The Met: Fellowship in History of Art and Visual Culture: Slifka Foundation Interdisciplinary Fellowship Grant

The Met: Fellowship in History of Art and Visual Culture offers a unique opportunity for scholars to engage with the museum's vast collections. Designed for PhD students and established scholars, this fellowship promotes interdisciplinary research that combines art history with other fields. Fellows work on independent projects while potentially assisting curatorial departments. With stipends of up to $57,000 and additional travel funds, this program fosters a vibrant community of scholars dedicated to redefining art history.

Fellowships
Applicants come from diverse backgrounds and nationalities and vary widely in their perspectives and training. Each year, The Met creates a close knit community of scholars whose individual interests collectively illuminate the Museum's collection of artworks spanning 5,000 years of human creativity. Exploring new avenues of research in the history of art and visual culture, education, public practice, and critical theory, fellows expand, challenge, and actively redefine the very limits and purview of these disciplines by introducing fresh ideas drawn from philosophy, anthropology, museum studies, historiography, conservation, and the material sciences.
Applicants submit a specific, independent research project that makes use of the Museum's collection and resources. Accepted fellows spend the majority of their time working on their proposed project.
Many fellows will have an opportunity to assist the hosting curatorial departments with projects that complement their approved proposal. Not all departments request this assistance.
There are several subcategories of fellowships included within the Fellowship in History of Art and Visual Culture. However, applicants need not specify the endowed awards for which they would like to be considered, as all determinations are made by the Museum’s Grants Committee:
Theodore Rousseau Fellowships support 12 months of travel abroad to conduct research related to paintings collections in Europe.Slifka Foundation Interdisciplinary Fellowships combine art historical research with training in the technical investigation of The Met collection. Applicants must apply to work on a specific project sponsored by the Museum.
Fellowship Period
The fellowship period is September 1 through August 31. All fellowships must take place within this period. All fellows, with the one exception of Theodore Rousseau Fellows, must be in residence at The Met for the entirety of their 12-month fellowship period.
Funding
The number of fellowships awarded depends on funds and resources available. Junior fellows receive a stipend of $47,000. Senior fellows receive a stipend of $57,000. Both junior and senior fellows also receive up to an additional $6,000 for travel (maximum of six weeks).

Eligibility

History of Art and Visual Culture fellowships are only available to those who are currently enrolled in a PhD program or who have already received their doctorates - with the exception of Slifka Foundation Interdisciplinary fellows, Polaire Weissman Fund fellows, and Diamonstein-Spielvogel fellows, who have completed a master's degree. Predoctoral fellowships are available to those applicants who are working on their PhD at the time that they submit their application. Senior fellowships are available to those who hold a PhD on the date of application and/or are well-established scholars.We encourage applications from those with backgrounds in fields including, but not limited to, the history of art and architecture, critical theory, media studies, anthropology and archaeology, linguistics and philology, literature, linguistics, theology and religious studies, and musicology.The Fellowship Program is open to and regularly hosts international scholars. However, due to changes in travel and visa restrictions, which have fluctuated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Museum cannot guarantee that international scholars will be able to travel to New York for the fellowship period. Please consult the U.S. Department of State and New York State websites for updates on the current status of international and interstate travel. While we will make reasonable efforts to accommodate future unforeseen changes, we are unable to modify program dates on an individual basis.Applicants may only apply for one type of fellowship per application cycle. The only exception to this is the History of Art and Visual Culture Fellowship, which can be applied to concurrently with the Leonard A. Lauder Fellowship and the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellowship.

Ineligibility

We are unable to accept proposals for exhibitions, symposia, or similar programs. Applications in which such a project is the major objective of the proposal will be disqualified.