Funding Opportunities

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Funding for Graduate Travel to Research Collections

Funding for Graduate Travel to Research Collections

Graduate students who wish to travel to libraries or other archives for their research can apply for funding from the Center for American Literary Studies. Awards will be made for up to $350 per request, and will be made for work in the field of American literary studies, broadly defined. Awards will be granted as funds allow; each student may only apply once per academic year. Applications should be made before travel occurs. Grants may not be used for conference travel.

Graduate students are eligible for CALS grants only if the given project is not already supported by the English department; in turn, projects under current or past funding from the department will not be eligible for CALS grants. There is no restriction, however, on a student holding separate awards from the Center and the department

How to Apply

To apply for a grant to support travel to research collections, graduate students should submit a one-page statement to CALS Director Sean Goudie that includes the following information. Applications are due on October 15 and April 15 of each year and should be signed by the student’s dissertation advisor or by another qualified faculty member.

  • Library or archive to be used
  • Nature and scope of research
  • Projected outcome (i.e., dissertation chapter, article, seminar paper, etc.)
  • Estimated budget
Smith Headshot

Justin Smith, a past CALS Graduate Research Assistant and recipient of CALS travel funding, has accepted a position at Randolph-Macon College, where he will serve as an Assistant Professor of English and Black Studies. Congratulations, Justin, on this fantastic job market success!

Evans Headshot

Sabrina Evans, winner of the 2022 CALS Summer Graduate Fellowship, has accepted a faculty position at Howard University, where she will serve as an Assistant Professor of English specializing in African American Literature. Howard is home to the Moorland Spingarn Research Center, whose archives are central to Sabrina's research. Congratulations, Sabrina, on this outstanding job market success!

Glew Headshot

Liana Glew, former CALS Dissertation Fellow and CALS Graduate Research Assistant, has accepted the role of Prison Education Program Manager with the Penn State College of Education's Restorative Justice Initiative. The RJI eliminates barriers to educational access and civic engagement for those who are currently and formerly incarcerated; since its founding in 2015, the initiative has worked with and provided resources to over 200 incarcerated individuals. In her new role, Liana will work to recruit and train additional instructors as part of the RJI's Higher Education in Prison program. Congratulations, Liana, on your job-market success—an important reminder of the range of meaningful, impactful work one can do with an English doctorate!

nathaniel windon

Nathaniel Windon, a former CALS Dissertation Fellow, has accepted a tenure-track position beginning in Fall 2022 at Xavier University, where he will serve as Assistant Professor of English (specializing in pre-1900 American literature). Nate earned his PhD in 2018 under the direction of Christopher Castiglia. In addition to serving as a CALS Dissertation Fellow, Nate was also awarded a CALS Graduate Research/Training Award to support  research for his dissertation, now his first book project, entitled Superannuation: The Making of Old Age in Nineteenth-Century America. Congratulations to Nate, and to Christopher, for this job-market success!

leland-tabares-new

Leland Tabares has accepted a tenure-track position beginning in Fall 2022 at Colorado College, where he will serve as Assistant Professor of Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Studies. Leland earned his PhD in 2018 under the direction of Tina Chen. While completing his dissertation--now his first book project entitled Professionalizing Asian America: Race and Labor in the Twenty-First Century--Leland earned funding support from CALS in the form of a CALS Graduate Research/Training Award. Congratulations to Leland, and to Tina, for this job-market triumph!

akash-new

Akash Belsare has accepted a tenure-track job beginning in Fall 2022 at University of Illinois—Springfield, where he will serve as Assistant Professor of English. Akash earned his PhD at Penn State in 2021 and he completed his dissertation--Humanimal Narratives: Genre and Animality in Contemporary Ethnic Literatures--under the direction of Tina Chen while being supported by a CALS Dissertation Support Award. Congratulations to Akash, and to Tina, for this outstanding success on the job market!

volpicelli

Transatlantic Modernism and the US Lecture TourRobert Volpicelli, a PSU Alumnus and CALS Dissertation Fellow -- who now serves as Assistant Professor of English at Randolph-Macon College (VA) -- recently published his first book, Transatlantic Modernism and the US Lecture Tour, with Oxford University Press. Deriving from his dissertation project, Transatlantic Modernism is the first comprehensive study of modernist authors on the US lecture tour, a widespread phenomenon that accounted for many Americans' first encounter with international modernism. Attending to these encounters, the volume reroutes our understanding of modernism away from the magazines and other mass media that have so far characterized its circulation and toward the unique form of cultural distribution that coalesced around the tour. Congratulations, Robert!

Justin Mellette

Justin MelletteJustin Mellette, Visiting Lecturer of English at Northeastern University and a former recipient of a CALS Travel Grant, has published Peculiar Whiteness: Racial Anxiety and Poor Whites in Southern Literature, 1900-1965 (University Press of Mississippi, 2021). Peculiar Whiteness engages key issues in contemporary critical race studies, whiteness studies, and Southern studies through discussions of authors including Charles Chesnutt, Thomas Dixon, Sutton Griggs, Erskine Caldwell, Lillian Smith, William Faulkner, and Flannery O’Connor. Congratulations to Justin!