Student Fellowships

Harold Bolitho Undergraduate Research Scholarship in Australian Studies

The Harold Bolitho Undergraduate Research Scholarships in Australian Studies are awarded to Harvard undergraduates by the Australian Studies Committee to support research and/or field work relating directly to a senior honors thesis in an area of Australian studies. Grants are normally awarded for work during junior or senior year (and/or the preceding summers).

Benefits: Up to $15,000. The number and amount of individual awards will vary each year according to available funds and project budgets. Allowable expenses include travel, housing, tuition fees, and research costs.

Application deadline: Students who wish to be considered for a fellowship should submit a resume, proposal, and letter of support from their Harvard thesis advisor by February 28 to Leanne Chaves in the Office for Faculty Affairs. If applicable, letters of support should be provided from collaborating persons/institutions in Australia. The proposal should provide the following information: (a) a description of the academic objectives of the senior thesis; (b) a budget of requested expenses. Proposals with be reviewed by the Australian Studies Committee. Recipients of scholarships will be notified by early March.

Successful applicants are required to submit a copy of their thesis (when completed) to the Australian Studies Committee.

Harold Bolitho (at right) served as Chair of the Harvard University Australian Studies Committee from 1992 until 2007, in addition to his appointment as Professor of Japanese History in Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations.  Professor Bolitho, a native of Melbourne, Australia, received his B.A. from the University of Melbourne and his M.A., M. Phil., and Ph.D. from Yale University.  During his tenure as Chair, the Australian Studies Committee hosted a number of successful conferences at Harvard, all of which raised the visibility of Australia both within the Harvard community and beyond.

The Harold Bolitho Undergraduate Scholarships will provide Harvard undergraduates with a unique opportunity to travel and conduct research in Australia in preparation for their senior theses.  They are a fitting tribute to Professor Bolitho’s firm commitment not only to undergraduate education at Harvard but also to strengthening the ties between the United States and Australia.

The Deakin-Royce Graduate Research Fellowships in Australian Studies

The Deakin-Royce Graduate Research Fellowships are awarded to Harvard doctoral students to support research and/or field work in Australia that relates directly to their doctoral thesis.  The funding maximum is currently $25,000.

The fellowship has been established to support graduate research in Australia.  Fellowship recipients are required to reside in Australia for the length of the fellowship. The fellowship is not intended to support multiple trips to research destinations for students who are based in Cambridge or elsewhere in the United States during the year.

Interested candidates should contact the Australian Studies Committee Coordinator, Raymond Coderre, at: Leanne Chaves for more information.
 

The Deakin-Royce Fellowship commemorates the friendship of the Harvard philosopher Josiah Royce and the Australian politician and future Prime Minister Alfred Deakin who met in the Blue Mountains, outside Sydney, in June 1888. Thirty-three-year-old Royce was on a long sea voyage, recovering from a nervous breakdown brought on by overwork. He had recently published his first major work, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885) and a history of his home state, California, which, as it happened, Deakin had visited three years earlier to investigate its irrigation system. Thirty-two year-old Deakin was now Deputy Premier of Victoria and the intellectual leader of the movement for Australian Federation. The two men met on the train, immediately establishing a strong rapport, and over the following week walked through the bush together, their conversation ranging over philosophy, religion, natural history, politics, and the politics of their two countries

‘Yours is the best trained and best informed mind in metaphysics and kindred topics that I have ever had the opportunity of enjoying’, Deakin later wrote, finding in the American an embodiment of his own deep yearnings towards a life of philosophical and religious speculation  ‘I . . . shall always associate the Blue Mountains . . . with what I may hear of the intellectual life of Australia’, Royce responded, ‘ for it was my good fortune to visit these mountains with a friend whose ability and good fortune have already made him a power in the political life of the new country, and who seemed to me to represent some of the best tendencies of a young civilization.’  Although they were never to meet again, the two men continued to correspond, finding in the exchange a mutually enriching understanding of the life of action and contemplation, and of the historical and political destinies of their kindred countries.