Scholars in Residence

Join our intellectual community for postdoctoral scholars.

Two researchers study an early modern atlas during a summer research program at the Newberry.

About the Program

The Newberry’s Scholars-in-Residence program provides an intellectual community for postdoctoral scholars conducting research in the library’s collection. Participants get designated research space, have access to the Newberry during extended hours, and are active participants in the Newberry’s scholarly community. No financial support is offered to Scholars in Residence.

Scholars in Residence are expected to be in residence at the Newberry as needed, publish or otherwise disseminate their research, and participate in the Newberry’s community. Residency can be renewed; acceptance is contingent upon participation in events and yearly attendance.

Applications for the program are accepted each year on a rolling basis. Applicants will be notified of their status within one month of submitting their application.

Current Scholars in Residence

Christopher Allison, Dominican University
Sacred Space in the Early American Midwest

Priscilla Archibald, Roosevelt University
Symphonic America: Hemispheric Collaborations and the Politics of Transamerican Literary Exchange

Lydia Barnett, Northwestern University
Earth Work: Gender, Labor, and Environment in Early Modern Europe

James Barrett, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Chicago: A People’s History

Karen-Edis Barzman, Binghamton University
Government Mapping in Early Modern Venice and the Origins of GIS

Jamie Bolker, Independent Scholar
Before GPS: Wayfinding in Early America

Anston Bosman, Amherst College
Trans-Indigenous Shakespeare: Native Takeovers in Translation and Performance

Melissa Bradshaw, Loyola University Chicago
The Amy Lowell Letters Project

Dana Brown, Roosevelt University

The Sauer Approach to Piano Playing: structural and harmonic principles of music, as defined through the various suspended and weighted arm techniques

William Brooks, University of York
American Sheet Music, 1880 to 1920

Julia Buck, Independent Scholar
Chicago Brickwork: Materials, Labor, and Industrialists in the Making of the Second City

Tony Burroughs, Genealogist, FUGA (Fellow Utah Genealogical Association)
Slave Schedule Study

Salvatore Calomino, University of Wisconsin Madison
Anna Bahr-Mildenburg: Memoirs, Part 2; Christoph Willibald von Gluck as Innovator and Traditionalist

Federica Caneparo, University of Chicago
Painting Ovid in Italian: Anguillara’s Translation of the Metamorphoses and its Impact on the Visual Arts

Alex E. Chávez, University of Notre Dame
Audible City: Urban Cultural History, Latinx Chicago, and the Sonic Commons

Ronald Corthell, Purdue University Northwest
Robert Southwell and Catholic Melancholy

Delia Cosentino, DePaul University
Resurrecting Tenochtitlan: Imagining the Aztec Capital in Modern Mexico City

Penelope Dean, University of Illinois at Chicago
Game Plans

Diane Dillon, Independent Scholar
The Visual Culture of the 1893 World’s Fair

Roger Ferlo, Bexley Seabury Seminary Federation
Shakespeare Studies and the Turn to Religion

Allyson Field, University of Chicago
Minstrelsy-Vaudeville-Cinema

Kelly Fleming, University of Virginia
Ornaments of Influence: Fashion Accessories and the Work of Politics in Eighteenth-Century British Literature

Stephen Foster, Northern Illinois University
New England in the British Empire: Religion, Politics, and Society, 1690-1750

Lisa Freeman, University of Illinois at Chicago
Contemporary Playwrights of Color and the Canonical Stage: Metaphors and Materialities

Ginger Frere, Independent Scholar
Chicago before the Great Fire

Rachel Galvin, University of Chicago
Latinx Poetry of the Americas

Timothy Gilfoyle, Loyola University Chicago
Singer’s Invention, Inventing Singer: Isaac Merritt Singer, Edward Clark and the Creation of the Sewing

Shawn Gillen, Beloit College
"Kilroy was Here”: James T. Farrell’s and Richard Wright’s Washington Park

Adam Goodman, University of Illinois at Chicago
Made in América: The Origins of the Central American Refugee Crisis

