The Rossell Hope Robbins Library at the University of Rochester is pleased to invite applications for the Helen Ann Mins Robbins Fellowship in Medieval Studies. Its intent is to provide fellows with a year of research supported by the resources of the Robbins Library. Past fellows have worked on animal studies, manuscript studies and reading practices, translation and textual transmission, medieval clothing, Jews in medieval England, the Arthurian legend, courtesy books and manners, female advice figures, and more. They have led reading groups, curated exhibits, and organized movie screenings, lectures and symposia, and other programming.
The Robbins Library has outstanding holdings across medieval studies, with particular strengths in manuscript studies, the history of the book, high and late medieval history, literary studies, and medievalism, particularly Arthuriana. Our focus is on building and maintaining a global medieval studies collection and community. We sponsor and support a wide range of scholarly projects: the Middle English Text Series, the Camelot Project, and other digital projects. Together, the Robbins Library and the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation boast a growing collection of medieval and early modern manuscripts and print. The Sibley Library at the Eastman School of Music maintains an excellent manuscript collection, and the Miner Library offers an outstanding special collection dedicated to the history of medicine.
The University of Rochester boasts a vibrant community of medievalists and early modernists across disciplines and departments, including History, English, Art History, Music, Modern Languages, and Religion and Classics, alongside a variety of working and reading groups, lectures, workshops, and other events. Rochester offers numerous resources and opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and research, including the Digital Scholarship Lab, the Lazarus Project, Eastman School of Music, the Memorial Art Gallery, the Cary Graphic Arts Collection at RIT, R-CHIVE, and the Central New York Humanities Corridor, to name only a few.
Eligibility: The Fellow must be an advanced graduate student (ABD) in good standing, who is engaged full-time in researching and writing the dissertation. Ideally, they should have no more than one full year of dissertation work remaining at the start of the fellowship year.
Fellowship applications will open in Fall 2026.
Helen Ann Mins Robbins Fellows:
2022-2023 Soojung Choe (CUNY Graduate Center)
2020-2021 Margaret Sheble (Purdue University)
2018-2019 Julie K. Chamberlin (Indiana University, Bloomington)
2016-2017 Marjorie Harrington (University of Notre Dame)
2014-2015 Lindsay Irvin (University of Toronto)
2012-2013 Cynthia Rogers (Indiana University, Bloomington)
2010-2011 Jess Fenn (Columbia University)
2008-2009 Andrea Lankin (University of California, Berkeley)
2006-2007 Misty Schieberle (University of Notre Dame)
2004-2005 Cathryn Meyer (University of Texas, Austin)
2002-2003 Juliet Sloger (University of Rochester)
2000-2001 Miriamne Krummel (Lehigh University)
1999-2000 Nicole Dentzien (Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel)
1997-1998 Suzanne Craymer (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)