After a year’s hiatus, the Eccles Institute is delighted to announce that the Visiting Fellowship programme will be back for 2025-26.
The lingering effects of last October’s cyber-attack on the British Library’s services mean that we are having to change elements of the programme this year, and we have developed some expedients and workarounds to support the application process.
However, the central mission and purpose of the Visiting Fellowship programme remains the same – if you are working on any kind of fascinating and significant project about the Americas (the peoples and lands of Canada, the USA, the Caribbean, and Central and South America) that would be transformed by a few weeks of using the British Library’s collections, we urge you to apply.
We’ve outlined a fairly comprehensive Q&A about the Fellowship programme and the application process below, but if you have any further questions please email [email protected].
The deadline for receipt of completed applications via our online form is 17.00 GMT on Friday 20 December 2024. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application in late March, and Fellowships can be taken up after 1 April 2025.
What is the Fellowship Programme?
The Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship offers funding for researchers working on the Americas across the arts, humanities and social sciences, to spend some time with the British Library’s collections in London.
Visiting Fellows will join an exciting community of writers, thinkers and makers working across academic and creative disciplines and boundaries. We expect Fellows to be largely self-directed and independent in conducting their research in the Library’s Reading Rooms, but there will be opportunities to access enhanced curatorial support where necessary, and to present ideas at workshops and events.
What support does the Fellowship offer?
Fellows are given financial stipends intended to support at least 3 weeks research at the British Library in London.
The amount of funding depends on where the Fellow is travelling from.
The current stipends levels are:
- The UK (Within the M25): £1,000
- The UK (Beyond the M25): £2,000
- Europe (incl. Eire)*: £2,500
- Rest of World: £3,000
Fellows are expected to make their own travel and accommodation arrangements. We also cannot arrange for or guarantee any necessary travel documentation to the UK (such as visas), but we will, where possible and appropriate, provide written documentation to support Fellows’ visa applications.
We do not currently have a distance or remote-working version of the Fellowship available, but we hope to develop this option in the coming the years.
Who is eligible to apply?
Anyone over the age of 18 years old, from anywhere in the world, can apply. If you are interested in the Americas, we are interested in you.
What projects are eligible?
The Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship supports innovative and exciting use of the British Library’s collections to ask questions about the past, present and future of the Americas.
This could be original academic research leading to a doctoral dissertation, journal article or scholarly monograph. It could also be part of the research and development for new creative work in fiction, poetry, music, dance, theatre, art, design, and everything in between.
You can see some examples of the kinds of researchers and projects that we have supported in the past on our blog.
There are three themes that we are particularly excited to explore through the Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship. Please note that you do not have to apply with one of these themes in mind, however, and you will not stand a greater or lesser chance of success by applying with an ‘Open Submission’.
Americans Beyond the Americas
This theme seeks to flip the script on prevailing narratives which define the Americas by inbound migration – of invading armies, of free settlers, of bonded and enslaved workers. Not only can such narratives erase the vitality of Indigenous presences before, during and after such waves of migration, but they can also encourage insular perspectives on the Americas which ignore the significance of Americans’ movement and action in the world. This theme invites researchers to consider how various American experiences and identities have been forged through military and colonial enterprise, travel and tourism, emigration and exile, to lands beyond the Americas.
American Environments
This theme seeks to support researchers exploring the role of the environment and the natural world in the making of the Americas, and their futures. Environmental humanities has been one of the most dynamic intellectual fields to emerge over the past generation, and we are excited to support researchers asking new questions of the British Library’s collections from an eco-perspective . The Centre has recently supported researchers investigating ecological change in eighteenth-century Barbuda; the colonial origins of climate change in Canada through King George III’s topographical drawings; and an artist exploring the relationships between pigments and dyes and Jamaican identity. We also very much welcome projects that will apply eco-critical methodologies and insights to the Library’s literary collections, and which use collections such as the Library’s newspaper and government document collections to trace the development of environmental thought and policies in the Americas.
Religion and Spirituality in the Americas
The British Library has an outstanding collection of sacred texts and objects which bear witness to religious encounters and experiences in the Americas. Many of these items - the Library’s collections of Bibles and Psalters in Indigenous American languages, for instance - are not only of historic importance but are also highly contested items. This theme invites researchers to interrogate the British Library’s collections and ask often difficult questions about the role of religion and spirituality in the making of the Americas. The Centre has supported a number of projects in American religious studies, including studies of enslaved Africans’ spirituality in North America; Muslim identity and the Nation of Islam in twentieth-century Jamaica; and Indigenous spirituality at the Guyana-Venezuela borderlands.
Although the Eccles Institute curates, researches and promotes the British Library’s Americas and Oceania collections, only projects that foreground the Americas or American experiences are currently eligible for support through the Visiting Fellowship programme. We plan to expand the scope of the programme to include Oceania over the coming years.
How do I apply?
Applications open on Monday 14 October 2024, and the deadline is 17.00 GMT on Friday 20 December 2024.
Because of the impact of the cyber-attack on our catalogues and retrieval systems, we ask that applicants give detailed information about what they would like to consult if they are successful, as well as telling us about their wider project and plans for their work.
As well as some questions about their disciplinary background and training, applicants will be asked to complete four sections about their project on the form:
- A description of the topic or question they would like to research during their Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship at the British Library. (400 words)
- An indication of which kinds of material they would like to focus on during your Fellowship (e.g. Newspapers, Modern and Contemporary Printed Books)
- A list of up to ten representative collection items, with Reference Numbers. Please see the answer to Question 6 for more information about searching the British Library’s collections.
- A description of what applicants hope to learn through using these and other research resources of the British Library. (300 words)
- An account of what you hope to do with your research. This might include plans for a publication, a performance or exhibition, or a chapter in a thesis. We are particularly interested in suggestions for how your work might inspire non-specialists or non-experts to learn more about the Americas and use the British Library. (300 words)
- Only applications made using the online form will be accepted, and we will not look at any late submissions. We do not require references or samples of work for the application.
How do I search the British Library’s collections?
The majority of the Library's collection, including Printed Books, Journals, Newspapers and Magazines, and Maps, can be searched using our online interim catalogue. Applicants are strongly encouraged to look at the latest tips and advice from the British Library about how best to use the interim catalogue.
If you wish to use Archives and Manuscript collections or Sound and Vision collections (neither of which have publicly available online catalogues currently), you can, if you wish, request a ten-minute conversation with someone from the British Library. They will then conduct a short search on your behalf and then send you, where possible, a list of relevant collection items for your consideration and potential inclusion in your application. For more information, please click here.
Please only request a conversation with a member of the Eccles Institute team if you want support in exploring our Archives and Manuscript and Sound and Vision collections.
The deadline to request a consultation is 17.00 GMT on Friday 6 December 2024. The deadline for consultations to take place is 17.00 GMT on Friday 13 December 2024.
There are a range of other research guides, bibliographies and handbooks that offer insight into the British Library’s holdings (including Eccles bibliographies and the Americas and Oceania blog) that are available online, at the British Library, or in other major research libraries.
*‘Europe’ here is taken to include Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia (formerly Macedonia), Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Vatican City (Holy See)