In partnership with the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women, the Folger Institute will offer a fellowship to scholars working on studies of women, genders, and/or sexualities in the early modern world, who can demonstrate a clear need to utilize the Folger’s collections. This $2500 award will allow a scholar to spend one month in residence at the Folger.

The Society for the Study of Early Modern Women (SSEMW) is a network of scholars who meet annually, sponsor sessions at national and international conferences across a spectrum of disciplines, and support one another’s work in the field. SSEMW maintains a listserv and website, sponsors a blog series on topics relating to early modern women, gives awards for outstanding scholarship, and fosters intellectual exchange and collaboration. SSEMW welcomes scholars and teachers from any discipline who study women and their contributions to the cultural, political, economic, or social spheres of the early modern period and whose interest in it includes attention to gender, sexuality, and representations of women.

This new fellowship commemorates and celebrates Dr. Margaret Hannay (1944-2016), a professor of English at Siena College and a pioneering scholar in the field of early modern women’s writing. Margaret’s scholarship centered on the Sidney family, with particular attention to the life and writings of Mary Sidney Herbert and Mary Wroth. Over the course of her career, she published more than fifty articles and seventeen books, including biographies of C.S. Lewis, Mary Sidney, and Mary Wroth; seven editions of works and correspondence by the Sidney family, co-edited with Noel Kinnamon and Michael Brennan; and, most recently, the two-volume Ashgate Research Companion to the Sidneys, 1500-1700, co-edited with Michael Brennan and Mary Ellen Lamb. The significance of her work is reflected in lifetime achievement awards from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and the International Sidney Society, as well as numerous other honors. A founder and former president of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women, Margaret also had long-standing ties to the Folger Shakespeare Library, where she held several research fellowships. Margaret is remembered not only for the brilliance of her research, but for her generosity and wisdom to many as a teacher, as a mentor, and as a colleague.

The Folger Institute is now accepting applications for the new Margaret Hannay fellowship, and scholars who are interested should consult Folger’s website and then apply via their online portal. Applicants must be members of the SSEMW and should hold the terminal degree in their field. The deadline for applications is 1 March, 2017.