The new fellowship category, Second Book Fellowships, will offer funding for associate professors to give intensive attention to second book manuscripts that are near completion during Summer 2022. The new Collaborative Projects category, Faculty Summer Reading Groups, continues the momentum from piloting the program in Summer 2021 by bringing UW faculty together in conversation on an area of shared intellectual interest, and serving to deepen the knowledge of the topic among participants.
This summer the Simpson Center is piloting Second Book Fellowships, offering funding ($10,000 in salary) for associate professors to give intensive attention to second book manuscripts that are near completion during Summer 2022. The deadline is Friday, April 1, 2022.
The Simpson Center will also offer support for Faculty Summer Reading Groups, continuing the momentum from piloting the program in Summer 2021 by bringing UW faculty together in conversation on an area of shared intellectual interest, and serving to deepen the knowledge of the topic among participants.
Read more about the two categories below, visit the Support & Funding pages for application requirements and the full list of opportunities, and please reach out to Assistant Director Rachel Arteaga with any follow-up questions. If you would like to receive notification when we open to applications, please subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Note: Faculty who are applying for a Second Book Fellowship may not apply for support to lead or participate in a Reading Group during the summer of 2022.
Call for Proposals: Second Book Fellowships
Description
In recognition of the particular challenges faced by mid-career tenure-track faculty, especially during the pandemic, and in order to assist faculty members in the humanities and humanistic social sciences in making progress toward their promotion to full professor, the Simpson Center will pilot support for Second Books during the summer of 2022.
We will offer funding ($10,000 in salary) for associate professors to give intensive attention to second book manuscripts that are near completion. Applicants may propose, for example, to undertake the writing of the introduction and an epilogue after completing the body of the manuscript or undertake late-stage revisions across the manuscript in response to peer-review feedback. The deadline for proposals is Friday, April 1, 2022. At a minimum we expect to award support to six faculty members.
The intent of this summer support is to allow fellows to devote themselves full-time to their book projects. Fellows are expected to be in residence, with no competing demands, including teaching or other paid work.
Learn more about how to apply for a Second Book Fellowship.
Call for Proposals: Faculty Summer Reading Groups
Description
This is the second year of a pilot program. In the first year, we funded six reading groups, and we expect to be able to support a similar number of groups during the summer of 2022. The deadline for proposals is Friday, April 1, 2022.
The Covid-19 pandemic and its resultant closures have disrupted and constrained traditional scholarly practices, from archival research to conference travel. At the same time, new forms of scholarly engagement have emerged and accelerated; virtual and hybrid conferences, for example, are now an established norm. As we make our way through a changed professional landscape, one thing is certain: there is a deep and persistent need to create spaces for faculty to gather together around shared intellectual pursuits.
Faculty reading groups bring UW faculty together in conversation on an area of shared intellectual interest, and serve to deepen the knowledge of the topic among participants. These groups may lead to larger-scale collaborations among faculty in future years, but should initially be conceptualized as focused on reading (or viewing) and discussing recent research in an area of mutual interest. We welcome faculty reading groups to reserve Simpson Center spaces for their gatherings.
Groups will be asked to submit a brief report on their experience, as well as a bibliography of readings and the dates they met. Topics in the first year of funding ranged from contemporary Asian American literature to the concept of the afterlife in premodern studies.
Learn about the financial support offered to members of Reading Groups as well as more about how to apply for Faculty Summer Reading Groups.
C.R. Grimmer (she/they)
C. R. Grimmer is a poet and scholar from Southeast Michigan's Metro-Detroit area. C. R. received their Ph.D. in Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Washington (UW) as well as their M.F.A. in Creative Writing and M.A. in English Literature at Portland State University (PSU). They are the author of The Lyme Letters, which won the Walt McDonald First Book Award from Texas Tech University Press.