The UCI Humanities Center is sponsoring a workshop for graduate students in the arts, humanities, and qualitative social sciences on writing fellowship and grant applications. It will be led by Edward Dimendberg, Professor of Humanities, who has extensive experience in successfully applying for fellowships and grants and has served on numerous fellowship selection committees.
Professor Dimendberg has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Getty Research Institute and twice received Fulbright fellowships and grants from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Research in the Arts to support his research on architecture and urbanism. In addition, he has received fellowships from the American Academy in Berlin, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Getty Grant Program, the International Research Center for Cultural Studies, the Center for Creative Photography, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was a UC Presidential Fellow in the Humanities from 2008-2009. From 2005–2008 he served as chair of the jury that awards the Millard Meiss book prize of the College Art Association (CAA). In 2008 he was co-director of the “Urban Visual Studies” Dissertation Proposal Development Fund Workshop sponsored by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). He later served on the Faculty Editorial Committee of the University of California Press, on the Publications Committee of the Modern Language Association, and as the inaugural Multimedia Editor of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. From 1990–1998 Dimendberg was Sponsoring Editor in Film, Philosophy, and the Humanities at the University of California Press, and during the course of his work there wrote numerous grants to support the more than 100 books he published as an editor.
Meeting 1 (Thursday April 11, 12-2pm, HG 1002) will introduce the differences between grants and fellowships, types of funding entities, internal versus extramural support, principles of cost sharing, the timetable of the grant making cycle, the major sources of information about grants, and the principal grants and fellowships in the humanities and qualitative social sciences. Assignment due this session: Before this first meeting, students will identify possible sources of funding for their own research. Rather than simply study the guidelines of funding agencies, students will also conduct a review of recent past grant and fellowship recipients and identify those with projects similar to their own, both as a resource and as evidence of a plausible match.
Meeting 2 (Thursday May 9, 12-2pm, HG 1002) will review first drafts of application project statements. It also will address the elements of grant and fellowship applications: abstract, research timetable, and bibliography, and external letters of support. Special emphasis will be placed on the process of selecting referees and requesting letters. Assignment due this session: Students will complete a first draft of an application for a grant or fellowship.
One-on-one advising sessions (May 7-31, Zoom/TBD) will focus on review of applications and fine-tuning of project statements. Stress will be placed on the importance of clearly presenting a research problem, methodology, investigations to be conducted, and a schedule for completion of the research.
Meeting 3 (Thursday June 6, 12-2pm, HG 1002) will focus on reviewing each application by participants in the workshop. We will discuss the obligations that come with receiving a grant or fellowship, how to establish a track record and credibility with funding agencies, how to learn from a rejected application, and how to parlay smaller grants and fellowships into larger ones.
Break––Summer 2024: Students will solicit feedback from their advisors and other specialists in their fields, and will incorporate their suggestions into their application revisions.
One-on-one advising sessions (September 2024, Zoom/TBD) will provide final review of applications before their submission, with feedback specific to the project of the student and the requirements of the funding entities to which each student is applying.
Throughout the workshop each student will receive individual written feedback and meet individually with Professor Dimendberg. He also will be available for consulting over summer 2024. Lunch will be available during each session, which will provide the opportunity for participants to become acquainted with each other in an informal setting.
Students interested in participating in the workshop should send a brief email by March 15 to Anat Schwartz in the Humanities Center (anats@uci.edu) explaining their interest. Enrollment in the workshop will be limited to 12 participants with preference given to graduate students in the School of Humanities.
