Deadline for 2027-28 cycle: Friday, December 4, 2026
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
C21 has identified PUBLIC GOOD as the theme that informs our offerings for the next three years (2027-2030). We will explore efforts to define and defend as well as to challenge and restrict shared resources, common infrastructures, and collective responsibilities, questioning the meanings of “public” and “good” as founded on exclusion as much as inclusion and shaped by shifting concepts of citizenship, community, and obligation. With privatization, individualism, and short-term self-interest increasingly determining our current social, political, and ecological landscapes, this theme asks what it means to share things in common with others and to reimagine the possibilities of collective life, while simultaneously reckoning with competing histories of who defines and deserves access to the common and the collective, and on whose terms that access is granted or denied. The theme is intentionally broad to capture a wide range of scholarship and practice while encouraging innovative methodologies.
C21’s 2027-2028 programming focuses on PUBLIC GOOD: EDUCATION. What does it mean to define education as a public good? Who counts as public, and what counts as good? C21 takes up these questions while considering the contested histories of access alongside changing ideas of who and what education serves. We will also consider how the humanities in particular position education beyond workforce preparedness to include the cultivation of civic responsibility and the capacity to interpret, deliberate, and speculate with others about the world around us, as well as to reimagine more capacious forms of education than the institutionalized ones that we have inherited.
We welcome multiple interpretations of this open topic, including broader explorations of “public” and “good” as they relate to pressing issues of our time and/or work inside and outside the university. Applicants can choose to apply with projects that align with education as a subtheme, or that relate to the overarching theme of public good.
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.
Procedure
Application Deadline: Friday, December 4, 2026
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.