 in order to bring researchers to the collection, and make the institution’s holdings more accessible to academics, artists, and others who have an interest in doing deep dives into some of the Ransom Center’s archives.
Since its launch, the program has hosted more than 1000 scholars who have used the archive to research and publish books, articles, and more about myriad topics, from music to performing arts to cultural history to art. One example: in 2007–2008, the then-Museum of Fine Arts, Houston curator Anne Wilkes Tucker received a fellowship from the Ransom Center to research photographic materials for her lauded 2012–2013 exhibition and publication WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath.
Currently, the Ransom Center’s research fellowships bring in more than 50 individuals each year. The institution’s collections and holdings are prodigious, covering numerous continents and cultures, meaning individuals come from around the world to use the Ransom Center’s archive.
The exhibition Vaudeville! Photos by Pete Smith. Courtesy Harry Ransom Center
The Ransom Center also hosts regular exhibitions drawing from its archive. Its current show comes from the institution’s Ed Ruscha papers, and past shows have included the photography of Elliott Erwitt, pastels and other artworks by Frank Reaugh, and cultural artifacts from the Vaudeville era.
See below for more information on fellowships, including monthly and travel stipends available to researchers and other interested applicants. The deadline to apply is November 15, 2018 at 5PM CST.
The fellowships range from one to three months, with stipends of $3,500 per month. Travel stipends and dissertation fellowships provide stipends of $2,000. International fellows will receive an additional $500 stipend to offset visa and travel costs. The stipends are funded by endowments and annual sponsors, including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Research Fellowship Endowment, Alfred A. and Blanche W. Knopf Fellowship, and the Marlene Nathan Meyerson Photography Fellowship Endowment.
