The Hoover Institution’s Library & Archives offers tantalizing collections for scholars — and there’s opportunity awaiting.
Hoover’s Library & Archives has opened applications for the Silas Palmer Research Fellowship and Scholar Research Support for the 2019 academic year. Applicants will be eligible for assistance of up to $3,000 to support research based on its collections.
Hoover’s Library & Archives includes more than 6,000 archival collections in about 150 languages and encompasses thousands of objects, ephemera, and rare artifacts dating back to the early 20th century. The Library & Archives also encourages the study of history and intellectual dialogue, offering scholarly programs, fellowships, exhibits, conferences and publications.
Bronweyn Coleman, the Library & Archives’ program manager, says, “The [Silas] fellowship is unique in that it is unusual for academic institutions or privately funded archives — which we tow the line of both —to provide funded opportunities for students, post-docs, and independent scholars, as well as international scholars.”
She explains that the first round of applicants came in 2015, and Hoover has awarded funding to about 100 scholars since then. “We expect to award about twenty-five more in the next round of applications,” Coleman says.
Examples of projects funded in part through the Silas Palmer Research Fellowship:
- Alina Utrata, undergraduate student at Stanford: “David Starr Jordan, Stanford University, and California’s Forced Sterilization Program.”
- Katy Doll, graduate student at Indiana University: “Persuasion in Peril: US Psychological Warfare from the Korean War to the Vietnam War.” More on her project is available in this story.
- Wisam Alshaibi, graduate student at UCLA: “The Iraqi Ba'th Party's Arabization Projects.” More on his research is available in this story.
- Claire Ryfell Arcenas, undergraduate at Stanford University: “Inventing an American Liberal Tradition: How England’s John Locke Became ‘America’s Philosopher.’”
Coleman says that scholars receiving fellowships are expected to spend a minimum of ten days in the Library & Archives during the 2019 academic year (Sept. 1, 2018, to July 31, 2019), excluding holidays.
Those interested can apply at this website — the deadline is April 12. Recipients of the Silas Palmer Research Fellowship or Scholar Research Support will be notified on or before June 2, 2018. Applications must contain a proposal of fewer than 750 words describing the research project, including the names of the Hoover collections one plans to examine for the project and how it would prove useful.
