Applications are now open for the 2024 Foremothers’ Fellowship. Funded through the generous gift of royalties from the editors and authors of the Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (Judith Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras), the grant provides $2,000 for a current doctoral candidate (at the time of the proposed project) to undertake a significant professional development initiative. If desired, the winner will be partnered with a senior medieval scholar whose guidance and association can assist the student in developing and executing the project.
Such projects might include:
- Travel to a conference relevant to medieval feminist scholarship
- Travel to visit archives, research libraries, museums, manuscript collections, or archaeological or architectural sites
- Travel to conduct other forms of on-site research
- Development of a digital humanities project related to feminist research
- Organizing of a medieval feminist conference or colloquium
- Travel to allow sustained work with a mentor
- Funding open-access publication of an article or book project
- Purchasing image rights for an article or book project
- Language study, if relevance to current project is demonstrated
SMFS is especially interested in assisting students who have demonstrated a financial need and whose projects are not otherwise funded. The winner must be willing to provide a reflective report describing the outcome of the project that will be shared on the SMFS public website.
Applicants should provide: a completed application form (link below), a 500-word description of the project including its scope and development, a proposed timeline, and a detailed budget, including a break-down of projected costs.
Email applications or other questions to Drs. Kersti Francis and Lucy Hinnie at kerstif@bu.edu and lucy.hinnie@posteo.net.
Click here to Download Application Form
Application Deadline: April 8, 2024
The winner will be announced by April 29th at latest.
Donations towards the Foremothers’ Fellowship are always welcome:
Previous Award Winners
2023: Sierra Lawson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
“Spilled Milk, Spilled Blood: Breastmilk, Genealogy, and Religion in the Transatlantic Spanish Empire”
2022: Marisa Michaud, University of York
“Par le moyen et avis de soeur Colette: Piety, Patronage, and the Relationship between the Colettine Poor Clares and the Valois Court of Burgundy.”
2021: Hiatus
2020: Rachel Anne Ruisard, University of Maryland, College Park
“The Woman’s Voice: Female Patrons and Performers in Lorraine and Bar 1250-1390”
2019 Chelsea Silva, University of California, Riverside
“Bedwritten: Middle English Medicine and the Ailing Author”
2018 Vanessa Wright, University of Leeds
“Inside Out: Dress and Identity in the Middle Ages“
2017 Emily Shartrand, University of Delaware
“Sexual Warfare in the Margins of Two Thirteenth-Century Franco Flemish Arthurian Romance Manuscripts“
2016 Jenny C. Bledsoe, Emory University
“Vernacular Religious Literature and Material Culture in Medieval Britain: The Katherine Group and Its Manuscripts”
2015 Pamela Greig, The University of Nottingham
“A Critical Edition of the Lay Folks’ Catechism“