John Carter Brown Library (JCB) Short-Term Research Fellowships at Brown University

The John Carter Brown Library supports scholarship centered on the history of the colonial Americas, North and South, including all aspects of African, European, and Native American engagements in both global and comparative contexts. The Library contains one of the world’s premier collections of primary materials related to the discovery, exploration, and settlement of the New World to 1825, including books, maps, newspapers, and other printed objects.

Short-term fellowships are available for periods of two to four consecutive months and carry a stipend of $2,500 per month. The JCB supports both residential and remote Short-term fellowships.

Long Term Fellowship

Applicants of all nationalities will be considered for long-term fellowships. Long-term fellowships are open to researchers that have completed a PhD program, including the successful defense of their dissertation.  Long-Term Fellowships are available for periods of five to ten months and carry a monthly stipend of $5,000.  Long-term fellowships must be residential.

Short Term Fellowship

The John Carter Brown Library supports scholarship centered on the history of the colonial Americas, North and South, including all aspects of African, European, and Native American engagements in both global and comparative contexts. Short-term fellowships are open to individuals who are engaged in pre- and post-doctoral, or independent research, regardless of nationality.  Short-term fellowships are available for periods of two to four consecutive months and carry a stipend of $2,500 per month. The JCB supports both residential and remote Short-term fellowships.

John Carter Brown Research Fellowship for Indigenous Communities

The John Carter Brown (JCB) Library, located on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, stewards a research collection focused on the histories and cultures of the Early Americas. The Library is free and open to the public with appointments required for research visits, and operates a robust fellowship program to support researchers across myriad research topics. The JCB invites tribal communities and community members to apply to its Research Fellowship for Indigenous Communities. This fellowship supports community-prioritized and community-based research that would benefit from research time in the JCB’s collections, that could  be undertaken, for example, by Native or Indigenous scholars, Elders, Tribal librarians or archivists, and knowledge keepers.

Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice and John Carter Brown Library Joint Fellowship

The John Carter Brown Library (JCB) and the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University (Simmons Center) invite applications for a postdoctoral fellowship focused on any area/theme of historical scholarship around African racial slavery, and/ or Indigenous dispossession and slavery. The fellowship is also open to scholars working on the relationships between African slavery and Indigenous slavery and dispossession as well as related issues of freedom and sovereignty. Combining the mission and resources of the Simmons Center and the JCB, we expect to support a single fellow doing advanced research for a year (12 months) in residence beginning July 2026. The Simmons Center-JCB postdoctoral fellowship is expected to be offered annually in recognition of our collective commitment to advance scholarship in critical areas. Applications representing a wide range of disciplinary perspectives are welcome.
The position salary is $72,000, includes benefits and a modest research account.

The J. M. Stuart Graduate Fellowship

The J. M. Stuart Graduate Fellowship is open to Brown Ph.D. students in the Humanities or Social Sciences whose dissertation topic relates to the early history and culture of the Americas and whose research and writing would benefit from privileged and sustained access to the resources of the John Carter Brown Library. Stuart Fellows are full members of the international community of scholars in residence at the Library in any given year. In addition, although Stuart fellows are primarily engaged in dissertation research, a distinctive component of this fellowship is the opportunity to gain deeper scholarly command of the collections by working closely with leading curatorial experts on a Library project—such as an exhibition, publication, or website—germane to the fellow’s area of interest.