Elliott Gorn, Loyola University Chicago
Colma: San Francisco's Necropolis

Theresa Gross-Diaz, Loyola University Chicago
The Psalms and the Active Life: Cultural contexts of medieval Latin commentaries on the Psalms

Katherine Gustafson, Indiana University NorthwestNovel Marketing, Novel Writing, and the Development of the Adolescent, 1740-1815

Katie Hickerson, University of Chicago
Mortal Struggles: Death and Empire in the Nile Valley, 1850-1925

Beatrix Hoffman, Northern Illinois University
Chicago Health Care History: The Origins and Persistence of Disparities

Fred Hoxie, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Settler Colonialism in Hawai'i

Thomas Kernan, Roosevelt University
The Great Emancipator/The Great Commoner: Music, Memory, and the Changing Lincoln Repertoire

Robert Ketterer, The University of Iowa
Classical reception in 17th- and 18th-century opera and song

Nicholas Kryczka, The American Historical Association
Mapping the Landscape of Secondary US History Education

Ann Kuzdale, Chicago State University
Opera Omnia and Patristic Authority: a case study of Gregory the Great

Greg Laski, United State Air Force Academy
Reconstructing Revenge: Race and Justice after the Civil War

Della Leavitt, Independent Scholar
Beyond Maxwell Street: 1911-1956

Ruth Lopez, Journalist
Miss Jennie Curtis

Debra Mancoff, Independent Scholar
Looking at Fashion: A Guide to Terms, Styles, and Techniques and How Art Is Made

Andrew Mattison, University of Toledo
Reading the Literary Past: Interpretation and the History of Criticism

Rowena McClinton, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Cherokee leader Chuquileatague or Doublehead (c.1744-1807): His Odyssey from Warrior to Diplomat to Pariah

Mark McGarvie, American Bar Foundation
The Militia and the Second Amendment

Christopher McKee, Grinnell College
Are You Prepared to Appear before the Dread Tribunal? Death, Sin, and Religious Faith on the Navy’s Lower Deck

Jennifer McNutt, Wheaton College
The Bible for Refugees: A History of the Early Modern French Protestant Bible, 1535-1805

Omar McRoberts, University of Chicago
Black Public Religion and Social Welfare Policy Since the New Deal

Walter Melion, Emory University
Praying through Prints: Affective Piety and Image-Based Devotion in Dutch and Flemish Prayerbooks, 1480-1680

Francesca Morgan, Northeastern Illinois University
Representations of Pilgrims, Plymouth Colony, and the Mayflower in American Memory since 1945

Peter Nekola, Imago Mundi
Redrawing the World: Maps and Legacies of 1919

Kirk Nickel, Independent Scholar and Curator
The Enigmatic Image in Renaissance Brescia

Brian O’Camb, Indiana University Northwest
Scribes, Proverbs, and the Making of Early English Poetry

Emmanuel Ortega, University of Illinois at Chicago
Visualizing Franciscan Anxiety and the Distortion of Native Resis- tance: The Domesticating Mission

Teresa Prados-Torreira, Columbia College Chicago
The Price of Laughter: Art Young's Dilemmas

Sheryl Reiss, Independent Scholar
Taxonomies of Women's Patronage in Early Modern Italy: Historiographic Reflections and New Directions/A Portrait of a Medici Maecenas: Giulio de' Medici (Pope Clement VII) as Patron of Art/Reconsidering Raphael

Alicia Schatteman, Northern Illinois University
Betwixt and Between: Lea Demarest Taylor and the Chicago Commons Settlement House

Eleanor Schneider, Independent Scholar
Reforming Boys: the dissolution of the Grammar Schools and the English

Elizabeth Shermer, Loyola University Chicago
The Business of Education

Jeffrey Sklansky, University of Illinois at Chicago
The Reconstruction of Land Ownership on America's Middle Border, 1850-1900

Susan Sleeper Smith, Michigan State University
Conquest and Resistance: Dispossessing Native Nations and Mixed Ancestry People in the Trans-Appalachian West

David Spatz, Independent Scholar
Expressway Building and the Transformation of Metropolitan Chicago

Richard Squibbs, DePaul University
Antagonizing the Novel: Picaresque, Comic Fiction, and the Origins of the Bildungsroman

