Deadline: Friday, December 5, 2025, 11:59 PM
Background
A UW System Center of Excellence, UWM’s Center for 21st Century Studies (C21) builds a community of scholars to address the pressing issues of our time. Each year, C21 offers fellowships to UWM faculty and academic staff that provide the time, space, and collegial support to generate new knowledge and ideas. C21 centers the humanities in its belief that innovation comes from diversity of opinions, disciplines, and experiences.
Theme
In dialogue with our advisory council and community partners, C21 has identified SLOW as the theme that informs our offerings for three years (2024-2027). Slow movements—across food, cities, science, scholarship and beyond — call attention to embodied processes of building and maintaining collective life that resist the fast-paced efficiency models, rapid rewards, and short attention spans that increasingly dominate human responses to 21st century social, political, and ecological challenges. The theme is intentionally broad to capture a wide range of scholarship and practice while encouraging innovative methodologies.
C21’s 2026-2027 programming focuses on SLOW ACTION. Building upon slow knowing and slow care, C21 explores the practices, methodologies, histories, and theories of collective organizing across communities and institutions, with a focus on building values-rooted systems and deliberate actionable pathways that endure over time to support shared goals. We welcome multiple interpretations of this open topic, including explorations of attention and pace as they relate to organizing around the pressing issues of our time and/or work inside and outside the university. Methodological, pedagogical, and research topical interests are all welcome in relation to this theme.
Research Projects
Applicants should propose a research project related to this thematic area. Projects can be individual or collaborative. Examples of projects include:
- Researching / preparing material for public presentation in a wide variety of forms including (but not limited to) monographs, essays, podcasts, performances; art installation/exhibits, community programs; digital interfaces; archives or artifacts.
- Researching for / development of large-scale collaborative projects (grant proposals, building networks etc.).
- Researching / preparing syllabi for innovative, interdisciplinary team-teaching initiatives or credit-bearing programs such as certificates, minors, degrees.
Terms/Eligibility for UWM Faculty*
UWM faculty who hold the rank of assistant, associate, or full professor may apply. Faculty Fellows in the College of Letters and Science receive a reduction in their teaching responsibilities by one course per semester and will be relieved of major committee work.* Applicants must seek approval from their department chairs before applying; C21 does not provide course buyouts for course reductions. C21 will provide each Fellow with access to our inspiring office spaces on the ninth floor of Curtin Hall. Fellows are expected to participate in C21 Fellows’ research seminars and to attend C21 public programs throughout the year. No one may hold a C21 fellowship more than once in a three-year period. Active C21 Fellows may not serve on the C21 Advisory Council in the same year.
*Faculty outside of the College of Letters and Science must seek pre-approval from their department Chairs and Deans to support course reductions before applying.
Terms/Eligibility for UWM Academic Staff**
UWM academic staff may apply for a fellowship. In these cases, C21 will work with academic staff in the College of Letters and Science on a case-by-case basis to determine a reduced course load.* Applicants must seek approval from their department chairs before applying; C21 does not provide course buyouts for course reductions. C21 provides each Fellow with access to our inspiring office spaces on the ninth floor of Curtin Hall. Fellows are expected to participate in C21 Fellows’ research seminars and to attend C21 public programs throughout the year. No one may hold a C21 fellowship more than once in a three-year period. Active C21 Fellows may not serve on the C21 Advisory Council in the same year.
**Academic staff outside of the College of Letters and Science must seek pre-approval from their department Chairs and Deans to support course reductions before applying.
Procedures
Application Deadline: Friday, December 5, 2025, 11:59 PM
Submit a single PDF including the following components as an email attachment to c21@uwm.edu:
- an application cover sheet
- NOTE: Your chair must sign the cover sheet to confirm that they are aware and willing to have your teaching load reduced and have you released from service.
- a four-page statement (roughly 1,000 words) that describes your research project and specifically addresses:
- a) your project’s relation to C21’s theme
- b) how it fits into your past research (if applicable) and future research plans
- c) how being part of a community of scholars addressing the pressing issues of our time will benefit you and the project
- a curriculum vitae/resume
- a recent offprint, manuscript (article length), or example of your work that best demonstrates your capacity to complete your proposed project.
If you are applying in collaboration (two people), please follow these same guidelines (submit just one, four-page statement) and add cv/resumes and research/writing samples for each applicant.
Emailed applications should have the subject line “C21 [YEAR] Research Fellow Application – [LAST NAME].”
Questions? Email c21@uwm.edu.