Our fellowships support research projects across the humanities and arts disciplines that examine the contributions of Maryland African Americans to the history, politics, and cultural life of the state, nation, and international spheres. Fellows are expected to be in residence full-time, complete a major work during the residency, engage actively in the intellectual life of JHU, and make scholarly or artistic presentations on campus and among the city’s historically black cultural and educational corridors.

Contact [email protected] to join our mailing list.

Fellowships

These fellowships are accepting applications on a rolling basis.

Oral History Summer Research Fellowships

This eight-week, part-time summer fellowship involves intensive oral history and archival methodological training with personnel at Sheridan Library and University Baltimore for two weeks. Subsequently, the fellow will support the archival and oral history projects of BHCLA Elder-in-Residence, serving primarily as a research partner in the planning and completion of projects, processing of relevant archives and recording life histories. This opportunity is open to students in any field in humanities or social sciences, and has a total compensation of $4,000. 

JHU Graduate Teaching Assistantships in Applied Learning

These one-semester teaching assistantships for eligible JHU graduate students lend support to humanities and humanistic social science course offerings of the Center for Africana Studies. We seek to attract students with an interest in socially relevant, place-based learning.

Johns Hopkins-Morgan State University Graduate Teaching Fellowships

Three teaching fellowships are available per year for JHU (1 per year) and MSU (2 per year) students, all advanced doctoral students, who will be responsible for innovative course development using Africana archives and object-based teaching. Fellows will also serve as advisors to undergraduate Dean’s Undergraduate Research Awardees managed by Gabrielle Dean, Sheridan Libraries Curator.  Fellowships have a one-year term and a stipend of $20,000. Fellows will enroll in a one-credit pedagogy seminar “Teaching with Collections and Objects” in the Fall; collaborate with faculty mentors to develop a syllabus; and co-teach one course in the Spring.

JHU-HBCU Graduate Assistantships for Community Engaged Programming and Digital Publishing

Each year, three positions are open to MA and PhD students at JHU, Morgan State University, Coppin State University, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and Bowie State University to support Consortium symposium planning, oral history compilation, and publishing of the “Baltimore Africana Archives” catalog and “Discoveries in the Archive” anthology. Assistantships will provide a full year of support at $15,000 per year to one graduate student at JHU and two at Maryland HBCUs.

Dean’s Undergraduate Research Award (DURA)

The DURAs are available for undergraduates working on independent research projects that draw on Africana primary source materials in the rare book, manuscripts, and archival collections of the Sheridan Libraries, with preference given to topics that examine dimensions of Black experience in Maryland. Awardees may supplement this research by consulting other archives and libraries across Maryland and/or conducting their own original oral history interviews.

The award, in the amount of $5000, supports research conducted from May 2022-April 2023 and the
development of projects based on this research, e.g. an academic essay, online exhibition, film, or other deliverables.