Joseph Stadolnik, Independent Scholar
The Unsettled Life of Duarte Brandão

Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times
Every Goddamn Day: A Highly Selective, Definitely Opinionated, and Alternatingly Heartbreaking and Humorous Historical Tour of Chicago

Jane Stevens, Illinois State Museum
Historical and Contemporary Native Art

Marin Sullivan, Independent Curator
Modern Maker: Edgar Miller in Chicago

Ryan Taycher, Roosevelt University
The Foundation of Discant: Structure and Ornament in Medieval Music Theory

Andrew Trees, Roosevelt University
Forgotten Founders: Five lost stories that changed America

Emily E. LB. Twarog, University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign
Hands Off: A History of Sexual Harassment Resistance in the US Service Sector

Mara Wade, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Emblems and Nürnberg

Jack Weiner, Northern Illinois University
Spanish literature and the Thirty Years War (1618-1648)

Bob Williams, University of Chicago Press
History of teaching calligraphy

Samuel H. Williamson, Miami University and MeasuringWorth
Measuring the relative worth of things in the past

James Zychowicz, A-R Editions, Inc.
Re-evaluating Mahler Reception

Robert Holland, Chicago Map Society
Map Research

Art Holzheimer, Independent Scholar
History of Cartography

Merritt Morgan, Independent Scholar
Essence of the Benevolent Empire in New York, the 1820s to the 1840s

Özgül Ozdemir, Stanford University
Slavery and Abolition in 19th Century in the Red Sea

Samantha Smith, Michigan State University
Nightlife in Chicago and Las Vegas

Tim Soriano, University of Illinois at Chicago
The Royal Navy, Legal Pluralism, and Authority in Sierra Leone 1785-1820

Paul F. Gehl, The Newberry Library
Early Printing; Book Trade History

John Aubrey, The Newberry Library
The Newberry Ayer Collection

David Buisseret, The Newberry Library
Edition of the Mémoires of Sully

Robert Karrow, The Newberry Library
Historical Cartography

Father Peter J. Powell, St. Augustine’s Center for American Indians
History of Northern Cheyenne Ledger Book Art

Paul Saenger, The Newberry Library
Medieval French Manuscripts

Apply to Be a Scholar in Residence

We accept applications through a portal called SlideRoom.

If you have any questions about SlideRoom or any other part of the application process, please send us an email.

  • All application materials must be submitted together electronically through SlideRoom.
  • The Newberry will not accept re-submissions of materials. Once an application has been submitted, the Newberry will not accept any revisions or updates.
  • The Newberry will not accept application materials through postal or electronic mail.
  • PDF files are preferred but not required. The server will accept .doc, .docx, or .pdf files.
  • After you have successfully submitted your application, you will receive a confirmation email from SlideRoom.

Apply Now

  • The application asks for contact information, project information, and other details pertaining to being a Scholar in Residence at the Newberry.
  • A project description of no more than 1,000 words. This document should describe your research project, explain its significance, enumerate the Newberry materials to be consulted, and outline a plan of work

    Please note
    that candidates’ need for the Newberry’s collection is a crucial factor in our consideration of applications. Thus, please be as specific as possible about the Newberry materials you would like to use. When appropriate, please make specific reference to previous published scholarship that will be revised or supplanted by the proposed project.
  • A current Curriculum Vitae (CV) of no more than five pages. Please use the following commonly accepted terms to describe forthcoming publications:
    • “in progress” (not yet completed or submitted)
    • “submitted” (currently under review at a journal or press)
    • “accepted” (contracted for publication; currently under revision)
    • “in press” (in the hands of copy editor, typesetter, or printer)

Apply Now

The Newberry will not accept applications which include any materials in excess of the required materials. Excessive materials include but are not limited to:

  • Images (either embedded or in appendices)
  • Project descriptions, appendices, or bibliographies exceeding the word limit
  • CVs longer than the five-page limit
  • Personal cover letters
  • Audio-visual materials

Apply Now

The Newberry Collection

Get to know the Newberry's 11 core collections, ranging from postcards and maps to medieval, Renaissance, and early modern studies.

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