anthroapplicant

Hi,

I wanted to start a conversation among the advanced PhD students who have applied or plan on applying for the dissertation completion fellowships in the social sciences and humanities (i.e. ACLS Mellon, Charlotte Newcombe or AAUW). These fellowship competitions appear to be the most rigorous and difficult of all, considering they draw a range of candidates, including those that are in their 5th and 9th year of the doctoral programs. Because many of these fellowship programs also require submission of a dissertation chapter, for me, preparing applications for these prospective funders presents one of the most serious undertakings so far.

For those who have been fortunate to receive such fellowships: How does one successfully prepare such an application? What do you believe to have done right in crafting your proposal and choosing supplemental materials? What are some of the common mistakes and traps?

Thanks for your input!

Since others were asking about the ACLS, and there seems not very much information on it, just thought I would share my two-bits worth. Also unlike the fieldwork grants (WG, SSRC, NSF etc) which lots of folks apply for and get, I didn't have access to many proposals as a model for my own. I looked at one successful grant and used it as the template for mine. I got the ACLS this year. Of course since this is *1* example, based on the extensive research on *1* example this is in no way a representative sample, and there must be many many ways to craft one. I just didn't have access to them. This is what I did.
3 sections.
1) Section 1: Opening paragraph - 150 words which encapsulated the broad intervention of the diss.
2) Section 2: Body of Proposal: The rest of the proposal I organized around individual chapters, telling the story of the diss through what each chapter is doing. Literally: Chapter 1 does this with this material, one paragraph. Chapter 2 does this with this material, one paragraph. Chapter descriptions focussed on the materials and empirical data. Each paragraph ended with a linking sentence to the next chapter, marking the theoretical through-lines of the diss.
3) Since its only 5 pages there is no space for a literature review, or setting the dissertation in context of previous scholarship. So I dispensed with this completely. The entire proposal has maybe 6 citations, thats all. I also heard from someone who also got it a few years ago, that the ACLS does not care about literature review etc since we are presumably making original interventions. I also did not have any methodology section. The methodology was one line, "archival research and ethnography in X and Y fieldsite, and A and B archives." Obviously this is discipline specific so historians will want to say something about their sources and archives etc.
3) Last section: Project significance and Progress to date: I ended with one paragraph that stated the specific disciplinary, and general scholarly, debates the diss intervenes in, and the contribution it hopes to make. And then I ended with 5 lines on progress to date (how many chapters already written, how many in progress, which conferences I will be attending.)
Some Tips (again from others):
1) The ACLS funds only the last year of dissertation writing. So DO NOT SAY YOUR RESEARCH IS NOT COMPLETE. This is really important. You can say (I did) that you will make one final SHORT fieldvisit to accomplish specific tasks. But on the whole say your research is complete and you are now going to only write.
2) The Timeline is really really important. If you are short on time, and you are planning 9 chapters in your dissertation, by all means stick to your plan and write them, but for the proposal describe a 5 chapter diss. The point being that the ACLS has to think your timeline for completion is reasonable and doable within the time you set out. So if you say you will write 1 chapter a month (and this may be your writing pace, I know folks who write this fast), to a normal person this sounds unreasonable.
Hope this helps. Good luck to everyone 
 
 

I applied to F-H in the past. I was told to never use my referees as language evaluators when I applied. Are you in an anthro department? What's your foreign language? Language evaluators are usually from your university's modern languages departments, or other qualified language instructors/faculty on your campus (but outside your department). This may require getting in contact with people you don't know and setting up an appointment to have them evaluate you! 
On the priority fields, F-H is very strict --- that is one of the things that makes it hardest to get one in my opinion! The US government (yes, even the dept of education!) wants to fund "strategic" research abroad, and they'll give you all kinds of extra points if you fit the special language or topical parameters. The only people who were awarded Fulbright-Hays grants in my region when I applied scored ABOVE 100, because of all of those bonus point possibilities. Eek!

In my experience (I'm also in Western Hemisphere), your use of an indigenous language WILL definitely give you a leg up in Fulbright-Hays, even if it's not on the "strategic" list. So talk it up! Hooray! Nearly everyone I know in the Western Hemisphere who currently has a Fulbright-Hays speaks an indigenous language. (PS - you can look at past grantees on the website and see their project titles and where they are working). 
Sure, I think if you're in economic anthropology it totally counts as an "economic" study. And even if it doesn't, I don't think it will hurt you any to try to have your proposal reviewed under that heading. How many economists do you know are wanting to do intensive, area-studies oriented dissertation fieldwork (i.e. the kind of work funded by Fulbright-Hays)? This is quite uncommon in economics, so if reviewers interpreted this category narrowly they wouldn't have people to give grants to! Good luck!!
 

I did not get this fellowship - but for anyone who stumbles upon this thread in the future, they chose four winners out of ~350 applications. 

Thanks farflung! My foreign language is an indigenous Central American language that is NOT in the DOE's less commonly taught languages list... I'll try to make the case that it is a strategic language (it really is...) but it seems unlikely for me to get the extra points. I will definitely need to use an evaluator who does not work for my university. 
But, another question: if my project is on economic anthropology, do you think that will count as an "economic" study? Or do you they really only want economists applying under that heading?
Thanks again!