The Gillespie Curatorial Fellowship in Shakespeare and the Book is open to current undergraduate and graduate students at UMass Amherst and those affiliated formally with UMass through the Five Colleges. The Fellowship will transpire at the Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies (650 East Pleasant Street, Amherst).
Fellows will be selected during the Fall semester each year and work will begin immediately toward a Spring semester exhibit.
Application materials should be uploaded as PDFs here by October 19, 2025. For a complete list of materials, please review the Call for Applications page. Ahead of submission, you are strongly encouraged to speak with faculty, mentors, and the Kinney Center rare book librarian as you prepare your application.
Letters of recommendation should come from a faculty member or mentor who can speak to your interests and intellectual investments.
Applications are due October 19, 2025.
Applications will be reviewed by a committee of faculty and librarians.
Announcement of Fellowship recipients will go out no later than early November.
Over the course of this year-long Fellowship you will gain skills in curatorial practices and management, applicable across a range of settings from museums and libraries to historical societies and arts organizations. This is not simply theoretical, you will work with materials and special collections to create an original exhibit motivated by your own research interests and questions.
The award of the Gillespie Curatorial Fellowship in Shakespeare & the Book comes with a stipend of $4,000.