UC Irvine

Alexander Gelley

Eligibility and Application


Applicants must complete the NEH application cover sheet and provide all of the information requested there to be considered eligible: http://www.neh.gov/online/education/participants/
Once this is done, applications should be sent to:

Prof. Alexander Gelley
Department of Comparative Literature
243 Humanities Instructional Building
University of California
Irvine, CA 92697-2651

Application Deadline: March 1, 2011 (postmark)


The NEH Summer Seminars for College Teachers are designed primarily for teachers of American undergraduate students.  Qualified independent scholars and those employed by museums, libraries, historical societies, and other organizations may be eligible to compete provided they can effectively advance the teaching and research goals of the seminar or institute.  Applicants must be United States citizens, residents of U.S. jurisdictions, or foreign nationals who have been residing in the United States or its territories for at least the three years immediately preceding the application deadline.  Foreign nationals teaching abroad at non-U.S. chartered institutions are not eligible to apply.  Up to two seminar spaces spaces are reserved for current full-time graduate students in the humanities.           

An applicant need not have an advanced degree in order to qualify. Adjunct and part-time lecturers are eligible to apply.  Individuals may not apply to study with a director of a seminar or institute who is a current colleague or a family member.  Individuals must not apply to seminars directed by scholars with whom they have studied.

Only under the most compelling and exceptional circumstances may an individual participate in an institute with a director or a lead faculty member who has guided that individual’s research or in whose previous institute or seminar he or she has participated.  Â Â  An individual may apply to up to two NEH projects in any one year (seminars, institutes or Landmarks workshops), but may participate in only one.

This seminar, "Walter Benjamin's Later Writings: The Arcades Project, Commodity Culture, Historiography," will be conducted in English. No knowledge of German is required.

While a background in Comparative Literature, German Literature, Philosophy, or media studies is especially relevant, applicants from other fields, such as History, Art History, Anthropology, Sociology, Urban Studies, and Gender Studies, are also welcome.

For additional information, including a tentative study plan and readings, write to:

agelley@uci.edu