2025-26 Chancellor Jackman Graduate Student Fellowships in the Humanities

January 29, 2025 by Sonja Johnston

The Jackman Humanities Institute (JHI) welcomes nominations from Humanities Departments and PhD granting Centres and Institutes for residential Chancellor Jackman Graduate Fellows (for post-funding cohort doctoral students) for the 2025-26 year. Each unit may nominate up to two candidates, selecting candidates through their graduate executive or by their graduate coordinator. Three awards will be made.

Eligibility

  • Open only to candidates from University of Toronto units affiliated with the JHI: humanities or social sciences disciplines at Arts & Sciences, UTM, and UTSC; Architecture; Law; Music; OISE; and the iSchool
  • Open to Canadian or international students
  • Applicants must be currently registered in the 2024-25 year in a PhD with 2025-26 as their final year, with completion of their PhD thesis anticipated by the end of the year
  • Candidates must be beyond the funded cohort in their fellowship year
  • All applicants must have two completed chapters of their thesis at the time of the application
  • No previous holder of a Chancellor Jackman Graduate Student Fellowship may apply. Current or previous Jackman Junior Fellows are eligible to apply
  • Fellowships will be awarded on the basis of excellence in scholarship and scholarly promise as well as the relevance of the thesis topic to the Annual Theme, Dystopia and Trust
  • All applicants must be nominated by their home unit; please contact your Graduate Coordinator if you plan to apply

Nomination Criteria

Up to two graduate students may be nominated by each unit.

Funding and Benefits

The value of a Chancellor Jackman Graduate Student Fellowship in the Humanities is normally $28,000 plus the cost of the year’s tuition fees and incidentals. Fellows may be assigned to research assistantships of a value up to $500 during their Fellowship.

Responsibilities and Expectations

As residential fellows, the graduate fellows will:

  • Have offices at the JHI on the 10th floor of the Jackman Humanities Building
  • Be in residence at the JHI for the academic year (September to June) and no longer need to travel for major research; limited travel funding is available to support minor research or conference travel
  • Participate regularly in JHI events, including weekly lunches, workshops and occasional public events
  • Present a lecture at a fellows’ lunch seminar
  • Participate in the life of the Institute
  • Not be permitted to take teaching assistant assignments during the Fall or Winter terms in order to allow for expedited research and writing
  • Produce a brief report summarizing fellowship research by end of May 2026 for inclusion in JHI’s Annual Report

Application Components

All applicants are to complete the online application with the following documents in a single PDF:

  • Dissertation Abstract and Fellowship Rationale: This document should contain your dissertation abstract plus a short rationale that explains why this fellowship on the Annual Theme (Dystopia and Trust) is a good fit for your research. Maximum length 1000 words.
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Writing Sample: This document should contain two chapters of your dissertation. It is understood that your work may be in progress at the time of the application.
  • Transcript or Academic History: Please upload your current transcript or Complete Graduate History from ACORN.
  • Brief Biography (100 words, for public announcement)
  • Brief Proposed Project Description (100 words, for public announcement)

Once an applicant submits, an automated email will be sent immediately to their supervisor and coordinator requesting a reference letter and a confirmation of support. Please make sure these names and email addresses are correct. The deadline for supervisors and coordinators to respond is 1 week (March 20, 2025) after the application deadline.

Selection Criteria

Graduate Fellows are selected by the 12-month Faculty Research Fellows who will hold their fellowships in 2024-25, as well as the JHI Director, based on:

  • Excellence in scholarship and scholarly promise
  • Relevance of the thesis topic to the annual theme

Application Timeline

  • Application Open: January 30, 2025
  • Application Deadline: Thursday, March 13, 2025, at 4:00pm EDT
  • Supervisor and Coordinator Deadline: March 20, 2025
  • Selection Notification: Mid-April, 2025  
  • Fellowship Period: July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026

Contact and Additional Resources

  • Check out our extensive FAQs about the Chancellor Jackman Graduate Student Fellowship in the Humanities (below)
  • Questions about this fellowship opportunity? Contact JHI Associate Director, Dr. Kimberley Yates
  • Technical questions about the application form or process? Contact JHI Communications Officer Sonja Johnston

 

2025-26: Dystopia and Trust

A new millennium, rapid advances in science and technology, and a new determination to fight social injustice could have encouraged dreams of utopia. Instead, as though from the predictable plot of some pulp sci-fi or true crime story, they seem to have delivered a nightmarish dystopia. Easy information has given way to facile misinformation, the promise of solidarity to faction and polarization, democracy to authoritarianism, supremacism, and the kleptocracy of the 1%. People all over the world have lost trust, not only in many major institutions of societies, but also in each other. Are these trends reversible? Can widespread political and social trust be achieved, within and across societies? If not, with what consequence? If so, how should the subjective, social scientific, and philosophical dimensions of our dystopia be analyzed and re-imagined? What possible utopia has our dystopia, if it is one, betrayed?

