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Friends

Giving

About Grants-in-Aid

Grants-in-Aid is the Friends program which helps to fund visiting scholars with particular research needs in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. The Friends award a handful of grants-in-aid annually, each of which is generally for one month’s duration, for research in the humanities and related fields appropriate to the libraries’ collection strengths. The purpose is to foster the high-level use of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Libraries’ rich holdings, and to make them better known and more accessible to a wider circle of scholars. The annual application deadline is February 1 of any year.

Among the distinguished collections of the UW campus libraries, we call particular attention to unique and rare materials and other special collections in

Award Amounts
Awards are made up to $2,000 for recipients from North America and $3,000 for those from elsewhere in the world. Consideration may be given for support for shorter periods of research in Madison, but only for individuals who reside in the United States. 

Eligibility
Generally, applicants must have a Ph.D. or be able to demonstrate a record of solid intellectual accomplishment. Scholars and graduate students who have completed all requirements except the dissertation are also eligible. Applicants’ proposals should state the specific areas and collections to be used in our libraries and provide information as to why these collections will be of unique benefit to their research. The grants-in-aid are designed primarily to help provide access to UW-Madison library resources for people who live beyond commuting distance. Preference is given to younger researchers who are within 10 years of completing their Ph.D. or terminal degree, and to scholars who reside outside a 150 mile radius of Madison. The grantee is expected to be in residence during the term of the award, which may be taken up at any time during the year.

Additional Information
The Friends will provide health insurance and reimburse the expenses of obtaining security clearance (SEVIS) for researchers coming from outside the United States, but will not reimburse any fees related to obtaining a United States J-1 “Visiting Scholars” Visa.

 

Click here to fill out our online application.

To Get a Grant-in-Aid Application

One may obtain an application to the Grant-in-Aid program in one of four ways:

  1. Filling out and submitting our online application.

  2. Downloading and printing a copy of the application form as a PDF file.

  3. Requesting a printed application by writing to:
    Friends of the UW-Madison Library Award Committee
    Memorial Library
    University of Wisconsin-Madison
    Madison, WI 53706
  4. Contacting the Friends at:
    Phone: 608-265-2505
    Fax: 608-265-2754
    friends [at] library.wisc.edu

Grants-in-Aid Scholars

The Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries Grant-in-Aid program began in 1991 with a single $800 grant. Since then, the program has grown to give out at least four $1,500 grants per year. The program has provided more than $90,000 to visiting scholars in a variety of fields, from Italian Renaissance culture to modern "Little Magazines."

2013

Anne Berke, Yale University: Contributions of women television writers and show-runners in the 40's and 50's, special focus on soap opera creator and writer Irna Phillips

Jessica Isaac, University of Pittsburgh: Construction and circulation of amateur newspapers and their impact on youth identities

Nikki Malain, University of California, Santa Barbara: Piracy in the high middle ages, piracy as an interface between people-groups, piratical violence committed by or against the people of Genoa, Italy

Kim Nielsen, University of Toledo: The institutionalization of Dr. Anna B. Ott in Madison, WI (1870's), Gender, Incompetency, and the Asylum Life

Joshua Nygren, University of Kansas: the mutual development of industrialized agriculture and soil and water conservation in American agriculture (1930-2010)

Susan Wegner, Bowdoin College: Themes of Astronomy, Myth, and Mourning concerning the painting Aurora by artist Artemisia Gentileschi; her acquaintances with Galileo and his circle of artists, humanists, and scientists

2012

Paolo Acanfora, IULM University in Rome: George Mosse and Parliamentary Democracy

Katherine Anania, University of Texas at Austin: The drawn line as a key trope among postwar American artists

Michael J. Brown, University of Rochester: Experts, Eggheads, and Elites: Debating the Role of Intellectuals in American Political Culture, 1952-2008

Joshua D. Cochran, University of Iowa: Beyond the Water's Edge: American Expatriates, the Vietnam War, and the NATO Alliance, 1964-1977

Katrin de Boer, Philipps-University, Marburg: For use of the Radio UNTAC Archive of broadcast recordings in Khmer

Jacqueline-Bethel Mougoue, Purdue University: "Don't Cross Gutter Skirts": Fashion, Beauty and Nation-Building in Western Cameroon, 1960-1982

Emily Senefeld, University of Virginia: For a history of the Highlander Folk School

Daniel Wherley, Rutgers University: The development of "interventionist" nutrition at the University of Wisconsin after World War II

