Jon B. Lovelace Fellowship in Folklife Studies (using the Alan Lomax Collection)

The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress invites qualified scholars to apply for a post-doctoral fellowship for advanced research based on the Alan Lomax Collection. The Lovelace Fellowship, established in 2015 for the study of the Alan Lomax Collection, pays tribute to the 60-year friendship between philanthropist Jon B. Lovelace and James H. Billington, who served as Librarian of Congress from 1987-2015. Under Billington’s leadership and through the generous benefaction of Jon and Lillian Lovelace, the Alan Lomax Collection was acquired in 1999 by the American Folklife Center and the Association for Cultural Equity at Hunter College. The Lomax Collection is a major collection of ethnographic field audio recordings, motion pictures, photographs, manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials that represent Lomax’s lifetime of work to document and analyze traditional music, dance, storytelling, and other expressive genres that arise from cultural groups in many parts of the world, particularly the United States, England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the Caribbean. Lomax (1915-2002) was one of the greatest documenters of traditional culture during the 20th century.

The Jon B. Lovelace Fellowship supports scholarly research that contributes significantly to a greater understanding of the work of Alan Lomax and the cultural traditions he documented over the course of a vigorous and highly productive 70-year career. It provides an opportunity, for a period of up to 8 months, for concentrated use of materials from the Alan Lomax Collection, Lomax Family Collections, and other collections of the Library of Congress, through full-time residency at the Library. The fellowship program supports research projects in the disciplines of anthropology, ethnomusicology, ethnography, ethno-history, dance, folklore and folklife, history, literature, linguistics, and movement analysis, with particular emphasis on the traditional music, dance, and narrative of the United States, England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the Caribbean, as well as methodologies for their documentation and analysis. We encourage interdisciplinary projects that combine disciplines in novel and productive ways.

Application and Selection

Applicants must submit:

• A completed application form, in English
• A curriculum vitae (maximum 2 pages; additional pages will be discarded)
• A single paragraph abstract
• A statement of proposed research (maximum 3 pages)
• An explanation of why the Library of Congress is the required venue for your research (maximum 1 paragraph)
• A bibliography of works you have consulted for your proposal (maximum 3 pages)
• Three references with completed reference forms from people who have read the research proposal. These references may not be from a staff member of the Library of Congress

Successful proposals will clearly indicate the purpose and principal scholarly contribution of the project, as well as the benefit of working in the Library of Congress using the Lomax materials and, if applicable, the Library’s other collections for the proposed project.