The University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) awarded eleven fellowships and grants to support faculty and graduate student research at UCI in the 2023-2024 school year.
UC Underrepresented Scholars Fellowship supports individuals who have faced various disadvantages in their academic pursuits by pairing them with a senior mentor of their choice from aUC campus. Recipients of the award receive research funding of $1,500 as well as having travel fees for meetings and conferences covered. Recipients:
- Philana Payton, Assistant Professor of Film & Media Studies
- Yatta Kiazolu, Assistant Professor of Global and International Studies
- Valentina Montero Roman, Assistant Professor of English
Faculty Summer Research Grants of $5,000 were awarded to UCI faculty to conduct research during Summer session, with priority given to projects involving issues of climate, environment, and technology, social heterogeneity, and Care & Repair, UCHRI’s new theme focusing on conservation efforts. Recipients:
- Long Bui, Associate Professor of Global and International Studies, “Glocal Histories of Exile and Activism in the University of California”
- Bo Ruber, Associate Professor of Film & Media Studies, “Sexting by Carrier Pigeon: LGBTQ Sexual Cultures across the History of Communication Technologies”
- Kevan Aguilar, Assistant Professor of History, “Revolutionary Encounters: Race, Ideology, and Exile in Mexico and Spain”
Dissertation Support Fellowships offer up to $1,000 to UC PhD students to support research and dissertation work. The funding also covers potential travel fees as well as academic supplies and tuition payments. Recipients:
- Monish Borah, History, “The Total History of the Bengal Famine of 1769-70”
- Megan Cole, English, “Fossil-Fueled Fictions: Coal, Oil, and the Making of American Literary Modernity (1900-1950)”
Medicine & Humanities: White Graduate Student Scholarship provides financial support through a $20,000 award for PhD students to complete work on their dissertations. The monthly stipend can go towards research funding, living expenses, or partial school fees. Recipient:
- Sara O’Dell, English (MD/PhD Student), “Gothic Therapies: Medicine, Literature, and the Healing Imagination, 1764-1820”
Work & Refuge PhD Fellowship Program assists UC humanities PhD students by offering numerous opportunities including professional development workshops and intercampus networking, as well as access to a professional editor in an effort to prepare their research for publication through Foundry, UCHRI’s humanities research platform. Recipient:
- Ashwin Bajaj, Comparative Literature, “Genres of Superfluity: (Dis)possession and Exile in the Global Historical Novel”
Multi Campus Graduate Student Working Group provides up to $5,000 to UC PhD students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences collaborating on their respective projects pertaining to innovation and advancement of the specific working group topic, particularly the theme of Care & Repair, as well as the humanities as a whole. Recipient:
- Seyfullah [Seyfu] Ozkurt, Political Science, “Towards a Critical Fugitive Transdisciplinary Methodology”
Written by Tommy Cross, Fall 2023 English Intern, Humanities Center