ARCS PRE-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP

FOR U.S.-BASED STUDENTS

THE PROGRAM: The American Research Center in Sofia Foundation invites applications for its Pre-Doctoral Fellowship for U.S.-based Students for the upcoming academic year.

The duration of the fellowships is 9 months (September–May) or 3 months (September–November or February–April). In addition to independent research, fellows will participate in the academic program of ARCS, which may includes a Lecture Series designed to provide a broad thematic vision of Bulgarian and Balkan history and culture from prehistory to the present day. Fellows receive free housing in shared rooms in the ARCS hostel. Fellows should secure funding to cover their travel expenses between North America and Bulgaria. 

This fellowship can be combined with another fellowship; however, you must notify ARCS, and we will negotiate the terms of the ARCS Fellowship. We strongly encourage you to inquire about possibilities for funding from your home institution in a timely manner and to indicate this in your application.

ELIGIBILITY: Applicants must be graduate students of any citizenship enrolled in North American academic institutions or academic institutions accredited in North America, who are engaged in research in the humanities and/or social sciences with a focus on Bulgaria or the Balkan Peninsula (antiquity through modern day). APPLICATION PROCEDURE: Please complete the application form, renaming it to include your surname, and send it electronically as a PDF. Make sure to include a CV and a Project Description as Microsoft Word documents or as PDFs. University transcripts should also be sent electronically, and two letters from scholars in the field, commenting on the value and feasibility of the project, should be submitted directly (by the scholars) as Word documents or PDFs. All application materials must be in English and must be emailed to the ARCS Fellowship Committee at sofiadirector@arcsofia.org. The application deadline for this competition is March 31.

Please direct any question about the fellowship program to Prof. Kevin Clinton, kmc1@cornell.edu.

