|
Fellowships and Grants |
Deadline: November 1, annually; announced February 1 Amount: $25,000 Purpose: For travel and study to be conducted between July 1 of the award year and the following June 30. Preference will be given to projects of at least a half-year's duration. The award is to be used for travel and study in Greece (the modern state), Cyprus, the Aegean Islands, Sicily, southern Italy (that is, the Italian provinces of Campania, Molise, Apulia, Basilicata, and Calabria), Asia Minor (Turkey) or Mesopotamia (that is, the territory between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, that is modern Iraq and parts of northern Syria and eastern Turkey). Although the proposal may require travel outside these areas, the majority of travel proposed must be within them. The award is not intended to support field excavation projects. Requirements: Applicant must be a United States citizen. Preference will be given to individuals engaged in dissertation research or to those who received their Ph.D. within five years of the application deadline. Recipients may not hold other major fellowships during the requested tenure of the Olivia James award. At the conclusion of the fellowship tenure, the recipient is required to submit a report on the use of the stipend to the Chair of the AIA Fellowships Committee. After the tenure of their fellowship, recipient is expected to submit an abstract to the Program Committee within two years, in order be considered for participation in the AIA Annual Meeting.
Current Recipient 
Denton Alexander Walthall, a doctoral candidate with Princeton University, is this year’s recipient of the Olivia James Traveling Fellowship. His project, and dissertation topic, is “A Measured Harvest: Grain, Tithes, and Territories in Hellenistic and Roman Sicily (276-31 BC)”. During the 3rd through 1st centuries BC, the exploitation of Sicilian grain became instrumental to the expansion and consolidation of political and military power for the Syracusan monarch Hieron II and later for Rome and its growing empire While much of the evidence for this is textual, there is also a substantial body of archaeological evidence. Mr. Walthall will use the $25,000 fellowship award to further his work on the material elements of this agricultural administration--grain measures, monumental granaries, legal inscriptions, and patterns of rural land use. His project activities will include travel in Sicily, Italy and Greece, to examine excavation materials from a number of sites which are currently housed in museums, and to access the Blegen Library at the American School of Classical Studies on Athens.
2009 Recipient 
The 2009 recipient of the Olivia James Traveling Fellowship is Elizabeth Robinson, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Elizabeth will use her fellowship award to support her dissertation research, “Larinum: A Case Study for the Romanization of Southern Italy.” Using Larinum (modern Larino) as a case study, Robinson aims to provide a comprehensive and coherent picture of cultural change from the fourth century B.C. to the first century A.D. Her work will examine archaeological remains and historical records, including unpublished votive deposits and tomb assemblages. The $25,000 award provides funding for her travel and research in Larino itself, as well as to the Soprintendenza’s Storerooms at Isernia and Campobasso to examine the unpublished materials.
2008 Recipient 
The 2008 recipient of the Olivia James Traveling Fellowship is Rebecca Benefiel, with the Department of Classics, Washington and Lee University. Her project is “Pompeii and her Neighbors: Civic Identity, Social Interaction, and Ancient Graffiti”. Noting that ancient Pompeii has often been studied in isolation, the goal of Dr. Benefiel’s project is to reintegrate the city into its surroundings. The project’s key to reconstructing Pompeii’s place in the regional network of cities and hinterlands is its graffiti: “Ancient graffiti, more than any other medium, reveal a dynamic system of economic and social networks tying together the communities of the region. These messages repopulate the city and indeed the whole region with vibrant activity, individual voices, and fascinating details of ancient life.” Dr. Benefiel will spend her fellowship tenure documenting and studying these unique documents and how they illustrate social interaction, the presence of visitors in the city, and steady exchange between Pompeians and its environs.
2007 Recipient
2007 Recipient Suzan Yalman, Harvard University |
|
