Stanford Humanities Center names 2015-16 fellows

The Stanford Humanities Center has announced the recipients of its competition for full-year residency research fellowships for the 2015-16 academic year, after receiving a record number of applications.

The 25 scholars were selected from a pool of more than 400 applicants from Stanford and other U.S. and international institutions.

Each fellow will pursue individual research and writing projects throughout the year and will have the opportunity to share ideas and foster collaborations with the Stanford community through workshops and the rich array of sponsored activities of the Humanities Center.

During their tenure at the Humanities Center, the 2015-16 fellows will focus on a range of research topics including cinematic spectacle, human-animal relationships in the Neolithic era, Tudor power networks, Islamic legal reform and musicians of the Horn of Africa.

CAROLINE WINTERER, professor of history and director of the Humanities Center, noted, “We’re delighted to be welcoming a distinguished group of scholars to the Humanities Center in the fall. This year we received a record number of applications, which is a reminder of the ongoing relevance and vitality of the Stanford Humanities Center as it celebrates its 35-year anniversary.”

The seven internal faculty fellows represent several disciplines within Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences, such as philosophy, film and media studies, music, history and classics. The 10 external faculty fellows come from disciplines spanning the humanities and social sciences.

The Humanities Center has also awarded eight Geballe Dissertation Fellowships to outstanding current Stanford graduate students who will spend their time at the Humanities Center completing their dissertations.

Hume Humanities Honors Undergraduate Fellows also will join the 2015-16 cohort. The students, who will be named in the fall, are all seniors at Stanford and will have access to the Humanities Center’s resources as they complete their honors theses.

In addition to the yearlong fellowships, the Humanities Center and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies will host four International Visitors for four-week residencies. During their time at Stanford, these scholars will give lectures in conjunction with the departments and research centers that nominated them.

The Humanities Center also administers the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in the Humanities, an interdisciplinary program offering postdoctoral fellowships in humanities disciplines. Its 2015-16 cohort will be announced later this year.

As Winterer pointed out, “Adding in the Hume Humanities Honors Fellows that will be selected in the fall, as well as the Mellon Postdoctoral fellows, the Humanities Center will provide major support for the research of nearly 50 scholars at all stages of their careers.”

The full list of incoming fellows is posted on the Humanities Center website.