A fruitful field: Funding Islam, Near and Middle Eastern studies

The huge amount of attention currently directed towards the Near and Middle East and Arab culture is reflected in the considerable amount of research funding available on these topics worldwide. Alongside collaborative programs with Near East, Middle East and Maghreb countries and non-thematic research stays in countries of the Near and Middle East, fund┋it regularly lists funds and fellowships for scholars interested in this cultural and geographical space.
Here goes your fund┋it digest on Middle East, Near East and Islam studies – from a political, cultural, religious, historical or even agricultural perspective!
In the United States, both St. Joseph’s and Cornell run international fellowships on Near Eastern Studies and the History of Europe and the Middle East (call open until May 21st). In Singapore, the renowned Middle East Institute (MEI-NUS) offers 1 and 2-year fellowships for postdocs and for mid-career scholars in Middle Eastern Studies. Furthermore, Berlin’s Forum Transregionale Studien has just opened a call for postdoctoral fellowships on « Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe » (call open until May 9th).
Some programs deal more particularly with public policy or international relations of the region, such as the Harvard Middle East Initiative’s fellowships on Middle East public policy issues and the Mercator fellowships on German-Turkish relations at Istanbul Policy Center. More extraordinarily, Qatar University’s Social and Economic Survey Institute tenders 1-year fellowships on cultures, societies and public affairs of the Arab Gulf states (call open until May 15th).
For those more specifically interested in cultural and religious questions, the German-based Gerda Henkel foundation is currently calling for individual and group research projects on Islam, the modern nation-state and transnational movements from a historical perspective (calls open until May 27th). Every once in a while, interesting niche topics such as the Deccan, a partly Muslim influenced plateau region in central India, are at the focus of calls for applications such as the 6-month ASPS/MANUU fellowship program at National Urdu University Hyderabad (call open until May 15th). In the United States, Northwestern is running a 2-year fellowship program in Arab American and/or Muslim American studies, and another one in Turkish studies.
You can save a search made on fund┋it by clicking on « Save your search » on the left. You will then be notified once a call corresponding to your search criteria comes up!
In France, the three laboratories of excellence Religions and Societies in the Mediterranean context, Archeology and History of the Ancient Mediterranean and Egypt and LabexMed, as well as the Marseille Institute of Advanced Study Iméra regularly offer research opportunities on Mediterranean cultural studies – bookmark these institutions in your fund┋it user account and be notified as soon as one comes up ! For Mediterranean researchers, the ARIMnet2 call for collaborative projects on Mediterranean agricultural and food value chains, funded by several national research agencies all around the Mediterranean and currently open until June 1st, might also be of interest.
A vast amount of research interest – and funding – goes into archaelogical and historical research on the Near and Middle East – for obvious reasons. The Turkish Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (RCAC) at Koç University offers fellowships on Byzantine Art History and Archaeology, on Turkish Art History and Archaeology, and runs a joint fellowship on Italian-Byzantine relations with Harvard’s Villa I Tatti, in Florence. In Israel, the U.S. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR) offers short-term senior and junior fellowships in Near Eastern studies (calls open until October 15th), and the French École biblique et archéologique of Jerusalem offers 1-year fellowships in oriental archaeology and philology (call open until May 13th). In the United States, two 2-year fellowships on pre-modern Islamic art and architecture and on late ancient Near Eastern studies, respectively, are available at Ohio State.
In order to browse expired calls of one institution or one of your search criteria, click on « Show expired » on the right. You can then bookmark the call you’re interested in and be notified as soon as it opens again!