The deadline for the 2024-2025 fellowship applications has passed.
The application for 2025-2026 will be posted here in fall 2024.
The Hutchins Center community is rich in programming and opportunities to network with scholars engaged in African and African American research. We ask Fellows to reside in the Cambridge-Boston area during the term of their appointments and to take maximum advantage of their office spaces in the Du Bois Research Institute. Additionally, we expect them to participate fully in the orientation activities, the weekly fellows colloquium series at which fellows present their work in progress, fellows workshops which are forums for in-depth explorations of aspects of their current projects, and the occasional social hour.
We also encourage Fellows to make frequent appearances at major Hutchins Center events which are centered on lecture series or panel discussions and sometimes supplemented with social functions. These occasions provide scope to interact with other fellows, faculty, and scholars at Harvard University and other institutions.
The Fellows Program, the oldest of the Du Bois Research Institute’s activities, invites up to twenty scholars to be in residence each year, reflecting the interdisciplinary breadth of African and African American Studies. The Institute has appointed Fellows since its founding in 1975 and supports research at both the predoctoral and postdoctoral levels.
Du Bois Research Institute Fellows are truly international, including scholars from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
The fellowship program has supported nearly 700 alumni, many of whom are major figures in the field, and include Keisha N. Blain, David Blight, Vincent Brown, Kathleen Neal Cleaver, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Darlene Clark-Hine, Peter Hulme, Carla Kaplan, Bettina L. Love, Achille Mbembe, Nellie McKay, Steven Nelson, ZZ Packer, Tef Poe, Arnold Rampersad, Leah Wright Rigueur, Jenny Sharpe, Wole Soyinka, Omar Wasow, Cornel West, Deborah Willis, and Louis Wilson. Numerous scholars who came to the Institute as junior faculty members are now tenured members of African American Studies and other departments in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and African countries.
Our fellows also enjoy the company of other fellows and scholars from the Harvard community, including the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, the Global History Seminar, and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Many of our fellows build strong bonds with faculty and graduate students in the Department of African and African American Studies. The aim of the fellowship program is to provide a vibrant environment in which to write, study, collaborate, and thrive.
Resident Fellowships at the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute are frequently funded and include the following privileges:
- A Harvard University ID card which provides access to all University libraries and other University facilities.
- A Harvard University email account and access to Internet resources, including the Harvard On-Line Library Information System.
- An office space with full support and supplies.
Applications should be fully in English, including letters of recommendation, project descriptions, and writing samples. Proficiency in both written and spoken English is expected of Fellows. Each Fellow is expected to present a colloquium talk in English on a topic related to their research and is encouraged to be available for informal consultation by faculty and students with related interests.
Non-native English speakers must demonstrate proficiency by providing TOEFL or IELTS scores OR through conversations via Zoom (audio and visual) with Hutchins Center administrators.
Such demonstration is also required for visa purposes.