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Mmuf dissertation grants.

*The website has many different programs for fellowships, awards, and grants at different timelines. Make sure to check each of these.

The MMUF Dissertation Grants are available to graduate students who participated in the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program. The grants provide graduate students at the critical juncture of completing their graduate degrees with support to spend a year finishing the writing of the dissertation.

MMUF Advancement Program Fellows bring diverse perspectives to their graduate studies and careers in the academy, ensuring their perspectives are shared within their disciplines and with their students. Fellows are alumni of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) program and gather to prepare graduate school applications, receive funding for additional research, and professional support throughout their dissertation research. These Fellowships are open only to alumni of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship.

Applicants must be Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows and candidates for the Ph.D. degree in fields recognized under the terms of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program. Candidates must have completed all pre-dissertation requirements before the application deadline. Specifically, each applicant must have passed all comprehensive examinations, completed all coursework for the degree, received approval of the dissertation topic, and completed most or all of the fieldwork and/or research necessary to begin writing.

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Friday, May 17, 2024

2024 Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Completion Fellows Announced

Aseees congratulates the 2024 cohen-tucker dissertation completion fellows..

Michael Corsi History The Ohio State University

“El Dorado on the Rocks: The Ural Mountains and the Production of Scientific Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Russia” 

My dissertation argues that the Russian empire—its scholars, institutions, and generous funding—was instrumental to the process of global scientific-knowledge production. It takes one part of the Russian empire—the Ural Mountains—as demonstrative of the influence Russia had over nineteenth-century scientific thought. The Urals’ contributions to nineteenth-century science included, among other things, discovery of the first indigenous European diamonds, development of new theories regarding the mineralogical composition of the planet, identification of the Permian geological period, and characterization of global weather systems and biodiversity. Discoveries such as these filled gaps in the scholarly understandings of the time and contributed to some of the most important scientific publications of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, my dissertation also examines intra-imperial networks alongside inter-imperial ones. It traces the ways in which Urals scientists collaborated with other experts and scientific institutions within the Russian empire, thereby demonstrating the contributions of this region to the growth of imperial-era science.

Jessica Ginnochio English and Comparative Literature University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 

“Intersecting Worlds: Animal Consciousness, Reality, and Imagination in Eastern European Fiction” 

“Intersecting Worlds” examines the integration of animal minds into the narrative fabric of primarily Russian fiction across several epochs. From Lev Tolstoy’s war horses to Andrei Platonov’s blacksmith bear, animal points-of-view are used by many of Russia’s most prominent writers, ranging in technique from first-person animal narrators to animals as focal characters within larger narrative frameworks. Structured around three chapters and an epilogue, the project uses careful close readings to characterize representations of animal minds and contextualize them within literary aesthetics, contemporaneous scientific thought, and socio-political conditions. Spanning the period from 1865 until 1930, the central chapters encapsulate an era marked by profound intellectual, scientific, and socio-political shifts. In works by Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bulgakov, and Platonov, we can see the evolution of realism to modernism to early Soviet experimentation. A final epilogue examines the afterlife of these tendencies in the work of contemporary and postmodern writers from both Russia and Ukraine, including Viktor Pelevin, Tatyana Tolstaya, Linor Goralik, Victoria Amelina, and Andrei Kurkov. The dissertation seeks to answer fundamental questions about human-animal relationships, perceptions of animality, growing ecological consciousness, and the nature of reality itself. While it contributes to the growing field of scholarship interested in animals and environment Russian literary studies, though its specific interventions to marry the concerns of animal studies with narrative theory and cognitive literary studies. Ultimately, I hope to show that animals are not a niche concern, but a central one, and the project of imagining and narrating animal consciousness is fundamental to the study of narrative, theories of consciousness, and understandings of what it means to be human, to be alive, and to exist in the world. 

