January 24, 2020

Jon B. Lovelace Fellowship for the Study of the Alan Lomax Collection

Application Deadline: March 1, 2020

The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress invites qualified scholars to apply for a post-doctoral fellowship for advanced research based on the Alan Lomax Collection. The Lovelace Fellowship, established in 2015 for the study of the Alan Lomax Collection, pays tribute to the 60-year friendship between philanthropist Jon B. Lovelace and James H. Billington, who served as Librarian of Congress from 1987-2015. The Lomax Collection is a major collection of ethnographic field audio recordings, motion pictures, photographs, manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials that represent Lomax’s lifetime of work to document and analyze traditional music, dance, storytelling, and other expressive genres that arise from cultural groups in many parts of the world, particularly the United States, England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the Caribbean.

The Jon B. Lovelace Fellowship supports scholarly research that contributes significantly to a greater understanding of the work of Alan Lomax and the cultural traditions he documented over the course of a vigorous and highly productive 70-year career. The fellowship program supports research projects in the disciplines of anthropology, ethnomusicology, ethnography, ethno-history, dance, folklore and folklife, history, literature, linguistics, and movement analysis, with particular emphasis on the traditional music, dance, and narrative of the United States, England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the Caribbean, as well as methodologies for their documentation and analysis.

The Jon B. Lovelace Fellowship in Folklife Studies is for a period of up to 8 months, at a stipend of $4,200 per month, for residential research at the Library of Congress. Transportation arrangements, housing, and health care insurance and costs are the responsibility of the fellow. The Library will provide fellows with information on housing and can provide fellows with contacts for commercial providers of health care insurance. For more information on tenure and stipend, click here.

Eligibility

Applicants may be of any nationality. A Ph.D. degree or equivalent terminal degree is preferred.

For more information about this opportunity, including how to apply, click here.