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Maynard Adams Fellowship in the Public Humanities

Carolina Public Humanities is pleased to announce the continuation of a fellowship for graduate students in the humanities, arts, and social sciences.  This fellowship honors the distinguished philosopher E. Maynard Adams (1919-2003), who was a long-time professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and a prominent advocate for the value of the humanities in public life and in public education. He also strongly supported the creation of Carolina Public Humanities, which was established in 1979 to foster faculty engagement with people outside the University and throughout North Carolina. The Maynard Adams Fellowships, made possible by a generous gift from the Taylor Charitable Trust, exemplify this mission and stress the value of the humanities for well-informed participation in contemporary democratic society.

Eligibility

Ten fellows will be selected per year. Applicants must have completed at least one year of graduate study at UNC-CH in a discipline that includes scholarship and teaching in the humanities, social sciences, and/or arts. Graduate students can only hold this fellowship once.

Fellowship Details & Duties

The main goal of this fellowship is to provide personalized support as each fellow works on a public humanities project over the 2024-2025 school year. Past projects have included:

  • Digital humanities projects (e.g. instagram pages, digital archives, storymaps, etc.)
  • Public or participatory art projects (e.g. plays, short documentary films)
  • Events (e.g. public symposia, roundtables, workshops, etc.)
  • K-12 resources (curriculum, podcasts, etc.)

There may be fellows who are interested in building skills by contributing to an ongoing CPH initiative rather than designing their own, and they can note this in their application; this preference will neither help nor hurt their application in any way.

As part of their project development, the Adams Fellows will join an interdisciplinary graduate workshop that will meet periodically through the fall and spring semester (with 1 full-cohort meeting and up to 2 smaller group meetings each semester). Meetings will include workshops, outings to public events, trainings, and discussions with public humanists at and around UNC. The goal of these meetings is to provide professional development and to connect fellows to a supportive network.

Stipend

Each Adams Fellow for the Public Humanities will receive a stipend of $3,000 (payable in three distributions) for participating in meetings and developing or contributing to a public project or event.  Additionally, fellows may request up to $500 as a budget for their project.

Application Guidelines

Applicants can access the application portal here. The following application materials are required:

  1. The applicant’s current CV.
  2. A recommendation from an advisor, faculty mentor, or collaborator inside or outside of the university. The recommendation consists of answers to a few brief questions, and can be submitted by the recommender at this link. Applicants, please send this link to your recommender.
  3. A description of the applicant’s interest in and experiences with the public humanities (roughly 500 words).
  4. A reflection on a prompt about either designing a publicly engaged project, or about collaborating with CPH on one of our ongoing initiatives (roughly 750 words).

Additional Opportunities

Interested graduate students may also consider applying for the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies Fellowship in the Public Humanities. The fellow in this special role will join the Adams Fellows for meetings and work with support staff at both CPH and the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies to complete a public project. For more information, please contact Alaa Hammouda at alaah@email.unc.edu.

Applicant Selection Process 

The Adams Fellowship Selection Committee will include faculty and staff from various units on campus.