The Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) at Hunter College has announced an open call to numerous summer opportunities: research fellowships, an artist-in-residence fellowship, and the DiaThe Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) at Hunter College has announced an open call to numerous summer opportunities: research fellowships, an artist-in-residence fellowship, and the Diasporican Chapbook Graduate Fellowship. These positions are all part of the transformative five-year research initiative “Rooted + Relational,” which began last year under the leadership of CENTRO Directora, Dr. Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez.
The “Rooted + Relational” research initiative follows an annual thematic structure, unifying the work across CENTRO, and offering scholarly and cultural programming. The inaugural theme of the Rooted + Relational initiative is “Archives, Memory & the Present Past of Puerto Rico,” and it invites researchers to engage with archives and memory work concepts, practices, and theories within Puerto Rican Studies and Puerto Rican and Diasporican history. The theme contends with the material and theoretical importance of the archive in contemporary scholarship and research practices while opening a space to engage with contestation, archival reckoning, archival architecture, facilities, accessibility, quotidian interventions, and forms of archival refusal.
These are the three kinds of summer fellowships we are offering:
- Summer 2025 Rooted + Relational Research Fellowships — The summer research fellowship offers archival research support during the summer of 2025 (June-August 2025). Proposals should be aligned with our annual theme, “Archives: Memory & the Present Past of Puerto Rico,” and should explicitly engage with CENTRO’s available archival collections. This year, we will award two summer research fellowships of $5,000 each. Fellows must be able to come and work from our Library and Archives location in East Harlem. For one of these fellowships, priority will be given to researchers interested in working with the Jesús Colón Papers. The other fellowship is open to any area of study or collection housed at the CENTRO Library & Archives.
- Summer 2025 Rooted + Relational Artistic Research Residency Program — The Artistic Research Residency Program, led by the CENTRO Arts and Culture Unit, foregrounds the integration of rigorous research methodologies within artistic practice. Resident artists collaborate with CENTRO’s staff and researchers, and participate in critical discussions aligned with our thematic research agenda. This summer, we will award one $5,000 residency from June to August 2025. Residents should be over 21 years old, and able to come and work from our Library and Archives location in East Harlem. The program welcomes applicants from a diverse range of disciplines, genres, and methodological perspectives.
- Diasporican Archives Graduate Research Fellowship — CENTRO Press and Lost and Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative jointly call for applications for the Diasporican Archives Graduate Research Fellowship. We will award up to two fellowships of $3,000 each to two graduate students currently enrolled at CUNY. The fellowship will support the research and completion of the project from June-August 2025. The awardees will conduct research at CENTRO’s Archives to edit a chapbook with original research and unpublished archival materials. Fellows will have the support of an ad hoc group of advisors composed of members of both CENTRO and Lost and Found. Successful chapbooks will be co-published as part of CENTRO Press’ Diasporican Archives Chapbook Series and Lost and Found.
All fellows must commit to conducting in-person archival research for a minimum of two weeks of the 3-month fellowship tenure. Lodging will not be provided. Starting today, CENTRO is accepting applications to all these positions, which will begin in the Summer of 2025. To learn more about the fellowship program for the “Rooted + Relational” initiative, please click here.