Current Fellows
The Center annually welcomes up to forty scholars from all fields of the humanities. Individually, the Fellows pursue their own research and writing. Together, they create a stimulating intellectual community.
The National Humanities Center appointed 33 Fellows for the 2022–23 academic year. Chosen from nearly 600 applicants, they represent humanistic scholarship in African American studies; East Asian studies; education studies; environmental studies; gender and sexuality studies; history; history of art and architecture; Indigenous studies; languages and literature; Latinx studies; Middle East studies; music history and musicology; philosophy; religious studies; and Slavic studies. Each Fellow will work on an individual research project and will have the opportunity to share ideas in seminars, lectures, and conferences at the Center.

Project disciplines and home institutions are noted for each Fellow.
Music History and Musicology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Writing Opera, Singing Blackness in the United States
Religious Studies, The Ohio State University
A Religion of the Books: The New Testament and Other Early Christian Scriptural Practices
Environmental Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Chinese Eco-Images in The Planetary Age: The Multispecies World of Humans, Animals, and Plants
Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
Trans-American Orientalism: The Asia-Pacific Encounters of Transgender Pioneer Christine Jorgensen, 1961–1969
Languages and Literature, National University of Singapore
Living on after Failure
Middle East Studies, Duke University
Legal and Affective Archives of Atrocity: Allied Occupied Istanbul (1918–23) and the Armenian Genocide
Interdisciplinary Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
One Generation, Two Loyalties?: Evening Chats in Hong Kong
African American Studies, Furman University
The Columbia Seven: The Life and Times of the Zealy Daguerreotypes
African American Studies, Hampton University
Black Girls Write the Future: A Scholarly Investigation of Speculative Fiction by or about Women and Girls of African-Descent
History, The University of Sydney
Captive Consumers: Prison Food in the Era of Mass Incarceration
History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Black Folk: The Promise of the Black Working Class
Slavic Studies, University of Missouri
How to Be a Russian Icon: The Post-Soviet Public Life of Poet Olga Sedakova
Environmental History, University of South Carolina
“Conservation by Slaughter”: Wildlife Utilization and the African Origins of Sustainable Development, 1959–1980
Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Facts, Evidence, and Observation: Aristotle’s Natural Scientific Study of Women and Motherhood
History, McGill University
Greek to the Soul: George Ives and Homosexuality from Wilde to Wolfenden
Latinx Studies, Bucknell University
Staging Activism in US Latinx Theater
Languages and Literature, Montclair State University
Gender, Sugar, and the Afterlives of Abolition
Languages and Literature (Cultural Studies), Stellenbosch University
Representing Discontent: South Africa in Words and on Screen
History of Art and Architecture, Tufts University
Rivals on the Fenway: Isabella Stewart Gardner, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Destiny of the American Art Museum
Languages and Literature, North Carolina State University
Backlash Blues: Nina Simone and Langston Hughes
Philosophy, Bowdoin College
Violinists, Spelunkers, and Trolleys: How Philosophers Think about Abortion
History, University of Cincinnati
Becoming “Vulgar”: Caste Domination and Normative Sexuality in Modern India
History, Universidad de Costa Rica
Rebellious People: Patterns of Social Revolt and Collective Violence in Central America, 1920–1954
Indigenous Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The Worst Trickster Story Ever Told: Native America, Plenary Power, and the U.S. Constitution
History of Art and Architecture, Virginia Commonwealth University
The Shadow Museum: A History of the British Institution, 1805–1867
History of Art and Architecture, Tuskegee University
Bearing Witness: Contemporary Works by African American Women Artists, 1996 and Revelations from Bearing Witness, 2026
Philosophy, Brandeis University
Sensibilia: An Account of Sensory Perception and its Objects
East Asian Studies, The University of Hong Kong
The Matrilocal Husband: Chinese-style Neoliberal Masculinities in the Digital Era
History, Montana State University
Pictures of Conscience: Central American Refugees and International Human Rights Campaigns, 1979–2019
Languages and Literature, University of Oklahoma
Spook(ed): African American Literature, National Security, and the Fictions of Statecraft
African American Studies, University of California, Irvine
‘I Meant for You to be Free’: Winnie Mandela’s Love Letter to and Pedagogies for Young South Africans, the Post-1994 Generation
History, Illinois State University
Sympathy for the Devil: The Criminal in the American Imagination, 1870–1940
Cultural Anthropology, Duke University
New Religious Movements: A Comparative Study of Pentecostalism in Cameroon and the United States of America
Literature, Bucknell University
Caribbean Literature and Human Rights Discourse
Philosophy, Brandeis University
A Unified Approach to Spatial Cognition
German Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
Designing a New Germany: Braun, 1950s Culture, and the Creation of Postfascist Lifestyles
Independent Scholar
Reclaiming the Classroom-Post Pandemic/Educational Leadership
Comparative Literature, University of Oklahoma
Burning History: Fire Cultures in North American Literature and Cinema
Current Fellows by the Numbers
Disciplines 2022-23
- African American Studies 3
- Comparative Literature 1
- Cultural Anthropology 1
- East Asian Studies 1
- Environmental History 1
- Environmental Humanities 1
- Gender and Sexuality Studies 1
- German Studies 1
- History 8
- History of Art and Architecture 3
- Indigenous Studies 1
- Interdisciplinary Studies 1
- Languages and Literature 4
- Languages and Literature (Cultural Studies) 1
- Latinx Studies 1
- Literature 1
- Middle East Studies 1
- Music History and Musicology 1
- Philosophy 4
- Religious Studies 1
- Slavic Studies 1