Dissertation Fellowship

Each year, the Center for the Study of Sexual Culture awards a fellowship to a UC Berkeley graduate student engaged in dissertation research and writing. The award includes a stipend paid at the beginning of each semester and payment of in-state fees for two semesters. In 2009, CSSC also awarded four research grants.

Our Latest Fellow: Elizabeth Segran

Elizabeth Segran graduated from Columbia University in 2005 and immediately began graduate work in UC Berkeley's Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies. She was drawn to Berkeley because she wanted to study the ancient Tamil love poetry that had caught her attention as an undergraduate. In her time here, she has developed an interest in feminist literary criticism and is in the Designated Emphasis program in Women, Gender and Sexuality. Over the next year, she will be writing her dissertation on constructions of gender and sexuality in the anthologies of classical Tamil poems written during the first three centuries CE. When she is not writing at a cafe, Elizabeth may be spotted backpacking around the globe, lingering at a farmer's market, napping or eating chocolate cake.

Read more about Elizabeth's dissertation.
See a list of past fellows and their research topics.

Eligible research projects must address one or both of the Center's primary areas of concern:

The importance of sexuality to large cultural formations of various kinds, including (but not limited to) legal and legislative practices; the production and consumption of literary genres; popular culture; visual culture; the history of the body; and psychological and sociological theory.
The workings of specific sexual cultures, the precise ways in which sexuality is organized discursively and institutionally at given places and given times.

Priority is given to graduate students from the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality. The fellowship may be used for travel necessitated by research. Fellows who are not traveling will participate fully in the activities of the Center during their fellowship year.

Applications must include the following four items:

A completed application cover sheet.
A letter of application (no more than 2 pages), stating when the applicant advanced (or will advance) to candidacy, and giving a brief account of the dissertation project that makes clear its relevance to the Center's areas of concern. The applicant should also indicate the present stage of research or writing.
A more detailed statement of the dissertation project (not to exceed 5 pages)
Two letters of recommendation should be sent under separate cover. One letter should be from the applicant's dissertation advisor.

Applications & letters of recommendation should be sent to:
     CSSC Fellowship
     632 Barrows Hall
     University of California, Berkeley
     Berkeley, CA, 94720-2050

Applicants residing in the U.S. must post-mark or deliver applications to the CSSC office by 5pm of the deadline date. Students abroad and professors writing letters of recommendation may send attachments of their application packets and letters to cssc@berkeley.edu Awards are announced in April.