Luke Jeske History University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 

“Faith, Nation, and Empire: Nineteenth-Century Russian Pilgrimage to the Holy Land” 

Throughout the nineteenth century, Russian Orthodox Christians made pilgrimage to Ottoman Palestine, or the Holy Land, a vital and dynamic part of religious and national life. Tens of thousands made the journey, relying on patchwork support systems to realize their dreams of walking in Jesus’ footsteps. Many considered the journey itself a manifestation of personal and collective piety, an act rewarded by God and capable of knitting together thousands of compatriots shuffling toward Jerusalem. Sharing a common destination, Russians diverged on how to practice and interpret pilgrimage. Whereas champions of imperialism stressed the projection of geopolitical power, others emphasized neutral piety. Some, mostly peasants, struck out on their own, embracing apocrypha and heterodox rituals while avoiding Russian officials. I argue that examining these developments in pilgrimage enables us to better understand the broader modernization of Russian Orthodox Christian religiosity, by which I mean the adaptation of religion to accommodate the myriad technological, social, cultural, and legal changes unfolding over the century. While scholars have produced insightful scholarship on various aspects of this religious revitalization, I am one of the first to examine it in the trans-imperial context of pilgrimage and thereby expose Orthodoxy’s tremendous capacity to mobilize the Tsar’s subjects. Drawing on travel memoirs, periodicals, and published archival materials generated around pilgrimage, I shed new light on the religious groundings of Russian ethno-nationalism and imperialism. 

Weronika Malek-Lubawski  Art History University of Southern California 

“Between Moscow and Paris: Łódź and the Transnational Avant-garde Network”  

My dissertation reconstructs the artistic network between Russia and Western urban centers through the activities of artists connected to Łódź, Poland. I study Russian-German sculptor Katarzyna Kobro (1898-1951), Polish painter and art theoretician Władysław Strzemiński (1893-1952), and Polish-Jewish painter and designer Henryk Berlewi (1894-1967), who were all crucial in facilitating international contacts and institutional collaborations between the avant-garde movements. Kobro and Strzemiński moved to Poland from Russia in 1921 and were the first artists to share and implement the ideas of revolutionary avant-garde there. Berlewi radically changed his art upon his encounter with Suprematism and carried this influence West after moving from Poland to Berlin and Paris. Strzemiński, Kobro, and Berlewi maintained a lifelong commitment to abstraction, that was reflected not only in their artworks, but also through self-publishing, teaching, and involvement in organizing collections and archives of contemporary art. I will highlight how these artists drew on the artistic discourse and institutional models that emerged during the Russian Revolution to re-imagine and implement avant-garde ideas in their new locations and contexts. In my argument, studying this artistic mobility allows us to broaden and de-center the histories of artists who were directly or indirectly influenced by the revolutionary avant-garde and departed from it to develop their individual art theories like Unism or Mechano-Faktura. My research draws on museum collections, primary sources, memoirs, and institutional histories. I also consider the impact of archival gaps and the Cold War on the existing historiography. The temporal scope of my dissertation will focus on 1921-1939, but in my last chapter, I will analyze Kobro’s, Strzemiński’s, and Berlewi’s legacy in the 1950s and the 1960s.

Alexandra Noi History University of California, Santa Barbara

“From Ape to New Socialist Man: Soviet and Chinese Forced Labor Camps as Laboratories of Carceral Eugenics” 

My dissertation is a comparative intellectual and social history of forced labor and reeducation in the Soviet Union and China. I study the ideas of human nature and practices of its transformation through the lens of incarceration. I conceptualize Soviet Gulag and Chinese Laogai forced labor camps as socialist scientific projects of molding humans and nature rooted in ideas of plasticity in the natural and social sciences of the early and mid–twentieth century. In the Soviet Union, those were Marxist ideas of the value of labor in the evolutionary transition “from ape to man,” as Friedrich Engels wrote, the theory of behavioral conditioning of the Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov, and the pedagogical methods of the Soviet Ukrainian educator Anton Makarenko. In China, social engineering was an intellectual fusion of indigenous theories of moral rehabilitation, Marxist and Leninist thought, Mao Zedong’s original contributions, and Soviet penal and educational experiments. I explore how in both countries the institutions and practices of forced labor were devised as a means to achieve revolutionary ends—the concurrent goals of modernizing the old “backward” society and economy, remaking people into new socialist citizens, and transforming the natural environment. 

