We are very pleased to announce Professor Sidney W. Mintz’s decision to reassign the fund endowed in his honor in 1992 from the Annual Sidney W. Mintz Lecture to the Sidney Mintz Student Fellowships for Field Research. The fund will support two fellowships each year, at an amount of approximately $3,000 each, primarily for preliminary summer research or other exploratory phases of graduate projects. The fellows will be chosen from proposals submitted in the late winter and judged by the end of spring break. The first round of awards will be given during this academic year, 2015‐16.
Themes
Professor Mintz’s request is that the fund should prioritize graduate student research that applies his methods and expands research on themes to the study of which he has contributed during his career. Proposals should be for field research and archival studies on primary sources, to encourage the bringing together of anthropological attention to culture and historical scholarship. Proposals may include preliminary field and archival research to strengthen the design of quantitative as well as qualitative studies. Each year there will be a half‐day
workshop in December to open up discussions about themes and research methods with the aspiring applicant pool.
Fellowships encourage, but are not limited to, research on:
- The engagement between anthropology and history
- The Caribbean and its diaspora, including in USA and locally, in Baltimore
- Inequality and race
- Food and food history.
Since Professor Mintz has worked on both large‐scale historical dynamics (Sweetness and Power) and the local and personal experience of people (Worker in the Cane), the fund is prepared to support both macro‐international and micro‐local level research.
Eligibility
Priority is given to the field research disciplines, including Professor Mintz’s home department of Anthropology, and his field of endeavor in History. Also to graduate students from the other humanities and social sciences within the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, and in environmental sciences (DOGEE) in the Whiting School of Engineering, who plan to use field and archival methods in their research. Eligibility is defined as those training at the doctoral level. Preference will be given to students approaching, or having achieved, ABD status, and at early stages of the preparation of their proposals for their doctoral projects.
Timetable
This inaugural year of 2015‐2016, we expect the following:
December 10, 2015: A half‐day workshop for aspiring applicants to examine Prof. Mintz’s research, and to identify how his topics and methods would enrich their own prospective research.
January 22, 2016 (end of Intersession): Submission of applications to Professors Jane Guyer (jiguyer@jhu.edu), Sara Berry (sberry1@jhu.edu) and Erica Schoenberger (ericas@jhu.edu).
Week of March 21 (after Spring Break): Announcement of results, and any feedback from the committee.
From mid‐May through the summer: Field research.
Sept. 6 (after Labor Day): Report due (format to be defined).
The Application
Includes the following, in one file, single spaced, sent by email:
1. Abstract. One paragraph giving:
a) the phase of the applicant’s Ph.D. or Master’s career, the discipline, the topic, the faculty supervisor
b) the location, the method, the dates and the total budget.
2. Narrative on overall research plans. One page defining the place of the proposed research in the overall graduate training plan, a definition of the proposed project within that framework, and its place in relation to preparation already undertaken, of whatever kind.
3. Outline of proposed project for Mintz Fellowship: one page on place, purposes, and method.
4. Budget and budget justification.
5. CV for the applicant
6. Letter from the applicant’s adviser.