WSIP-DGS Mellon Dissertation Fellowship
Deadline for Summer 2024 Fellowship: April 22, 2024
The WSIP Decolonial Global Studies Certificate, with financial support from the Mellon Foundation, invites applicants for a dissertation writing fellowship for the summer of 2024. The Fellowship supports doctoral candidates currently working towards the completion (by December 15, 2025) of dissertations that undertake a decolonial, intersectional analysis. Successful applicants will receive an $8000 fellowship stipend for their summer writing and research.
Read more here about WSIP/ and the Decolonial Global Studies Grad Certificate that sponsor this award. See the bottom of this page for the link to the application and required materials.
Who is Eligible?
All UMass Amherst students enrolled in a doctoral degree program in HFA or SBS and in good academic standing are eligible to apply. Students must be advanced to candidacy and have completed a draft of at least one chapter of the dissertation by the time of application. They must also anticipate defending their dissertation by December 15, 2025.
Fellowship recipients are expected to devote themselves full time to dissertation writing during the summer fellowship period (June 1-August 31, 2024). Applicants must disclose all other forms of funding they have applied for or have been awarded for summer 2024. Recipients may work up to 60 hours total in other paid positions during the summer fellowship period of June 1 – August 31.
Eligible Dissertation Themes and Methods
We invite applicants working on non-Eurocentric, anti-colonial, and intersectional approaches to histories of domination and inequality, including as these interact with practices of resistance, alliance, and creaturely and/or planetary care. We especially value projects that are interdisciplinary.
Typical themes and methods of qualifying dissertations may include:
- Empire, colonialism, anticolonialism (decolonial and postcolonial)
- Historicizing of intersectional identities (race, class, ethnicity, nation, gender, sexuality, ability)
- Decolonizing of epistemology, imagination, institutions, science, and/or ethics: e.g., alternative worldmaking projects
- Interdisciplinary approaches combining methods from two or more colleges and schools including: Humanities and Fine Arts; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Sciences; Education; SES, etc.
- Longue durée, non-eurocentric, and/or Indigenous history or theory, covering periods and regions outside Europe and before the rise of white European hegemony
- Inequality: labor, slavery, caste, class, gender, and sexuality; intersectional formations; labors of care
Deadline
All application materials, including the letter of recommendation, must be received by 11:59pm on Monday, April 22, 2024. We anticipate making award announcements in early May.
Structured Writing Support
As part of this fellowship program, Fellows will participate in structured activities during summer 2024 to advance dissertation writing goals, as outlined below. They will also assess the pilot program at various stages throughout the fellowship period.
Dissertation Writing Retreat
Recipients of the WSIP Dissertation Completion Fellowship will automatically be accepted to the June 3-7 Dissertation Writing Retreat offered by the Graduate School Office of Professional Development. (Childcare reimbursements for up to $150 per family are available for retreat participants.)
The writing retreat is held in-person at UMass and attendance is strongly encouraged. If your circumstances prevent you from attending the Dissertation Writing Retreat in person you can indicate this on the application, and we will work with you to develop an alternative writing plan for that week. Fellows will be required to either participate in the in-person Dissertation Writing Retreat June 3-7 or outline an alternative self-directed writing program, to be submitted to the WSIP Co-directors by May 15. This self-directed practice must take place prior to June 10, 2024.
Writing Accountability Group
Fellows will attend writing accountability sessions to check in on goals and progress, with dedicated writing time. This writing workshop will meet six times over Summer 2024 during the weeks listed below. Fellows must commit to attending four of the six sessions, with attendance required at the first and last meeting as noted. Meetings will be hybrid or virtual; meeting dates and times will be set based on availability of Fellows.
While attending at least four sessions is required, Fellows are encouraged to attend all six sessions.
- Week of June 10 (Hybrid: group kick-off, mandatory attendance)
- Week of June 24 (virtual)
- Week of July 8 (virtual)
- Week of July 22 (virtual)
- Week of August 5 (virtual)
- Week of August 19 (Hybrid: wrap-up and pilot program assessment, mandatory attendance)
Required materials
- Completed Application form
- Current CV
- Dissertation description and writing schedule
- Letter of Recommendation from Faculty Advisor.
- Faculty advisors should submit the letter of recommendation through the DGS Recommendation Form. Note: Faculty DO NOT receive a prompt to submit a letter; letters may only be submitted using the link provided here. Faculty must login using their UMass email to access the submission portal; non-UMass faculty should contact Mwangi wa Githinji (mwangi@umass.edu) for submission instructions.