Fellowship Characteristics and Components

A major new initiative to support collaborative projects in arts practice and scholarship

The newly established Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago is delighted to announce this year’s Mellon Residential Fellowships for Arts Practice and Scholarship program for 2012-13.  The program, in its second year, represents a major new initiative designed to foster experimental collaboration between artists and scholars from all disciplines.  By bringing artists and scholars together to undertake experimental collaborative projects, the fellowship program aims to create a national model (or indeed, a variety of models) for scholars to integrate arts practice into their research and teaching, and for practicing artists to engage fully with the intellectual life of the university.

Please note the following central, salient characteristics of the collaborative fellowship program:

• We seek proposals that team artists and scholar/researchers (one of whom will be a visiting fellow; the other, a University collaborator, i.e., a faculty member, lecturer or staff member) for a collaborative project that crosses borders in innovative and transformative ways.
• We anticipate that one-quarter residencies will be the norm; however, residencies could encompass a longer time-span if the nature of the collaboration warrants.   (Similarly, certain fellows might be in residence for shorter but intensive multi-week stays, of sufficient duration to enable meaningful collaboration.
• No route of inquiry (except the conventional and predictable!) will be ruled out; the program is not limited to the humanities nor to the realm of high culture.
• The collaboration is not limited to only two participants; larger teams and interdisciplinary, collaborative configurations are welcome.
• Each residency will include a formal (but not necessarily a conventional) pedagogical component, such as (but not limited to) a for-credit course or seminar, ideally for graduate and undergraduate students, led jointly by the Visiting Fellow and university collaborator.
• Residencies will include a public component that would, ideally, model the innovative structures and aspirations that characterize the Residential Fellowships program, such as (but not limited to) a symposium, presentation, performance, public lecture, and/or exhibition, as appropriate.
• A major goal will be to make the fruits of the collaboration (including process) broadly available and to provide a basis for future elaboration by faculty, fellows, or students.  Dissemination is likely to encompass on-line or printed publications of some kind.  
• This fellowship program seeks to attract artistic and scholarly collaborators of the highest caliber at any stage of professional development, ranging from emerging leaders to recognized figures.  Residential fellows will receive a temporary salary (as well as housing, travel, etc.).  Funds are available for related project expenses (e.g., production/commissioning costs, publication/web costs, events, exhibitions, special facility needs for the practitioner, etc.).  In addition, in order to facilitate these collaborations, the university collaborator will also be eligible for appropriate support (e.g., teaching or research assistant, research/project/course funds, etc.).