Scholarships for Humanities Scholars

[Lord Horatio]

I was wondering if anyone might be able to give me a clue regarding scholarships for graduates in the humanities field (I'm an English Lit student), or even scholarships that don't require applicants to be from a certain field.

I'm mostly interested in scholarships that are not school-specific, i.e. NOT Purdue's ____ scholarship, or Berkeley's _____ fellowship. Also, I am definitely not limiting my search to big time fellowships and grants, since even minor scholarships, say $250-$1000 awards would be enormously helpful for covering expenses like books and money to attend conferences, etc.

Maybe I am being naive and sniffing after awards that don't exist – the multifarious missing links, yeti's of financial aid – but any leads here would be hugely appreciated.

[runonsentence]

Are you currently in a grad program or in the process of applying?

If you're in the process of applying, it may help for you to know that most of the smaller awards you speak of—a really good example being conference/travel money—are awarded through universities. This varies hugely by school (for instance, I have a friend at Purdue in the rhet/comp program, and she tells me that they don't have ANY travel funding), but generally that's where you're going to find smaller pools you're talking about.

For instance, at my university I'm eligible for an automatic $400/year for conference presentations (that is, by automatic I mean it's not competitive), plus there's an additional competitive source of funding for travel through an endowment. The endowment also has competitive "enrichment" grants of $2500/year for research activities like institute sessions, travel to archives, etc. We also have a smaller number of other awards sitting around the department (a small summer research fellowship of $1k, a $200 annual writing prize, etc.) and a few other competitive grants available through the university/graduate school at large.

In all, if you're in the process of applying, I'd spend MUCH more time looking into programs that offer funding that you can live on and professionalization funds, rather than trying to cobble together outside sources. I'd recommend you take a school's ability to fund professionalization into account when looking at schools or deciding between acceptances; I certainly did so during my last application round.

If you're a current grad looking to help keep costs down: certain conferences sometimes award graduate student grants as well, for travel; competitiveness varies by conference. (MLA, for instance, must be nigh-unto-impossible to get; travel grants at the much smaller Computers & Writing conference are insanely easy to get; awards are also available for rhet/comp students who join the WPA-GO, I know.) Some of the larger professional organizations also have awards available that carry cash prizes, though I'd expect them to be fairly coveted.

Edited June 3, 2011 by runonsentence

[Lord Horatio]

I am midway through the MA program in Literary, Cultural, and Textual Studies at UCF. I have an assistantship, but it doesn't cover the summer. As a result, I'm trying to scrounge some money for books (exam prep guides, certain stuff pertaining to my thesis). The graduate student association offers travel aid for conferences, probably not as much as $400 at my institution, but I'm certainly going to apply there. Thanks for the advice. Funding is definitely a top priority in my search for Ph.D. programs.