NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: April 11, 2002
Contact: Gerald George 202-939-4757
First Mellon Dissertation Fellows Selected
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The first recipients of Mellon Dissertation Fellowships for Research in Original Sources in the Humanities were announced today by Deanna B. Marcum, president of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). Eleven fellows have been selected from among 128 eligible applicants in 53 graduate schools across the United States.
"We are grateful," Ms. Marcum said, "to all who applied and to the committee of distinguished scholars, librarians, and archivists who labored diligently and conscientiously to evaluate the applications. So many were worthy that the selection was extremely difficult."
A grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is enabling CLIR to award about 10 dissertation fellowships in each of three years beginning in 2002. Each fellowship provides up to $20,000 to support dissertation research for a maximum of 12 months. The purposes of the program are to
- help doctoral candidates who may otherwise not have opportunities or encouragement to work in original source materials in the humanities
- help doctoral candidates in many humanities fields deepen their ability to develop knowledge from original sources
- enable doctoral candidates to prepare dissertations on what seems to them and their faculty advisors most worthwhile by going where the relevant sources are rather than where financial support may be available
- provide insight from researchers into how scholarly resources can be developed and made accessible in the future.
On May 6, before beginning their research, the fellows will meet in Washington, D.C., for a workshop to increase their understanding of archives, libraries, and other original-source repositories and how to work effectively with them. Following the fellowship-supported research, fellows will meet again to report on their experiences and make recommendations for how original-source repositories and scholars can work together more effectively.
Eligibility required that each applicant be enrolled in a doctoral program in the humanities in a U.S. graduate school, complete all doctoral requirements except the dissertation by the start of the fellowship tenure, be ready to start research no later than September 2002, and plan to work primarily in the holdings of archives, libraries, museums, historical societies, and related repositories.
By September 2002, information and application forms for the fellowship competition for 2003 will be posted on CLIR's Web site: www.clir.org. Announcements will be sent to all U.S. graduate schools.
The 2002 Mellon Dissertation Fellows, their schools, and their fields are:
- Sinan Antoon, Harvard University, Arabic literature
Brenda Foley, Brown University, interdisciplinary studies (history, theatre, women's studies)
Christiane Gruber, University of Pennsylvania, art history
Angela Herren, CUNY Graduate Center, pre-Columbian art history
Drew Hopkins, Columbia University, cultural anthropology
Daniel Neely, New York University, ethnomusicology
Susan Pearson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, United States history
Alisha Rankin, Harvard University, history of medicine
Maria Rose, New York University, musicology
Natalie Rothman, University of Michigan, anthropology and history
Paula Saunders, University of Texas at Austin, anthropology
The Council on Library and Information Resources is an independent, nonprofit organization that works to expand access to information, however recorded and preserved, as a public good. In partnership with other organizations, CLIR helps create services that expand the concept of "library" and supports the providers and preservers of information.
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