Rare Book School Fellowship

Rare Book School (RBS) at the University of Virginia welcomes applications from early Americanists to the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography.  The aim of this Mellon Foundation-funded fellowship program is to reinvigorate bibliographical studies within the humanities by introducing doctoral candidates, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty to specialized skills, methods, and professional networks for conducting advanced research with material texts. RBS selected forty Mellon Fellows in 2013 and 2014, and will admit an additional twenty fellows to the program in the spring of 2015.

Fellows will receive funding for RBS course attendance, as well as generous stipends, and support for research-related travel to special collections, over the course of three years. Weeklong intensive courses offered at RBS include: "The History of the Book in America, c.1700-1830," taught by James N. Green of the Library Company of Philadelphia; "The History of European & American Papermaking," co-taught by 2009 MacArthur Fellow Timothy Barrett of the University of Iowa, and John Bidwell of the Morgan Library & Museum; and “Using Publishers’ Archives for the Study of the American Book,” taught by Michael Winship of the University of Texas at Austin.

The deadline for application to the program is MONDAY 1 DECEMBER 2014. Applicants must be doctoral candidates (post-qualifying exams or other requirements), postdoctoral fellows, or junior (untenured) faculty in the humanities at a U.S. institution at time of application. For more details, please visit:
http://www.rarebookschool.org/fellowships/mellon

Donna A. C. Sy
Mellon Fellowship Program Director
Rare Book School
at the University of Virginia
rbs-mellon@virginia.edu
(434) 243-4296

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RARE BOOK SCHOOL RECEIVES MELLON FOUNDATION GRANT TO SUPPORT FELLOWSHIPS IN CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fellowship program seeks to reinvigorate bibliographical studies within the humanities

Charlottesville, VA, October 1, 2014 – Rare Book School (RBS) at the University of Virginia has been awarded a $757,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to extend and augment its three-year fellowship program, the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography, established in 2012 through funding from the Foundation. The aim of the program is to reinvigorate bibliographical studies within the humanities. Forty fellows currently participate in the program; RBS will name an additional twenty fellows in the spring of 2015.

The Mellon Fellowships at Rare Book School enable a select group of doctoral candidates, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty in the humanities to receive advanced, intensive training in the analysis of textual artifacts. Led by a distinguished faculty drawn from the bibliographical community and professionals in allied fields, fellows will attend annual research-oriented seminars at Rare Book School and at major special collections libraries nationwide. Fellows will also receive stipends to support research-related travel to special collections, and additional funds to host academic symposia at their home institutions.

“Rare Book School's Mellon Fellows work on a remarkable variety of materials, including ancient graffiti buried at Herculaneum, medieval Italian song manuscripts, Japanese textbooks from the Age of Discovery, and ‘viral’ news clips from 19th-century America. Over the past two years, they have shared fresh perspectives with their colleagues in the program, and with the greater bibliographical and academic communities,” said RBS Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J. “We are profoundly grateful for all that the Foundation's support has made possible through this program, and we trust that the fellows’ achievements and collaborations will continue to enrich humanities scholarship.”

The deadline for application to join the program’s third cohort of fellows is December 1, 2014. More information about the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography is available at:
http://www.rarebookschool.org/fellowships/mellon

About Rare Book School (RBS)
Rare Book School provides continuing-education opportunities for students from all disciplines and levels to study the history of written, printed, and born-digital materials with leading scholars and professionals in the fields of bibliography, librarianship, book history, manuscript studies, and the digital humanities. Founded in 1983, RBS moved to its present home at the University of Virginia in 1992. RBS is a not-for-profit educational organization affiliated with the University of Virginia. More information about RBS is available on its website: http://www.rarebookschool.org

For more information, contact:
Jeremy Dibbell, Director of Communications & Outreach
Rare Book School
jeremy.dibbell@virginia.edu
(434) 243-7077