At the center, we support the humanities graduate students of today as they find audiences for their work, both within and beyond academia, and plot careers both within and beyond the professoriate. We foster writing and collaborative communities crucial to the development of research that speaks across disciplines and draws on an array of methods. As a non-departmental unit supporting the humanities as a whole, we seek to connect graduate students with opportunities to do public-facing humanities work and to use their doctoral training in a variety of contexts.
For Students
Workshops for Graduate Students
Check this page for a continuously updated list of the humanities center’s periodic workshop offerings, both standalone and tied to the center’s events, for graduate students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Various deadlines; check website.
Graduate Student Fellowship
WashU graduate students writing dissertations in humanities disciplines spend a semester in residence with the humanities center during which they participate in the center’s intensive, interdisciplinary intellectual environment. Applications are due annually in April.
Public Humanities Graduate Summer Research Fellowship
This fellowship fosters public engagement by funding original writing and public-making activities that enable WashU graduate students in humanities and humanistic social sciences (Arts & Sciences) to connect with publics beyond the campus. Applications are due annually in April.
Reading and Writing Groups
The Center for the Humanities offers grants to tenured, tenure-track or teaching Washington University faculty in the humanities and humanistic social sciences and to Washington University humanities graduate students to support reading and writing groups on a particular subject or theme. The groups are self-organized by the participants, have an ongoing core membership and meet regularly throughout the academic year. Applications are due annually in February.
Mentored Professional Experience (MPE)
The Center for the Humanities is a participating unit in Arts & Sciences’ Office of Graduate Studies Mentored Professional Experience (MPE) program. Working with their staff mentors, students completing MPEs in the humanities center develop projects that engage with humanities impact reporting, project management, symposium and event planning, humanities program research and development, grant writing and/or community engagement. The center has three opportunities available each term: Graduate Mentor, Banned Books Undergraduate Research Fellowship; Graduate Mentor, Environmental Humanities Undergraduate Research Group; and Humanities Digital Communications. Check website for descriptions and instructions.
NEH Humanities@Work Internship Program
The Center for the Humanities’ Humanities@Work program is designed to support humanities PhD students pursuing work and internships in mission-driven organizations locally. Students will apply to the program, indicating their interest in one or two of several paid internship opportunities sponsored by the Center for the Humanities.
During the spring, all students in Humanities@Work will receive coaching and mentorship from center staff in conjunction with WashU’s Center for Career Engagement's PhD and Postdoc Career Community as they prepare for April interviews with the organizations themselves. Though not every student in the program will ultimately land one of the internships, all will receive crucial guidance on how to position themselves for work beyond the professoriate and how to leverage existing career preparedness resources on campus that are particularly useful to humanists. Each student hired for one of the internship positions will be paid $3000 for their work with the respective organization at an expected weekly commitment of 20 hours weekly for 8 weeks of summer 2027. All students hired for these internships will be expected to work in person in St. Louis.