2011

Donatello Aramini, University of Cassino, Italy: George L. Mosse and Nationalism

S. Zebulon Baker, Georgia Southern University: Research for Fields of Contest: Race, Region and College Football in the U.S. South, 1945-1975

Rachel Burstein, CUNY Graduate Center: Labor and the Public: How Organized Labor Represented Itself in Postwar America

Benjamin Deitle, University of Virginia: Block Printing Buddhism in Beijing: A study of the Lessing Collection

John A. Kirk, University of Arkansas: The Other Freedom Summers: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Arkansas

Stephan Manz, Aston University, Birmingham: Research for Constructing a German Diaspora: The "Greater German Empire," 1871-1918

David Munns, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY: The History of the Phytotron

Michele Monserrati, Rutgers University: Searching for Japan in Contemporary Italy

2010

Celia Aijmer-Rydjso, University of Gothenburg: Exiles in Print: Modernism and Little Magazines in Paris, 1920-1940

Jacob S. Dorman, University of Kansas: Sultans, Swamis, Peddlers and Harem Girls: Images of the Orient in American Popular Culture and in the Rise of Black Muslim Faiths

Erica Moretti, Brown University: Maria Montessori's Il Metodo and the Fascist Regime's Education of Young Italians

Kathleen Oberlin, Indiana University: Museums as Centers of the Young Earth Creationist (YEC) Social Movement

Sabina Pavone, University of Naples: The Jesuit Mission in India: Malabar Rites and Sacred Practice in the 17th & 18th Centuries

Ermanno Taviani, University of Catania, Italy: Italian Racial Laws and Mass Communication

2009

Patrick Bottiger, University of Oklahoma: The reconceptualization of racial relations in Indian Territory during the early 19th century

Michela Catto, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL: Jesuits in China: Syncretism and Accommodatio

Kevin Padraic Donnelly, Brandeis University: Quetelet's Average Men: The Administration of Observation in Belgium at the End of Enlightenment

Luke Gartlan, University of St. Andrews: William Henry Metcalf and Nineteenth-Century Japanese Photography

Ryan W. Keating, Fordham University: Mid-19th Century Transnationalism: The Irish Immigrant Experience during the American Civil War

Robin Sager, Rice University: Marital Cruelty in the Mid-19th Century in Antebellum Virginia, Texas and Wisconsin

2008

Nephtali Kutwayenda Fofolo, University of Kinshasa, Congo: The Insertion of West-Africans of Senegalese Origin in the Western Part of
Congo-Kinshasa, 1884-1971

Linda Payne, University of Missouri-Kansas City: The 18th-century Surgeon Percivall Pott (1714-1788), His Apprentices and Patients

Susan Rensing, Mississippi State University: Sexual Eugenics: Redefining Courtship, Marriage, and Parenthood in America, 1900-1930

Derek Seidman, Brown University: The Unquiet Americans: GI Dissent during the Vietnam War

Alessandra Tarquini: University "Cesare Alfieri" (Florence, Italy): Giovanni Gentile and the Fascist Racial Laws in the English-Speaking World

J. Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University: Social History of Genoese Priests in the Mediterranean and Black Seas during the 13th and 14th Centuries

2007

Lorenzo Benadusi, University of Rome “La Sapienza”: The image of the soldier; militarism, masculinity and nation from the two World Wars

Rachel Melis, Kansas State University: Prairie pioneers of the Cairns Collection of American Women Writers

Kathryn J. Norlock, St. Mary’s College of Maryland: American women, social arrangements and cultural legacy

Ilaria Pavan, Scuola Normale Superiore di Piza (Italy): History of fascist racism and anti-Semitism 1919-1945. 

Christian Quendler, University of Innsbruck (Austria): Exchanges of media across filmic, literary and theoretical discourses 1895-1945.

Roberto Villa Garcia, King Juan Carlos University (Spain): Leftist parties and Democracy in Spain. 

2006

Antonella Barzazi, University of Naples: Books, libraries, and culture in Venice between the Counter-Reformation and the Enlightenment

Elena Brambilla, University of Milan: Administration of the sacraments in Western Europe 1550-1800

Lisa Kolhmeier, Claremont Graduate University (California): Life, writings, and influence of Olgivanna Lazovich Wright

Nils Langer, University of Bristol: German usage in the United States 1830-1880

Karl Schoonover, Independant Scholar: Early twentieth-century fascination of the visual residue from the photographic blur

2005

Giorgio Caravale, Fondazioine Luigi Firpo (Italy): Early modern religious history - Francesco Pucci

David Rohrbacher, New College of Florida: Late Antique Classical History

2004

Ian Stewart, University of King's College: Renaissance and early-modern natural philosophy; Translation of William Gilbert's New Philosophy Concerning our Sublunary World

