2022-24 Princeton Arts Fellow and songwriter Kamara Thomas in a developmental performance of her multidisciplinary storytelling work Tularosa: An American Dreamtime at Princeton. Photo credit: Shakiru Bola Okoya

The Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University is now accepting applications from artists in all artistic disciplines for two opportunities, the Princeton Arts Fellowship and the Hodder Fellowship. The Fellowships web page contains details and links to the online applications. Both applications are due by September 10, 2024.

About the Princeton Arts Fellowship

Princeton Arts Fellowships are awarded to artists whose achievements have been recognized as demonstrating extraordinary promise in any area of artistic practice and teaching. Applicants should be early career visual artists, filmmakers, composers, conductors, musicians, choreographers, poets, novelists, playwrights, designers, directors and performance artists—this list is not meant to be exhaustive—who would find it beneficial to spend time teaching and working in an artistically vibrant university community. Fellows spend two consecutive academic years (September 1-July 1) at Princeton and formal teaching is expected. The normal work assignment will be to teach one course each semester subject to approval by the Dean of the Faculty, but fellows may be asked to take on an artistic assignment in lieu of a class, such as directing a play or creating a dance with students. Although the teaching load is light, the expectation is that Fellows will be full and active members of the Princeton community, committed to frequent and engaged interactions with students during the academic year.

A $92,000 a year stipend is provided for each of the two years. As academic appointees, fellows are eligible for benefits during the two fellowship years. Fellows also have access to research funds.

One need not be a U.S. citizen to apply. Applicants can only apply for the Princeton Arts Fellowship twice in a lifetime. Past recipients of the Hodder Fellowship and individuals who have had a sustained and continuous relationship with Princeton are not eligible to apply.

Holders of Ph.D. degrees from Princeton are not eligible to apply. Fellowships are not intended to fund work leading to an advanced degree.

Through the online portal, Princeton Arts Fellowship applicants should include a curriculum vitae; contact information for three references; work samples (i.e., a writing sample, images of work, video links to performances, etc.); and a 750-word proposal that includes how the applicant would hope to use the two years of the fellowship to develop their work, how they would contribute to Princeton’s arts community through teaching and/or production, and how they have encouraged diversity and inclusion and furthered accessibility in your artistic practice, teaching, and/or research.

Typically, two new Princeton Arts Fellows are selected each year.

Princeton Arts Fellowships are funded in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, David E. Kelley Society of Fellows in the Arts, and the Maurice R. Greenberg Scholarship Fund.

About the Hodder Fellowship

Open to artists demonstrating “much more than ordinary intellectual and literary gifts,” the Hodder Fellowship is awarded to artists more “for promise than for performance,” enabling them to pursue an independent project for one academic year. Potential Hodder Fellows are composers, choreographers, performance artists, visual artists, writers, translators, or other kinds of artists or humanists. Given the strength of the applicant pool, most successful Fellows have published a first book or have similar achievements in their own fields; the Hodder is designed to provide Fellows with the “studious leisure” to undertake significant new work. No teaching is required.

A $92,000 stipend is provided for this 10-month appointment as a Visiting Fellow. Fellows are eligible for benefits during the length of the fellowship and have access to research funds.

One need not be a U.S. citizen to apply for the Hodder Fellowship and applicants may apply in each new application cycle. Previous recipients of the Princeton Arts Fellowship are not eligible to apply. Fellowships are not intended to fund work leading to an advanced degree.

Through the online portal, Hodder Fellowship applicants should include a curriculum vitae, a 500-word project proposal, and samples of work (i.e., writing sample, images of your work, video links to performances, etc.).

Typically, five Hodder Fellows are selected in each cycle.

The Mary Mackall Gwinn Hodder Fellowship program is funded by the Charles John Morris Gwinn and Alfred Hodder Memorial Fund.

The online application must be submitted no later than 11:59 p.m. (ET) on September 10, 2024; late applications will not be accepted.

History of the Fellowships

The Hodder Fellowship dates back to the 1940s and was historically awarded only to literary artists. Earlier recipients include the poet John Berryman (1950) and the critic R.P. Blackmur (1944), as well as novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2005) and Anthony Doerr (2003), whose novel All the Light We Cannot See won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Today, the Hodder is open to artists in all disciplines, and recent fellows have included playwrights, choreographers, filmmakers, and visual artists as well as writers, such as Natalie Diaz, Mark Thomas Gibson, Jamil Kochai, Mario Moore, Jiehae Park, Martyna Majok, Okwui Okpokwasili, Will Rawls, and Leslie Cuyjet.

The Princeton Arts Fellowship was launched in 2013. Among the 26 fellows to date are Raja Feather Kelly, jaamil olawale kosoko, yuniya edi kwon, Michael J. Love, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Christopher “Unpezverde” Núñez, Erika L. Sánchez, Danez Smith, Kamara Thomas, and Maysoon Zayid.

Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about the fellowships and the Lewis Center for the Arts.