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Eligibility

No. You must be fully finished all funding from your original funding package. Please apply next year.

Yes, provided that you will be beyond your original departmental funding package and preparing for your final year of dissertation writing in 2025-26.

No. You must be registered as a student during the Fall and Winter terms of your fellowship year. If you plan to graduate in Summer 2026, you are eligible to apply.

Yes. If selected for this fellowship, you must be a registered student during your fellowship year in 2025-26. Please bear this in mind if your registration status has lapsed.

No. JHI is supported by, and in turn supports, the graduate students of University of Toronto units affiliated with the JHI: humanities or social sciences disciplines at the Faculty of Arts & Science, UTM, and UTSC; Architecture; Law; Music; OISE; and the iSchool. Doctoral students from other divisions are not eligible for this fellowship.

Yes, there is no conflict with this award.

Yes. Your tuition as an international student will be fully covered by the JHI if you are selected.

Nomination Process

Check our Eligibility Guidelines. If you are eligible, approach the faculty member who is your unit’s Graduate Chair or Graduate Coordinator (titles vary across the units). Make them aware that you are interested and eligible for this fellowship. Each unit may nominate up to two candidates for this award, and the process of determination lies with the unit. Please do not apply until you have the nomination.

JHI will contact the Graduate Chair of your unit to confirm which applicants are nominated, and only those two applications will be considered. All unsuccessful applicants will be notified when the selection process is complete.

JHI serves many units across three campuses and ten divisions. Some are large, and some are tiny. The nomination process is designed to ensure that the applicant pool contains roughly equal representation from every unit.

Responsibilities and Expectations

You will not be permitted to take work as a TA or CI during the Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 terms. You may take this work during the Summer terms of 2025 and 2026.

You should not be planning major research-related travel during 2025-26. You may miss brief parts of the year’s work in the Fall and Winter terms with notice, and JHI may be able to provide minor (up to $500) additional support for conference and interview-related travel.

You may move into your office in July 2025, and you will need to move out in June 2026. During this period, you will have 24/7 access to the JHI and to your office. You are expected to attend one meeting each week (Thursdays, 12-2) during the Fall and Winter terms.

JHI will organize a practice job talk if you want one; we can also loan you a laptop if you need to do online interviews from your office. JHI has an on-site Research Officer who can advise you on applications for external funding such as SSHRC postdoctoral fellowships.

You are welcome to meet with a small academic group in your office. Please keep it quiet to respect the writing processes of your fellow fellows. You are welcome to play a musical instrument (no amplifiers, please). You are welcome to bring your child to the JHI. Please don’t bring animals to the JHI, as we have a kitchen, and there may be others with animal allergies. You may not loan your office or keys to anyone else, even temporarily.

Application Components

Yes. You may submit unpolished versions of two chapters. This part of the application serves two functions – it tells us how far along you are, and it also tells us how you write. If you will be submitting partial or unpolished chapters, please address your writing process in your Rationale and Abstract document.

You can do this in two ways: either take a screenshot of every bit of your graduate academic record and compile these; or use the University of Toronto’s “download academic history” function in ACORN.

Please highlight the connections between your ideas, and the JHI theme in your Rationale and Abstract document. How is your research relevant to the theme? All of your fellow fellows will also be working on research related to the Annual Theme, and the conversation during the year will be centred on this theme.

Please write a full academic CV that outlines your academic publications, presentations, awards, and teaching. Here's a helpful tip sheet.

It is similar, but more focussed. It is intended to briefly introduce your research and plans and to demonstrate that your work will be a good fit with the JHI’s theme for 2025-26.

Selection Process

Graduate Fellows are selected by the 12-month Faculty Research Fellows who will hold their fellowships in 2025-26, as well as the JHI Director.

Fellowships are awarded on the basis of excellence in scholarship and scholarly promise as well as the relevance of the thesis topic to the annual theme.