Summer 2024 Fellows
Masterson Fellows
Abby Gibson is a PhD candidate in the Van Hunnick History Department at the University of Southern California. Before arriving at USC, she received her Master's degree in the history of the American West at the University of Oklahoma. Abby's dissertation, "Fearful Land: Managing Terror in the American West, 1820–1920" lies at the intersection of the history of U.S. westward expansion and the history of emotions. This project reexamines the protracted struggle for the West over the course of the 19th century through the lens of fear, tracing the terrors this region posed to an expanding settler nation. Her novel analytic focus on the emotional underpinnings of the American settler project introduces a different set of criteria by which to characterize this process and its instruments. Abby's dissertation ultimately suggests that we measure the culmination of this process in terms of feeling when the West as a colonized region emerged as both a materially and emotionally managed landscape fully incorporated within the territorial and affective boundaries of the United States.
Emma Herman is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Harvard University. She is an Americanist with a background in carceral studies, currently studying U.S-Native relations and the history of the American West. Her dissertation, tentatively titled “Indian country is a place: sovereignty, law, and the making and unmaking of Oklahoma, 1871-1934,” explores the social, legal, and spatial relationships of settlers and Natives in the area variously organized as Indian Territory, Oklahoma Territory, and the state of Oklahoma from break-up of treaty-making to the formal reconstitution of Native governments. Her other fields of interest include critical geography, environmental history, political theory, and the digital humanities.
Haley Fellows
Tom Kahle is a History PhD student at the University of Oklahoma whose research interests include federal Indian policy, Native American activism, and 1960s/70s social movements. He earned his BA (‘19) from Coe College and MA (‘23) from the University of Oklahoma. While a master’s student, he worked as an editorial fellow for theWestern Historical QuarterlyHe looks forward to spending his Jack Haley Fellowship researching the origins and history of the Red Power Movement in Oklahoma. He is particularly interested in Native American student organizations and the relationship between Indian activists that worked within political systems and those that worked outside of them.
Adam J. Krejčí is a PhD student at the University of Oklahoma studying the American West, the Civil War, empire, and war and society. His research is focused on the American West during the Civil War Era, specifically on the implementation of pro-slavery and free soil pre-war imperial visions in Kansas, Nebraska, and Indian Territory (Oklahoma). His research as a Jack Haley Fellow will focus on integrating Oklahoma into conversations about the Civil War Era beyond the military history by specifically examining the effects and consequences of Native dispossession, the advent of railroads and cattle trails, and agitation by White settlers to open Indian Territory for non-Native settlement, which built upon earlier federal policies of public land distribution into private hands. He has been the recipient of the Christian Prize for outstanding performance by a first-year history graduate student and is a four-time recipient of the Provost’s Certificate for Distinction in Teaching. His MA thesis at OU focused on the culture of warfare during the Indian Territory Civil War. Adam also holds a law degree and is published on election law stemming from his law review research. He is still a licensed attorney practicing in Oklahoma.
Fellowships for Visiting Scholars
DEADLINE: January 19, 2024
The Masterson Fellowship, endowed by Conrad and Ellen Masterson of Cee Vee, Texas, provides opportunities for visiting scholars, external to the University of Oklahoma, who want to conduct research in the Western History Collections for one or two months (four or eight weeks) during the summer. The fellowship is open to advanced graduate students, faculty, or independent scholars engaged in an original research project of significant scholarly merit that will benefit directly from the utilization of materials in the Western History Collections. An award, or awards, of one or two months (four or eight weeks) will be made, and priority consideration for at least one fellowship line will be given to research on range management history, the impact of cattle ranching in the American West, or related topics.
The stipend for the Masterson Fellowship is $2,500 per month, per the fellow’s residency length.
Deadline for applications: January 19, 2024
Fellowships for University of Oklahoma Graduate Students
DEADLINE: February 16, 2024
Graduate fellowships support summer appointments in the Western History Collections for students in masters or doctoral programs at OU. Graduate fellows will evenly divide their time between using WHC materials to advance their dissertation or thesis research, and working on assigned WHC projects that will provide practical experience in archival science, librarianship, or information science (archival processing, collection digitization, etc.). The stipend for the graduate student fellowships is $1,500 per month. The fellowships are eight weeks long and involve 20 hours of work per week.
Deadline for applications: February 16, 2024
- The Jack Haley Fellowship, endowed by Fred and Patricia Schonwald of Oklahoma City, provides fellowships for graduate students in the Department of History at the University of Oklahoma. Fellowships will be awarded for an eight-week period for 2023.
- The Dale Society Fellowship, supported by the Association of Western History Collections Endowment, supports a graduate student (or students) in other University of Oklahoma graduate programs outside the Department of History. The fellowship residency period will be eight weeks.
The Application Process
Apply for the Masterson Fellowship, Jack Haley Fellowship, and Dale Society Fellowship.
- Candidates for the Masterson Fellowship must submit the following:
- Indicate the fellowship for which you wish to be considered
- Research proposal (1,500 words) outlining the research project and plan of work, citing specific WHC collections and their centrality to the research project
- Curriculum vitae
- Two letters of support for their specific project from individuals familiar with their work
- Candidates for the Haley and Dale Society Fellowships must submit the following:
- Indicate the fellowship for which you wish to be considered
- A research proposal (1,500 words) outlining the research project and plan of work, citing specific WHC collections and their centrality to the research project
- A curriculum vitae
- Candidates for the Haley and Dale Society Fellowships must submit transcripts (unofficial transcripts accepted) demonstrating a GPA of no less than 3.5 and
- One letter of support from an OU faculty member familiar with their work
Successful applications will describe the importance and impact of the research inquiry and will identify defined resources in the Western History Collections that are essential to their work. Applicants are encouraged to contact us to help identify resources.
Fellows will be required to present their work to the OU community as part of their award.
Incomplete applications will not be considered.