NACBS-Huntington Library Fellowship
Description
The NACBS, in collaboration with the Huntington Library, offers annually the NACBS-Huntington Library Fellowship to aid in dissertation research in British Studies using the collections of the library. The amount of the fellowship is $3500. A requirement for holding the fellowship is that the time of tenure be spent in residence at the Huntington Library.
Instructions
Nominations and applications for the 2023 NACBS-Library Fellowship are invited. The fellowship can be taken up from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025.
Applications should consist of a curriculum vitae, a description of the dissertation research project, and two supporting letters (one from the applicant's dissertation advisor). The letters should include a description of the materials to be consulted at the Huntington and the reason that these are essential sources for the dissertation.
Applications and letters of recommendation may be submitted below. Application materials must be submitted by November 15, 2023.
Applicants for the NACBS fellowship are also welcome to apply to supplement that award with a short-term award from the Huntington Library itself under the terms of its own fellowship competition, the closing date for which is November 15, 2023. See: https://www.huntington.org/available-fellowships#short
Committee
Lisa Cody
Claremont McKenna College
Lou Roper
State University of New York--New Paltz
Simon Devereaux
University of Victoria
Due Date
November 15, 2023
Previous Winners
2023
Courtney MacPhee (Stanford University), “Imperial Apocalypse: Millenarian Visions for the British Atlantic World, c. 1630-1660”
Courtney MacPhee’s doctoral dissertation examines the effects of millenarian thought and behavior on the extension of English imperial interests in the mid-seventeenth century. While seminal treatments of the Fifth Monarchists and other radical groups exist as do studies of the relationship between Puritanism and empire, MacPhee’s interdisciplinary project uniquely connects eschatological visions with the formation of Anglo-American societies, especially in the Caribbean, and advances, by extension, understanding of the place of religion in the history of the English Revolution. The award of this fellowship will enable MacPhee to mine the Huntington’s rich array of material related to her topic ranging from rare sermons to the commercial accounts, private correspondence, and parliamentary reports that were generated on both sides of the Atlantic.
2022
Hannah Kaemmer (Harvard University) for her research on “Expertise and Empire: Fortification Building and the English Board of Ordnance, 1660-1714.”
Hannah Kaemmer’s doctoral dissertation in the History and Theory of Architecture explores a centrally important, yet substantially under-studied dimension of British imperial activity – the building of fortifications – during the first decades in which the empire acquired truly global dimensions. The committee was impressed by both the originality of the work proposed, blending scholarship on architecture, knowledge-expertise, and state-building, and its ambitious geographic scope, spanning sites as varied and far-flung as London, Ireland, New York, Jamaica, Tangier and Newfoundland. This fellowship will enable Kaemmer to consult a wide range of materials unique to the Huntington’s manuscript collection, including the Ellesmere and Blathwayt papers, and rare copies of treatises on fortification contained in the print collections.
2021
Rachel Podd (Fordham University), “Medieval Conceptions of Health and Illness: Regimen Sanitatis and Medical Recipes at the Huntington Library.”
Rachel Podd's doctoral dissertation explores the lived experience of illness in late medieval England. The project combines historical analysis with a variety of other disciplinary methods, including anthropological perspectives, demography, and bio-archeology. At the Huntington, she plans to explore regimen sanitatis and recipe collections from the late middle ages in order to recover attitudes about illness and conditions of health among non-elite city dwellers. Her proposal impressed the committee and made a clear case for needing to consult the Huntington’s collections.
2019
Zach Bates (University of Calgary), “Scottish Colonial Administrators and the Idea of the British Empire and Constitution, 1710-1763.”
Bates’ Ph.D. thesis explores the role of leading Scottish colonial administrators in theorizing an “imperial constitution” in the early to mid-eighteenth century. His work creatively combines the history of national identities, ideologies of empire and colonial governance. The Huntington collections will be vital for his research.
2018
Catherine Hinchliff (Johns Hopkins University), ‘Women, Gender and Speech in the English Revolution’
Even among a strong pool of applications, Catherine Hinchliff’s project proposal stood out for its clarity, detail and originality. Hinchliff’s research promises to open new perspectives on the expanding role of women as political agents, and the varied forms of women’s political speech, in the revolutionary upheavals of the seventeenth century. The Huntington collections will be vital for her research.
2017
Sonia Tycko (Harvard University), ‘Coerced Labor in an Age of Contract: England, 1639-1689’