Call for Applications
2025 Charles E. Scheidt Graduate Research Fellowship
Call for Applications
2025 Charles E. Scheidt Graduate Research Fellowship
Deadline: March 9, 2025
The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research invites research proposals from USC graduate students for the 2025 Charles E. Scheidt Graduate Research Fellowship.
The fellowship provides $5,000 support and will be awarded to an outstanding USC graduate student from any academic discipline who will advance research in Holocaust and Genocide Studies through the use of unique research resources at USC, including the Holocaust and Genocide Studies book collection, the Special Collections at USC Libraries, and the Visual History Archive. (Read more about these resources below.)
The Scheidt Graduate Research Fellow will be expected to be in residence at the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research for two semesters: Spring 2025 (12.5 hours a week for eight weeks) and Fall 2025 (10 hours per week for 15 weeks). The residency is expected to start no later than the week of March 24, 2025.
The fellow will be expected to play a role in the activities of the Center and to give a public presentation based on their work and findings during the following semester (Spring 2026).
Award decisions for the fellowship will be based on the originality of the research proposal.
Founded in 2014, the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research distinguishes itself from other Holocaust and genocide research institutes by offering access to unique research resources and by focusing its research efforts on the interdisciplinary study of currently under-researched areas.
USC Resources
Internationally unique and growing research resources at USC include the extensive Holocaust and Genocide Studies collection at USC Libraries, which contains 30,000 primary and secondary sources including the original transcripts of the Nuremberg trials and the materials of the New York Life Insurance settlement regarding the Armenian genocide. Unique primary sources in the Special Collections at USC include the Feuchtwanger Memorial Library, which also houses the private papers of dozens of emigrants from the Third Reich, as well as private collections from Jewish Holocaust survivors and liberators.
The Visual History Archive is a collection of over 58,000 audiovisual testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, including the Rwandan, Armenian, Guatemalan, Cambodian genocides, the Nanjing Massacre in China, anti-Rohingya mass violence, and war and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The majority of testimonies are life history interviews in which interviewees discuss their lives before, during, and after genocide and mass violence. With interviews conducted in 70 countries and in 44 languages, testimonies capture both the individual experience of mass violence and the social and cultural history of the 20th century on a global scale. Learn more about the Visual History Archive here.
Application Instructions
To submit an application:
Email the materials below to cagr@usc.edu or submit them electronically on the Fellowships page of the Center’s website. (Visit https://dornsife.usc.edu/cagr/fellowships/scheidt-graduate-research-fellowship/ and click Apply.)
• cover letter
• current CV
• research proposal (1-3 pages), which should include a project outline and description of methodology
• recommendation letter from a faculty advisor submitted directly by your letter-writer to cagr@usc.edu.
For questions, please contact cagr@usc.edu.
The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research has a long record of advancing research by USC graduate students. Read about some of our past USC graduate student fellows here: 2016, 2016, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024.