Barbara L. Packer Fellowship
Barbara L. Packer Fellowship supports scholars’ residential research and writing using AAS library collections to study the Transcendentalists, especially Emerson, Fuller, and Thoreau.
Funder: American Antiquarian Society
Due Dates: January 15, 2027 (Application deadline, 12:00 p.m.)
Funding Amounts: $2,400 per month for one to two months
Summary: Supports residential scholarly research and writing on the Transcendentalists, especially Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau.
Key Information: Fellows must conduct research in residence at the AAS library in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Description
The Barbara L. Packer Fellowship, administered by the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), supports scholarly research and writing related to the Transcendentalists, with particular emphasis on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau. It is part of AAS’s one- to two-month residential academic research fellowship program, providing time to use the Society’s library collections for research and writing.
The fellowship honors Barbara Lee Packer, a scholar of Emerson and the Transcendentalist movement who taught in UCLA’s English department for thirty years. Its research scope includes literary, historical, and cultural approaches to the movement. Past projects have explored Transcendentalism and children’s literature, Thoreau and antebellum botany, women writers’ lives, and connections among Black intellectuals, white abolitionists, and revolutionary Transcendentalists.
