Doctoral Fellowships

Applications due June 1, 2026

The FSU Humanities Center will award eight dissertation fellowships for the academic year 2026–2027. Fellows will be in residence Aug. 25, 2026 to July 31, 2027. Each fellow will receive $4,000 in supplemental funding.

The center recognizes that structured interaction with a community of writers advantages a junior scholar writing a dissertation, enhancing the likelihood of timely completion. The center aims to foster interdisciplinary collegiality among dissertation writers in workshop and retreat settings, and other social events.

Applicants must be all but dissertation, or ABD, in one of the following fields: art history, classics, English, history, modern languages, musicology, philosophy or religion.

Annual Theme

“The Human and the Humanities” will be the theme of the FSU Humanities Center for 2026–2028. Projects undertaken at the center will comprehend that theme in some form as scholars build from their research specializations and disciplinary grounding to larger views of the meaning and place of the humanities in intellectual and social life, and in relationship to citizenship and human flourishing.

Eligibility

To be eligible for a FSU Humanities Center Doctoral Fellowship, applicants must:

  • Be admitted to candidacy for the Doctor of Philosophy (i.e., ABD, having passed the dissertation prospectus review) before June 1 of the fellowship year
  • Be enrolled full-time in a humanities or humanities-adjacent doctoral program in the College of Fine Arts, College of Music, or College of Arts and Sciences at Florida State University
  • Be in residence in Tallahassee for the duration of the fellowship term
  • Commit to active participation in the intellectual life of the FSU Humanities Center throughout that academic year, including attendance at meetings, lectures and other center events
  • Not previously have held a graduate student fellowship at the FSU Humanities Center
  • May hold a TA-ship concurrently with the FSU Humanities Center Doctoral Fellowship but not exceed a teaching assignment of two courses per semester

Fellows are expected to participate actively in FSU Humanities Center events throughout the fellowship year. This includes attendance at periodic FSU Humanities Center gatherings (lunches, lectures, receptions and other events), contribution to the center’s annual collaborative scholarly project, and a workshop presentation of research to the cohort. Fellows are integral members of the FSU Humanities Center community and are expected to engage fully in its collective work.

Application Requirements

A complete application must include all of the following components:

  1. Dissertation overview (no more than 400 words)
  2. Description of anticipated goals during tenure of the award (with a timeline) detailing how the project will advance towards completion as well as how it will contribute to the mission of the FSU Humanities Center and its annual theme (no more than 500 words)
  3. Curriculum Vitae
  4. Letter of recommendation from the dissertation director

Selection Criteria

Applications will be reviewed by the FSU Humanities Center board. In evaluating proposals, the board will apply the following criteria, while also attending to the goal of assembling a dynamic and representative cohort of fellows:

  • The clarity and rigor with which the application articulates a research project with appropriate methods, sources and timeline
  • The strength and specificity of the connection to the annual FSU Humanities Center theme
  • The likelihood that the fellow and the project will contribute collaboratively to the FSU Humanities Center's interdisciplinary project
  • The potential of the applicant’s participation to broaden the perspectives represented in the fellowship cohort
  • The applicant’s ambition to construct a vision for the humanities in the 21st century  

Timeline

June 1, 2026: Applications due at 11:59 p.m. Send applications in one file to: humanities.center@fsu.edu

June 22, 2026: Announcement of the Inaugural Class, FSU Humanities Center dissertation fellows

Aug. 25, 2026: Doctoral fellows convene

Contact

Questions about the fellowship may be directed to Jennifer Clark, administrative director, FSU Humanities Center: humanities.center@fsu.edu