Carmen Menchini (Mosse Fellow), University of Naples: Treatment of European Jews in 16th Century

Sarah Nelson, University of Idaho: French Female Autobiography

Vasileios Syros (Mosse Fellow), Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium): Constitutional History of Renaissance Venice

Ignacio Fernandez de Mata, University of Burgos: Spanish Civil War

2003

Renata Segre, Independent Scholar: Italian and Jewish early modern history

Jonathan Judaken, University of Memphis: Cultural and Intellectual History

Mark Solovey, Independant Scholar: History of American Social Science

Paul Harvey, University of Colorado-Colorado Springs: American History; Freedom's Coming: Religion, Race and Culture in the South, 1865-2000

Matthew Klemm, John Hopkins University: Medieval Intellectual History

James Stokes, UW-Stevens Point: Early English Drama; The Dramatic Records of East Anglia

Tony Cousins, Macquarie University (Australia): Renaissance Literature

Federica Francesconi, University of Haifa (Isreal): Italian Jewish History during the17th to the 19th century

2002

Stefania Pastore, University of Pisa (Italy): The Life of Agostino Boasio

Adelisa Melana, University of Pisa (Italy): Women's Autobiographies in the Early Modern Age

Riccardo Caporale, University of Bologna (Italy): 20th Century Fascist Italian Police Brutality

2001

Klementyna Czericka, University of Wroclaw (Poland): Witold Gombrowicz in Argentina

Elizabeth McCartney, University of Oregon-Eugene: Early Modern French History

2000

Lisa Surwillo, University of California-Berkeley: Literature of 19th Century Spain

Stephen Brockmann, Carnegie Mellon University: German Literature during 1945-1949

Steven Williams, New Mexico Highlands University: Medieval History - Pope Gregory IX's Relationship to Aristotle

Mark Chavalas, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse: Ancient Near East History; Life and Culture in the Ancient Near East. Editors, Richard E. Averbeck, Mark W. Chavalas, David B. Weisberg. CDL Press, c2003.

1999

Nancy Berke, Hunter College: Modern American Poetry; Women poets on the left : Lola Ridge, Genevieve Taggard, Margaret Walker. University Press of Florida, 2001.

Mark Chavalas, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse: Ancient Near East History

Ana Santos Olmsted, University of Massachusetts-Amherst: Cronicas in Brazilian Literature

Scott MacPhail, University of Indiana-Bloomington: Lyric Poetry and National Identity in America

1998

Andrey Pilgun, University of St. Louis: Cosmological Imagery in Medieval Book Illustration

Stephen Burnett, University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Christian Hebraism

Mark Omelnitski, London, United Kingdom: History of Religion in Anglo-Saxon England

Mark Box, University of Alaska-Fairbanks: Philosophy of David Hume

Chaela Pastore, University of California-Berkeley; History of Haiti and the French Revolution

1997

Maria Paola Saci, University of Viterbo (Italy): Early Modern History of Human Sciences

Fabio Troncarelli, University of Viterbo (Italy): 15th and 16th Century Witchcraft in France

Ku-Ming Chang, University of Chicago: Cultural context of German Enlightenment chemistry

1996

Julia Ehrhardt, Yale University: 19th and 20th Century American Female writers

E. Nicole Meyer, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay: Female French Autobiographies; French and Francophone Women's Autobiography in the Twentieth Century, Women in French Studies, 2002

Kathleen Comerford, Hanover College: Fiesolan Diocese - 16th/17th century Clergy; Ordaining the Catholic Reformation: Priests and Seminary Pedagogy in Fiesole, 1575-1675. Leo S. Olschki, 2001

1995

Carol Jean Poore, Brown University: Labor and national identity in 20th century Germany; The Bonds of Labor: German Journeys to the Working World, 1890-1990. Wayne State University Press, 2000.

Matthew Edney, Binghamton University: History of Cartography

Barbara Obrist, NSRC-Strasbourg: History of medieval alchemy; "Art et nature dans l'alchimie medievale". Revue d'histoire des sciences, 49

Gloria Anzilotti, University of Florence (Italy): Socio-linguistics of English grammer texbooks

1994

Jessica Ann Sheetz, Marquette University: Familial Structure in Victorian London

E. Nicole Meyer, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay: Contemporary French Fiction

1993

John Bryan Williams, University of Chicago: 13th century Genoese slave trade

Francesco Erspamer, University of Rome (Italy): Renaissance Italian Literature - Galvano Fiamma

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