News | 2 April 2025

CFA: 2025-2026 Oaxacan Languages Public Fellowships

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Application Deadline: Monday May 5th, 2025
Please note that we do not accept any late application materials (including letters of recommendation).

Amount: $6,000 Summer 2025 fellowship and $12,000 per quarter (Fall 2025, Winter 2026, and Spring 2026) + in-state tuition and fees

Number of awards: 3. Fellowships are contingent on an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant that was awarded in 2024.  

We are seeking three THI Public Fellows for one year (Summer 2025-Spring 2026). These Public Fellows will work as a team at Senderos and the Santa Cruz Museum of Art of History to design an exhibition on Latine/o/x language and identity in the Central Coast, tentatively set for Spring 2027. Public Fellows will assist at the MAH on curatorial, archival, and exhibitional duties, expand their skills in museum studies and public programming while also developing materials for the exhibition. Public Fellows will collectively recruit three undergraduate fellows to assist with research, archival work, curatorial work, and exhibition development including early prototyping.

The Public Fellows will incorporate issues in linguistic history, language processing, and multilingualism to design an exhibition on “Oaxacan Languages of the Central Coast” at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH), a participatory museum for art, history, and community in coastal California that supports a large range of programming for Latine audiences.

The Spring 2027 exhibition will consider four interlocking themes: a) language science, b) Indigenous Oaxacan languages, c) language and identity, and d) language and history in the Monterey Bay. We are seeking Public Fellows whose research interests align with these themes. Public Fellows should indicate which themes they would like to work on and propose an idea for a potential exhibition project as part of their application.

For example, on the more language science end, Public Fellows may design materials that expose audiences to the differences in monolingual and multilingual language processing. As speakers of various languages, we all have a vast storehouse of subconscious knowledge. By foregrounding that subconscious knowledge in each audience member and using it to contextualize and compare English, Spanish, and Indigenous Oaxacan languages, we believe that we can both bridge linguistic gaps and guide audience members in reflecting on the relationship between language and identity in their own lives.

On the more historical end, Public Fellows may propose to conduct archival work and design exhibition projects that highlight resonant historical contests over language in the Central Coast. The region has always been home to great linguistic richness, yet in the years following European settlement, language was increasingly used as an instrument of social control as well as a powerful marker of identity.  Monterey, which served as a center of governance for the rest of California under changing rule by – Spain, Mexico, and the U.S.  Sharing the complex linguistic story of the Monterey Bay provides a rare opportunity to engage people in critical reflection on the source of their beliefs about and attitudes toward the language of others, while reflecting on the ways that institutions such as libraries and museums often silence speakers of less privileged languages.

THI Public Fellows will receive hands-on career training in contemporary museum practice, archival research, and community-engaged scholarship. They will have access to research and expertise of a diverse team of faculty from Languages and Applied Linguistics, Linguistics, and Literature, scholars in special collections and the community archiving program in the Library, staff at the MAH, specialists from the non-profit Senderos, and the team at The Humanities Institute.

About the Project
“Oaxacan Languages of the Transnational Central Coast: American Latino Identities, Languages, and Indigeneities in the 21st century” is a three year project supported by grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Center for Comparative Language Sciences (CLaS), and The Humanities Institute. Learn more at: https://thi.ucsc.edu/projects/oaxacan-languages-of-the-transnational-central-coast.

Eligibility:

  • A PhD student in a graduate program in any department in the Humanities Division, Social Sciences Division, or Arts Division (Important: in order to fill out the application, you must show your departmental affiliation by adding a primary organization on your InfoReady profile)
  • Within normative time and in good academic standing
  • Enrolled in at least five credits of graduate-level coursework (students are ineligible to apply while on leave)

Selection Criteria include:

  • Research strength in at least one of the four exhibition themes
  • Strength of potential exhibition project in terms of originality, connection with exhibition themes, and feasibility within the proposed timeline
  • Ability to co-create scholarship with community partners and a demonstrated interest in public humanities and community-engaged research.
  • Clear awareness and sensitivity to complex issues around indigeneity, language, identity, and other important topics the exhibition will address.
  • Evidence of leadership skills, initiative, creativity, organization, excellent communication and collaboration, and follow-through.


Application:

  • Cover Letter (1-2 pages) outlining your interests in the position and your qualifications.
  • Project Proposal (2 pages) that contains the following:
    • discussion of a particular research question/issue to be investigated during the 2025-26 THI Public Fellowship
    • the relation between the question and the four themes of the exhibition
    • a general timeline for the 2025-26 THI Public Fellowship, including expected deliverables by the end of the fellowship period
    • preliminary ideas about how this research could be presented in the 2027 exhibition
  • 1-2 page curriculum vitae or resume
  • Contact information for your department Graduate Director who will be required to confirm through InfoReady that you will be within normative time and in good academic standing during the 2025 -2026 Academic Year (they will be prompted to do this after you submit your application).
  • Brief letter of support from a faculty member in your department, evaluating your academic work to date and skills you bring to the position. Advisors should submit their letters via InfoReady. When you click “Send Reference Letter Request” on a saved InfoReady draft application, your advisor will receive an email containing a unique link to a web page to upload their letter.
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Make sure you use the “Login for University of California, Santa Cruz Users.” Please follow the steps in our InfoReady Guide if this is your first time using InfoReady. We encourage you to start your application as soon as possible to familiarize yourself with the InfoReady platform. 

Questions? Please see our FAQ page or contact Saskia Nauenberg Dunkell, Research Programs and Communications Director, saskia@ucsc.edu.

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