W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellowship Program in African American Studies

FELLOWSHIP APPLICATION FOR 2024-2025 -- Deadline: January 22, 2024.

The Hutchins Center community is rich in programming and opportunities to network with scholars engaged in African and African American research. We ask Fellows to reside in the Cambridge-Boston area during the term of their appointments and to take maximum advantage of their office spaces in the Du Bois Research Institute. Additionally, we expect them to participate fully in the orientation activities, the weekly fellows colloquium series at which fellows present their work in progress, fellows workshops which are forums for in-depth explorations of aspects of their current projects, and the occasional social hour.

We also encourage Fellows to make frequent appearances at major Hutchins Center events which are centered on lecture series or panel discussions and sometimes supplemented with social functions. These occasions provide scope to interact with other fellows, faculty, and scholars at Harvard University and other institutions.

The Fellows Program, the oldest of the Du Bois Research Institute’s activities, invites up to twenty scholars to be in residence each year, reflecting the interdisciplinary breadth of African and African American Studies. The Institute has appointed Fellows since its founding in 1975 and supports research at both the predoctoral and postdoctoral levels.

Du Bois Research Institute Fellows are truly international, including scholars from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

The fellowship program has supported nearly 700 alumni, many of whom are now major figures in the field, and include Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Harvard University), Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka, Deborah Willis (NYU), Carla Kaplan (Northeastern), David Blight (Yale), Darlene Clark-Hine (Northwestern), Louis Wilson (Smith College), Stephen Tuck (Oxford), Omar Wasow (Princeton,) Thomas Cripps (Morgan State), the late Nellie McKay, Arnold Rampersad (Stanford), and Cornel West (Princeton). Numerous scholars who came to the Institute as junior faculty members are now tenured members of African American Studies and other departments in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and several African countries.

Our fellows also enjoy the company of other fellows and scholars from the Harvard community, including the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, the Global History Seminar, and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Many of our fellows build strong bonds with faculty and graduate students in the Department of African and African American Studies. The aim of the fellowship program is to provide a vibrant environment in which to write, study, collaborate, and thrive.

Resident Fellowships at the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute are frequently funded and include the following privileges:

• A Harvard University ID card which provides access to all University libraries and other University facilities.
• A Harvard University email account and access to Internet resources, including the Harvard On-Line Library Information System.
• An office space with full support and supplies.

Applicants must be fluent in English – listening, reading, writing and speaking. Non-native English speakers must provide TOEFL or IELTS score.