Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) Student Competition

To enable humanities and social science graduate students to conduct preliminary research and prepare dissertation research and funding proposals, the Social Science Research Council offers Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowships. Fellows participate in two proposal preparation workshops and receive up to $5,000 in support of research during the summer of 2010.

The fellowship competition is open to all second and third-year graduate students in any discipline of the social sciences and humanities who are currently enrolled full time in a PhD program at an accredited university in the United States and whose research projects and dissertation proposals fit within one of the six research fields listed below.

Students awarded fellowships must participate in two four-day workshops led by leading scholars of different disciplinary perspectives in each of the fields. Workshop dates are June 3-6, 2010 in San Diego, CA and September 16-19, 2010 in Philadelphia, PA. The fellowship covers all
necessary costs of travel, meals, and lodging for the workshops.

2010 Research Fields:

After Secularization: New Approaches to Religion and Modernity
Vincent P. Pecora (University of Utah, English)
Jonathan Sheehan (University of California - Berkeley, History)

Discrimination Studies
Samuel R. Lucas (University of California - Berkeley, Sociology)
Lisa G. Materson (University of California - Davis, History)

Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Contentious Politics
Doug McAdam (Stanford University, Sociology)
Sidney Tarrow (Cornell University, Government)

Multiculturalism, Immigration, and Identity in Western Europe and the United States
Nancy Foner (City University of New York Graduate Center, Sociology)
Christophe Bertossi (Institut français des relations internationales, Political Science)

Spaces of Inquiry
Stuart W. Leslie (The Johns Hopkins University, History of Science and Technology)
Carla Yanni (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Art History)

Virtual Worlds
Tom Boellstorff (University of California - Irvine, Anthropology)
Douglas Thomas (University of Southern California, Communication)


For full descriptions of the research fields, eligibility and application requirements, and the DPDF program, along with links to the SSRC Online Application Portal, visit our Web site