Nicholas Seay   History The Ohio State University 

“Cotton Modernity: Agricultural Labor, Environment, and Materialism in Soviet Tajikistan, 1945-1991″ 

My dissertation explores the technocratic intensification of cotton monoculture in post-WWII Soviet-Tajikistan, which in turn was used to increase the USSR’s industrial-use cotton supply and as exports on the global market. I argue that this intensification produced a series of crises in environmental protection and allocation of labor resources, prompting reform-minded scientists and state agency employees to respond with several technocratic responses that addressed isolated problems, but fell short of directly attacking the monoculture itself, a non-negotiable feature of relations between Moscow and Central Asian Republics like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. To increase the yearly harvests of raw cotton, planners and collective farms made production more efficient through rational use of water resources, irrigating previously uncultivated lands, new seed selection strategies, and the production and application of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. By utilizing an environmental and materialist approach and analyzing how state officials responded to these crises, my research shows how the case of Tajikistan’s cotton production speaks to important north-south dynamics within the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional Soviet “empire” and how the case of Soviet cotton fits within global economic and environmental trends of the late-20th century. 

John Webley Slavic Languages and Literature Yale University

“Ink, Paint, and Blood: India and the Great Game in Russian Culture” 

Ink, Paint, and Blood examines Russian depictions of India created during the so-called Great Game, the rivalry between Britain and Russia for dominance in Asia. As a framework for understanding history, the Great Game (or Tournament of Shadows in Russian) reduces the complex, multipolar politicking between Europe and Asia down to a sensational story of spies and soldiers clashing on the Roof of the World. Nonetheless, scholars have demonstrated how this rivalry emerged as a dominant theme in Victorian media—even before the term ‘Great Game’ entered popular usage. Far less attention has been paid to how Russia created, imagined, and responded to this rivalry. My work elucidates the dominant concerns that emerged in Russia’s “Great Game” media—mapping, border disputes, espionage, surveillance, political upheaval, and trade—and shows how these themes adhered repetitive aesthetic dimensions. I achieve this through a trans-medial approach, which brings together travelogues, architecture, painting, poetry, material culture, and ballet from Russia, Britain, and India. By focusing on Russian depictions of India, my work shows how the discourse of the Great Game enabled Russians to articulate their own imperial aesthetic through comparison, mimicry, and differentiation from the British. As Russians retraced the journeys made by British explorers, spies, conquerors, and artists, they used their own creative practices to inspect British imperial culture and its forms. In drawing attention to both the narrative and formal aspects of the Great Game, my project reveals the broader impact that this rivalry had on shaping Russian imperial ideology and aesthetics. 

Yacov Zohn History University of Wisconsin-Madison  

“Tactical Representation: Political Goals in the Soviet National Soccer Team (1952-1972)” 

My dissertation probes the fractured political nature of soccer in the Soviet Union through the lens of the Soviet national soccer team from the team’s official genesis in 1952 to the end of its “golden era” in 1972. The sport featured a complex representation of governmental organizations, industries, politicians, and sports administrators who actively intervened in sporting affairs, vying for power and influence. My research explores institutions, individuals, and empire to investigate the political complexities and divides that festered in and around the Soviet soccer team in the struggle to shape its image as an icon of “Soviet” identity. I am particularly interested in examining the reasons behind the shifting locus of representation embodied by the national team: why and how Moscow, endowed with all of the USSR’s most important political institutions, dominant sport institutions, and the best clubs in the country, lost its monopoly on the national team, with Tbilisi and especially Kyiv growing in importance. My dissertation explains how a mix of key individuals, political changes, shifting societal norms, strengthening nationalism, fragmentation of power in Moscow, evolving regional sport/governmental institutions, and hockey (of all things) played a role in significantly impacting the national team’s meaning, composition, and results. The scope of my project incorporates little known regional sport publications, newspapers, interviews, and memoirs of key participants, as well as research in archives, libraries, and online sources across the USA, Switzerland, Germany, France, England, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia. 