List of Recipients

• Vessela Anguelova, 2007-08, Pennsylvania State University, Place as Spiritual Experience in Middle and Late Byzantine Art, ninth to eighteenth centuries
• Eran Livni, 2007-08, Indiana University, Democracy without Civil Society? Chalga Music and the Ambivalent Accession of Bulgaria to the European Union
• Douglas Park, 2007-08, Yale University, Balkan Archaeology and Pan-Balkan Discourse
• Jennifer Raines, 2007-08, University of Colorado, Boulder, Roman Heritage in Eastern Europe
• Aneliya Dimitrova, 2008-09, Indiana University, Social and Cultural Perspectives on the Reconstruction of Tsarevets, Veliko Tarnovo
• Yuliana Gencheva, 2008-09, Indiana University, The International Children's Assembly 'Banner of Peace': Performing Childhood in Socialist Bulgaria
• Adela Sobotkova, 2008-09, University of Michigan, Archaeological Survey in the Tundzha Valley
• Nicholas Grossenbacher, 2009-10, University of Washington, Non-Greek Christian Communities on the Periphery of the Byzantine Empire
• Shannon Martino, 2009-10, University of Pennsylvania, Clarifying the Eneolithic-Early Bronze Age Transition Around the Southwestern Black Sea Through Clay Figurines
• Jeremy Ott, 2009-10 and 2010-11, New York University, Project 1: Late Antique and Early Medieval Mortuary Space in the Balkans; Project 2: Tomb Decoration in Late Antique Thessaloniki and Sofia
• Lilia Topouzova, 2010-11, University of Toronto, The Bulgarian 'Gulag': The Bulgarian Forced-Labor Camp System, 1944-1962
• Tara Yin, 2010-11, York University, Peter Deunov and the Theory and Practice of Paneurythmy
• Mehmet Celik, 2011-12, University of Texas at Austin, Ottoman Reform and Urban Change: Muslims and Christians in Danubian Ruse, 1839-1878
• John Gorczyk, 2011-12, Cornell University, Faunal remains in Neolithic Bulgaria
• Veneta Ivanova, 2011-12, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Unity, Creativity, Beauty: Culture, Nationalism, and Occult Communism in Late Socialist Bulgaria
• Giuseppe Ricci, 2011-12, Princeton University, Nomads in Late Antiquity: The Development of an East Roman-Pontic Steppe Symbiosis, Attila to Asparuch
• Natalia Rusnac, 2011-12, University of California, Los Angeles, Patriarchate in Constantinople prior to 1453
• Whitney Snead, 2011-12, University of Cincinnati, Bosporan Kingdom or early Greek colonies around the Black Sea
• Emily Spratt, 2011-12, Princeton University, The Legacy of Byzantium in Bulgaria: Post-Byzantine Painting and Community Identity in the Ottoman Period
• Mariana Vukovic, 2011-12, Central European University, Budapest, Remembering the Saint: Irenaeus of Sirmium in Medieval Hagiographies and Beyond
• Kathleen Weigand, 2011-12, University of Dublin, Trinity College, Irish and Bulgarian Artists from the early 20th century
• Andriy Fomin, 2012-13, Rutgers University, A historiographic analysis of the Roman historian Cassius Dio
• Cengiz Haksoz, 2012-13, University of Pittsburgh, The Pomaks across the Greek, Bulgarian and Turkish Borders
• Max Holleran, 2012-13, New York University, On the Coast: Tourism and Urbanization in post-Socialist Bulgaria
• Roy Kimmey, 2012-13, Central European University, Budapest, Symphonic Secularism: a study of Bulgarian society, church and state under Communism
• Stefan Peychev, 2012-13, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Public baths and Urban Space: the case of Ottoman Serdica
• Adrian Popan, 2012-13, University of Texas, Austin, Cults of personality of State leaders: causes and structural conditions in Totalitarian societies
• Elena Popan, 2012-13, University of Texas, Austin, Stereotypes attached to minority groups in post-Communist societies: the case of Roma
• Elana Resnick, 2012-13, University of Michigan, Old objects, fragile life: waste and escape in Bulgaria
• Nadezhda Savova, 2012-13, Princeton University, Food and cultural tourism in Bulgaria’s tangible places of intangible heritage
• Caroline Wisler, 2012-13, University of Illinois, Urbana, Approaches to Cultural Heritage Management in Post-Conflict Balkan Nations
• Anna Adashinskaya, 2013-14, Central European University, Serbian and Bulgarian Medieval Ktetorship (13th -14th Centuries): two ways of adapting the Byzantine model
• Tera Lee Hedrick, 2013-14, Northwestern University, The Power of Objects: Ars Sacra and the negotiation of the sacred in Late Byzantium
• Miloš Jovanović, 2013-14, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Ordering urban life in Belgrade and Sofia during the long 19th century
• Cynthia Ann Lintz, 2013-14, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, The negotiation of ‘self’ and ‘other’ along the Bulgarian-Macedonian border
• Martin Marinos, 2013-14,University of Pittsburgh, Post-Communist media and civil society in Bulgaria
• Angela Rodel, 2013-14, UCLA, The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices: the history and development of Bulgarian folk singing
• James Adam Rodriguez, 2013-14, Yale University, Bilateral Icons in Byzantium
• Secil Uluisik, 2013-14, University of Arizona, Merchant networks and Chorbacis in Plovdiv during the Tanzimat: the case of the Gumushgerdan family
• Duncan Ranslem, 2013-14, University of Chicago, East of EDEN: Bulgarian Tourism and European Integration (joint ARCS/Fulbright Fellow
• Francesco La Rocca, 2014-15, Central European University, Bards, Faith and Power: How National Epics, Religions and Nation-Building Process Joined in Interwar Yugoslavia and Albania
• Dragos Nastasoiu, 2014-15, Central European University, "Between East and West": The Iconography of Donors in Orthodox Mural Painting of Southern Transylvania during the Fifteenth Century
• Victor Petrov, 2014-15, Columbia University, Modernity in a National Key: Bulgarian Socialist Modernization at Home and Abroad 1967-1989
• Mark Reed, 2014-15, University of Edinburgh, The Role of the Urbes Thraciae, from Diocletian to Maurice (284 – 602)
• Mikhail Rekun, 2014-15, Northeastern University, Empire Unguided: Public Opinion and Imperial Foreign Policy in Balkans, 1876-1886
• Eli Weaverdyck, 2014-15, University of California - Berkeley, Isolation or Integration? A spatial-analytic approach to the local impact of the Roman army on the northern frontier
• Vladimir Troyanski, 2014-15,Stanford University, Integration and Resistance: North Caucasus Refugees in the Ottoman Balkans, 1860-1878
• Christopher Mielke, 2015-16, Central European University, Material Culture and Contacts Between Medieval Hungary and Bulgaria
• Moysés Marcos, 2015-16, University of California, Riverside, Julian and Themistius: Philosophy, Kingship, and Tolerance in the Fourth Century Roman Empire
• AgataChmiel, 2016-2017, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, The Geography of Conversion: Religious Changes in the Ottoman Balkans
• Stanimir Panayotov, 2016-2017, Central European University, Disembodiment in Neoplatonism and New Realism
• John Gorczyk, 2016-2017, Cornell University, Beastly spaces: humans, animals, and the creation of place in Neolithic Bulgaria
• Jelena Radovanović, 2016-2017, Princeton University, Urban Transformation and Migration in 19th-Century Niš
• Ashlee Hart,  2017-2018, University at Buffalo, State University of New York/ Department of Anthropology/ PhD, Convening Cultures in Ancient Thrace: An Evaluation of Greek Interaction on Technological Choice within Indigenous Thracian Ceramics from Late Iron Age Western Bulgaria

• Filip 

  Lyapov, 2017-2018, Central European University / Department of History / PhD in Comparative History, The Crown’s Thorns: The Royal Dictatorships of Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria and King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and the Military in the Interwar Period

• Peter Wright,2017-2018, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, “The Business of Solidarity: Balkan Socialisms and Developmental Assistance in the ‘Third World,’ 1953-1991”

• Camilla Pletuhina-Tonev, 2020-2021, Central European University / Department of History / MA in Comparative History, The Orthodox Church as an Ottoman Institution: The abolition of the Patriarchate of Peć and the Archbishopric of Ohrid in the context of the Eighteenth Century Ottoman developments