Residential Fellowships

The current cycle for CHR Residential fellowships is now closed. Please check back for future opportunities.

 

CHR Residential Fellowships Fall 2025 and Spring 2026- Call for Applications [CLOSED]

Open to Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty and Advanced Doctoral Students at George Mason 

Annual Theme: Space, Territory, and Mobility 

Considerations of space, territory, and mobility--in their material, institutional, and sociocultural dimensions and in their discursive, representational, and conceptual dimensions--have long been central to humanistic inquiry. Concepts of space and place are embedded in cultural narratives and discourses that shape our understanding of who belongs and who is considered an outsider, our ideas of possession and dispossession, our conception of social and cultural heartlands and frontiers. The demarcation of territories, be it through physical borders, urban zoning, digital fences, or cultural boundaries, reflects and shapes political power, social inequality, and access to resources. And the dynamics of mobility—whether through migration, war, or conflict; the transformation of neighborhoods and communities; or the movement of capital, information, culture and goods across regions and in a globalized world—reveal both networks of connection and forms of exclusion and displacement.

We interpret the theme of “Space, Territory, and Mobility” broadly and aim to foster humanistic inquiry across multiple disciplines. Possible topics include, but are not limited to: discourses of nation and region; movements of refugees, exiles, and displaced populations; flows of people, capital, or culture between country and city, metropole and colony, or along other circuits or gradients; the history, ethics, and politics of borders; the locality and dissemination of languages, religions, and cultural practices; found, engineered, and imagined utopias; the negotiation of disability and mobility in the built environment; indigenous, decolonial, or anti-racist critiques of property, segregation, and exclusion; the role of routes, networks, and nodes in the diffusion and hybridization of cultural practices; environmental transformation, degradation, or repair; the spatial dynamics of detention and incarceration; digital landscapes as spaces of connection and control; passages between the worldly and otherworldly; the character and significance of borderlands, diasporas, and ecumenes; disciplinary practices that define themselves in terms of “areas” (geographical or spatial domains or foci) or of “movements” (of texts, discourses, artifacts, Ideologies, as well as of peoples, goods, technologies, institutions).  

Applications are due by 5 pm on Monday, December 9, 2024.

Please submit the entire application as a single PDF file (clearly labeled with your last name leading- ex. "Smith CHR Fellowship Application") to chr@gmu.edu. 

These are semester long, residential fellowships. Further details and instructions below.

We will reach out in January 2025 with news about your application status. 

Faculty:

  • To apply, submit a brief, 2-page proposal, outlining the larger project, its relationship to the theme, specific plans for the fellowship; a single page-CV (including all previous research leaves); and a statement of acknowledgment or support from your chair or program director.
  • You may indicate a preference for fall or spring in your application, though we may not be able to honor it.
  • Tenured and tenure-track faculty across the university are eligible to apply. This fellowship is not considered a formal study leave; however, junior faculty may not take pre-tenure study leave in the same academic year as the CHR fellowship.
  • Faculty who received a CHR fellowship previously are eligible to hold a CHR fellowship again no sooner than the fifth year after their previous fellowship. So fellows from our first cohort in 2020-21 can apply for the 2025-26 fellowships. The application must be for a new project (not continuing work on the previous project) and preference in awarding the fellowships will be given to those who have not previously held a CHR fellowship.
  • Faculty will be released from teaching obligations (2 courses) for the semester of their fellowship so that they may focus on writing and on participating actively in the intellectual life of the CHR.
    The fellowship requires residency at the center (including participation in regular meetings with the cohort of fellows, public presentation of research, and attendance at all center events). 
    We will accept fellows from as wide a range of disciplines, departments, and programs as possible working on projects related to our theme. 

Advanced doctoral students:

  • To apply, submit a brief, 2-page proposal, outlining the larger project, its relationship to the theme, and specific plans for the study leave; a single page-CV; and a brief letter of support (this can take the form of a brief email, it is NOT a formal recommendation letter) from your dissertation director. Please indicate if you’ve received any other fellowships or grants.
  • You may indicate a preference for fall or spring in your application, though we may not be able to honor it.
  • The fellowship covers one credit of in-state tuition, one semester of health insurance (for those who are previously/continuously enrolled and meet other requirements set by the Graduate Office), and a stipend of $12,000.
  • The fellowship requires residency at the center (including participation in regular meetings with the cohort of fellows, public presentation of research, and attendance at all center events).
  • We will accept fellows from as wide a range of disciplines, departments, and programs as possible working on projects related to our theme.