More ASEEES News

May 2024 issue of newsnet out now.

May 20, 2024

Cover Article: “Teaching and Learning Soviet History through the Unessay” by Paula Michaels; “Research in Moldova in 2024: Access to Archives and the Future of Moldovan Studies” by Igor Cașu; […]

Fiona Bell awarded Kinsey Institute Scholars of Sexology Fellowship

May 17, 2024

Fiona Bell received 2024 Scholars of Sexology Fellowship from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. Fiona Bell is a Ph.D. candidate in Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale University. Her dissertation […]

Larry Wolff awarded the PIASA Susanne Lotarski Award

Larry Wolff was awarded the Susanne Lotarski Award from the Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America (PIASA) for distinguished achievement.

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If a fellow does not use all of their academic-year funds, can they use those remaining funds during the summer?

No. Academic-year funds may only be used during the academic year.  Unless there are extenuating circumstances, fellows should be receiving all of the funds designated for academic years stipends.  If you are having difficulty disbursing funds to fellows due to institutional bureaucracy or recently imposed restrictions, please contact your institution’s administration (e.g., Dean; Provost) and/or financial aid office prior to contacting us.

Can a fellow use their academic year funds after graduation?

No.  Fellows must use their undergraduate-designated funds before they receive their bachelor’s degrees.

Can a fellow receive more than two years’ worth of academic-year stipends if funds are available?

No.  Each fellow is allotted a maximum of two years of academic-year stipend money, regardless of funds available.

What is the Foundation’s policy regarding the use of fellows' academic-year stipends to satisfy the requirements of their financial aid packages?

The Foundation expects fellows to devote the academic year to academic study and research.  The stipend is in place so that fellows will not have to seek work-study positions.  As with summer stipends, MMUF academic-year funding may not be used toward the financial-aid package.  If MMUF stipends and financial aid are an issue, please contact your institution’s administrative leadership (e.g., Dean; Provost; President) and/or financial aid office prior to contacting us. For specific questions regarding the appropriate uses of MMUF funds, please contact us directly.

My institution is attempting to tax fellows' stipends under the rationale that the stipends constitute payment from the institution to fellows for their research. Can the Foundation intervene in such cases to prevent stipends from being taxed?

Several cases like this, which appear to stem from recent and ongoing shifts in tax law, have been reported to us in the last several years. If you find yourself in this situation, please contact us so that we can provide a statement explaining the nature and purpose of fellow stipends which you can present to your institution's finance department.

What happens if a fellow participates in a summer research program which provides a separate stipend?

Fellows should receive only one stipend for a particular summer research experience.  We encourage you to contact the administrators of the fellow’s summer research program to determine whether the summer stipend should come from the MMUF budget or the summer program’s budget.  If the stipend ultimately comes from the research program’s budget, the fellow may submit to you a proposal and budget for a different research project in order to receive a portion of their MMUF summer stipend.

How do I prevent "double dipping" in regard to fellow stipends?

To prevent a fellow from receiving two stipends (i.e. an MMUF summer stipend and an external summer program stipend) for the same summer research experience, there are three options:  (a) The fellow may submit a separate budget detailing how MMUF funds would be used; the coordinator can then determine whether to approve the request or not.  (b) The coordinator may require that the fellow submit a proposal for a separate (but perhaps related) research project to work on in the summer so that the MMUF stipend could fund that project.  (c) If the research program does not span the entirety of the summer, the coordinator may prorate the stipend for the remainder of the summer.  That is, if the research program spans June and July, you may provide MMUF funds for the month of August.

If a fellow does not use their allotted summer funds, can they use those funds during the academic year?

No. Summer funds may only be used during the summer term.

Can a fellow use their summer funds after graduation?

