Funding Opportunities

All entering PhD students are awarded full fellowships, renewable for five years based on satisfactory progress in each year of the program. These fellowships include tuition remission, competitive annual stipends, up to four summer stipends, and a University Student Health Insurance Plan.

Comparative Literature fellowship recipients are not required to teach during their first and second years, allowing ample time to focus on and complete course work. Beginning in the third year, fellowship recipients then gain teaching experience first by serving as teaching assistants to Comparative literature faculty, as language assistants to instructors in their primary language of research, or as writing interns in the Humanities Core courses. Once they have completed the appropriate training, PhD students can apply for further teaching in the Core, lectureships in language instruction, or to teach courses of their own design that are suitable for Comparative Literature and other Humanities undergraduates.

All academic and teaching records of students are reviewed yearly by Comp Lit faculty prior to submitting recommendations to the Humanities Dean of Students. Continuation of funding is dependent on meeting departmental and divisional requirements for satisfactory academic progress and completion of teaching obligations.

Students who are eligible to receive summer stipends must submit a short description of how they intend to use the stipend to the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS).  At the start of the following autumn quarter, students must submit a one-page report on the work accomplished during the summer to the DGS and, for advanced students, to their dissertation director.

Students who present a successful dissertation proposal in their fourth year should plan to apply in the winter of their fifth year for a sixth year of funding to complete their dissertations. These opportunities include fellowships awarded by the Humanities Division, as well as those offered by area studies and interdisciplinary centers at the University, including but not limited to the Center for Gender Studies, the Center for the Study of Race, the Center for Latin American Studies, the Center for Jewish Studies, and the Center for East Asian Studies and the Human Rights Program.

The above centers also offer opportunities for experienced teachers who have fulfilled their departmental teaching requirements to apply for courses suitable for each center’s programs. In addition, advanced students may apply to work as the preceptor for BA projects in Comparative Literature, as preceptors for MA students in the Masters Program in the Humanities (MAPH) and as coordinators of graduate/faculty workshops in which they have been regular participants.

The Humanities Dean of Students office provides several services to help students find appropriate internal or external funding for research and travel to archives and conferences essential to the progress of their research.

Fellowships exist to help students at all stages of their graduate career, and students are strongly encouraged to educate themselves about such opportunities and to apply for fellowships at the earliest possible moment.

More funding information will be sent periodically by email and/or posted at appropriate times before upcoming deadlines on UChicagoGrad's Fellowship database.