The Clark Art Institute’s Research and Academic Program (RAP) awards funded residential fellowships to established and promising scholars with the aim of fostering a critical commitment to inquiry in the theory, history, and interpretation of art and visual culture.

As part of our commitment to fostering diverse engagements with the visual arts, RAP particularly seeks to elevate constituencies, subjects, and methods that have historically been underrepresented in the discipline. In addition to the general Clark Fellowships, which are open to any topic, time period, and geographic focus, RAP offers a number of special fellowships for specific research interests that are intended to nurture a variety of disciplinary approaches and support new voices in art history. These include:

The Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation Fellowship
The Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation Fellowship supports projects that radically advance feminist perspectives and equal representation in the canon of art history. The Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation is a feminist non-profit organization dedicated to being a resource and strategic partner for social and environmental justice by protecting and advocating for women and girls for the purpose of advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the arts and sciences.

Caribbean Art and Its Diasporas Fellowship
The Caribbean has been home to some of the most influential critical theorists, poets, writers, and artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This fellowship seeks to support art historians, artists, critics, and writers who are engaging with the complexity of critical Caribbean scholarship, art, and visual practices today.

Critical Race Theory and Visual Culture Fellowship
The emergence of critical race theory in legal scholarship and beyond demonstrated the systemic racism that structures American society based on white privilege and the legacy of white supremacy. In art history and visual culture, critical race theory has revealed the racist structures within the discipline and its institutions. This fellowship aims to support scholars who are working with critical race theory to integrate and reimagine new art histories while also engaging with the structural racism that has informed and built the discipline.

Futures Fellowship
This fellowship supports artists, educators, scholars, writers, and art critics who are reimagining the possibilities of museums, scholarship, and public engagement. Projects that examine social justice and the arts, reimagine the canon of art history, or consider the role of performance art in exposing erased histories are particularly welcome.

All fellows are provided offices in the open-stack, 280,000-volume art history library of the Manton Research Center; apartments in the gracious residence across the street from our 140-acre campus; reimbursement of travel expenses; and a stipend. Fellowships typically last for one semester, but longer- and shorter-term opportunities are available.

For more information and application details, please visit clarkart.edu/rap/fellowship

Applications due by October 15, 2021