For those in traditional programs that offer fellows two summers' worth of funding before graduation (i.e. the summers before the junior and senior years of study), these fellows should use all undergraduate-designated funds before they receive their bachelor’s degrees.

Can a fellow receive more than two years' worth of summer funding?

No.  Each fellow is allotted a maximum of two years of summer stipend money, regardless of the overall program funds that may be available.

What is the Foundation’s policy regarding the use of fellows’ stipends to satisfy the requirements of their financial aid packages?

The Foundation expects fellows to devote up to two summers to academic study and research.  To participate as an MMUF institution, school’s leadership agreed that MMUF stipends would not be considered part of a fellow’s financial aid package or reduce the fellow’s financial aid. MMUF summer funding should not go toward the summer earnings portion of the standard financial-aid package.  If there is an issue of MMUF stipends and summer financial aid, please contact your institution’s administration (e.g., Dean; Provost) and/or financial aid office prior to contacting us.  For more specific questions regarding appropriate uses of MMUF summer funds, please contact us directly.

Can a fellow studying a foreign language use their entire summer stipend amount toward such study?

Yes.  If the language is crucial to the fellow’s research, the full stipend may be used toward language study in a structured academic program.

What kind of summer travel is permissible?

A portion of a fellow’s summer stipend can be used to support travel (domestic or international) to attend conferences, visit graduate schools, or attend a discipline-appropriate, research-based program or institution.  Use of funds for travel does not apply to fellows who are traveling with the ultimate purpose of spending an academic semester/year abroad.  Please feel free to contact us if you would like to discuss a specific case.

Is there a list of Mellon-approved summer programs?

Yes.  The University of Chicago annually hosts the nine-week Summer Research Training Program for MMUF fellows, and UCLA hosts the six-week Writing and Research Training Program . Several MMUF institutions host their own official summer programs, including Barnard , Bowdoin , Columbia , Hunter , Wesleyan , Williams, the UNCF consortium/Emory University , the summer research opportunity programs at the University of California at Berkeley  and  Northwestern , and the  Summer Humanities Institute   at UCLA.

Other research-based programs with histories of successful MMUF participation include AALCI (the University of Texas at San Antonio), Institute for Recruitment of Teachers (Phillips Academy), the Leadership Alliance (Consortium), MURAP (the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), SILCS (Wheaton College),  and SURF (the University of California at Irvine), among others; please see the Summer Programs page for more information.  If you have a question concerning the suitability of other programs, please contact us.

How do fellows become eligible for the events and grants that the SSRC and the Institute for Citizens & Scholars administer for MMUF graduate students?

The SSRC and the IC&S are simultaneously notified whenever fellows submit annual update forms at the "Enrolled in a PhD Program" status to the Mellon Foundation, and thus receive current contact information for fellows who are newly eligible for their events and grants. (Please note that the SSRC and the IC&S currently cannot capture information from updates submitted by seniors who have been accepted into PhD programs but submit updates as current undergraduates; please encourage fellows in these circumstances to report themselves as PhD-enrolled as soon as they have received graduate school acceptances, even if they have not yet chosen a program.)

The SSRC and the IC&S then use these records to contact fellows who are eligible for a given graduate initiative to invite their participation in events and their applications for grants. To ensure that this system functions as effectively as possible, we urge coordinators to remind fellows of SSRC and the IC&S programming during their exit interviews and emphasize the importance of keeping their contact information current by continuing to submit their MMUF annual update forms once per academic year after graduation.

Participation in SSRC and the IC&S programming is only available to those students entering PhD programs within 39 months of graduating from college.  Students entering PhD programs in e ligible fields after being out of college longer than 39 months may petition Mellon staff to be considered for continuing benefits on a case-by-case basis.

What type of loans qualify for repayment?

Loan repayment is only available to those students entering PhD programs within 39 months of graduating from college.  Students entering PhD programs in e ligible fields after being out of college longer than 39 months may write to Renee Johnson-Thornton ( [email protected] ) to be considered for continuing benefits on a case-by-case basis.

Only educational debts accrued through Stafford, Perkins, or other college loan programs qualify for repayment. The MMUF program will not repay private bank loans or personal loans.  We tend not to make distinctions for consolidated or refinanced loans.  If a fellow has less than $10,000 worth of undergraduate loans, he/she may receive the remainder of allocated loan repayment funds as payments on graduate loans. 

Are master’s degree program loans ever eligible for repayment?

Normally, fellows must be enrolled in PhD programs to be eligible for loan repayment: terminal M.A. degrees do not qualify.  However, fellows who complete MFA degrees that are research-based (not performance-based) in nature may be eligible for undergraduate loan repayments of up to $5,000 at the Foundation’s discretion.  These funds can only be paid out upon completion of the MFA degree.  Please notify us of all potential MFA loan repayment cases prior to granting a repayment.

My institution is attempting to tax fellows' loan repayment monies under the rationale that these funds constitute payment from the institution to fellows. Can the Foundation intervene in such cases to prevent loan repayment funds from being taxed?

Several cases like this, which appear to stem from recent and ongoing shifts in tax law, have been reported to us in the last several years. If you find yourself in this situation, please contact us so that we can provide a statement explaining the nature and purpose of the loan repayment benefit which you can present to your institution's finance department.

Can fellows who are not planning to apply to graduate school until after their college graduations still use their designated GRE preparation funds after graduating?

No. The GRE funds, like the other MMUF monies designated for undergraduate fellows, are intended to provide strategic and timely support to fellows during their undergraduate careers, rather than retroactive support after they have graduated. While fellows do not necessarily need to apply to graduate school before they graduate, their preparation funds must be used prior to graduating.

Can fellows use their GRE prep funds to cover the costs of sending their GRE scores to graduate schools?

Yes. Although these funds are primarily intended to help fellows prepare for the test itself, we also consider defraying GRE-associated costs such as sending fees to be a legitimate use of the funds.

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2024 mmuf-ssrc dissertation writing retreat.

Educating for democracy since 1945

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Fellowship alerts

Join our mailing list to get fellowship alerts., mid-april 2024, final selections determined, late may, 2024, award notifications, creating and patching a faculty pipeline.

MMUF Advancement Program Fellows bring diverse perspectives to their graduate studies and careers in the academy, ensuring their perspectives are shared within their disciplines and with their students. Fellows are alumni of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) program and gather to prepare graduate school applications, receive funding for additional research, and professional support throughout their dissertation research. These Fellowships are open only to alumni of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship.

The MMUF Travel and Research Grants provide assistance in completing research prior to the start of dissertation writing. This program is funded by the Mellon Foundation .

THE CHALLENGE:

Diverse perspectives have been historically excluded from higher education

THE FELLOWS:

431 grants have been awarded through the MMUF Advancement Program and 80% of scholars have earned their doctorate

THE IMPACT:

Young adults have increased access to a diversity of perspectives and deepen their understanding of people of all backgrounds

“The bootcamp really helped me better understand the graduate school application process. During the first day of lectures and workshops, I quickly realized what I did wrong on my applications and how I can do better the next time around.”

The MMUF Travel & Research Grants are available to graduate students who participated in the  Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program . The grants provide eligible graduate students with the financial means to complete their research  prior to the start  of dissertation writing.

• The MMUF Travel & Research grants provide  up to  $5,000 for a period of one summer or one semester. Grants may be used to cover dissertation research, travel to/from research sites, and photocopying of documents and/or the purchase of access to databases for research purposes. The award may not be used to purchase computer software or hardware, and may not be used for general living expenses.  
• Funding is for one summer or one semester of travel and/or research support. Awards are based on the scholarly merit of the individual applications received.

2022 Fellows

LeShae Henderson

Brandon Latorre

Nathalie Miraval

Sophia Monegro

More about this grant, more fellowship opportunities.

Learn more about our other Fellowship opportunities for scholars & education leaders.