Vilas Travel Grant Competition Information
The 2009 - 2010 Vilas Travel Grant application is now closed. Applicants will be notified via email whether they have been awarded a Vilas Travel Grant by November 30, 2009.
Do you need money for travel to a make a presentation at a conference or for research purposes?
Apply for the Vilas Travel Grant Competition. The Graduate Student Collaborative
administers the Vilas Travel Grant Competition for UW-Madison Dissertators
and final year Master of Fine Arts students. Awards are granted for domestic or international
travel to conference presentations or for research purposes to eligible students.
Each year, as funds are available, the Vilas Travel Grant Competition begins the first business day in October and complete applications must be received as a packet by 4:30 p.m. on the last business day in October. Awards are announced by the end of November. In 2008, more than 300 $600 awards were granted for domestic and international research and conference presentation travel. An additional five $1,500 awards were granted for research travel outside the 48 United States.
The application has both online and paper components which consist of a letter of support from your major professor or faculty advisor supporting your reason for travel and a one-page statement of how presenting at a conference or conducting research will be of benefit to you.
Eligibility
- Graduate student dissertators or final-year Master of Fine Arts students who plan to present their research at a conference (e.g., program or poster) or travel for research purposes. Note: Master of Arts students are not eligible; only Master of Fine Arts students and dissertators are eligible.
- You must use the Vilas Travel Grant prior to graduating, i.e. you must still be enrolled as a student when you travel
- If you intend to use the grant to travel to a conference, you must be presenting at the conference.
- Dissertator status must be final before the first day of the Fall semester of the current award year.
- Master of Fine Arts students must be in their final year of work towards their degree. This must be stated in the Letter of Recommendation.
- Travel must occur between September 1 and August 31, therefore, previous travel may be funded.
- Priority will be given to applicants who have never been awarded a Vilas Travel Grant, though previous recipients are still eligible to apply.
- If you have not yet been accepted to make a presentation at a conference, we recommend you apply as though you have already been accepted to make a presentation.
- If you are applying to multiple conferences, we recommend you apply as though you have already been accepted to the most prestigious of the conferences.
Applications will not be accepted after Friday, October 30 at 4:30 p.m.
Vilas Winner Profile: Julie Gibbings
A PhD Candidate in Latin American history at the University of Madison-Wisconsin, Julie Gibbings explores the history of ethnic and race relations in Guatemala during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her research focuses on the region of Alta Verapaz during a time when German colonists and Ladinos from other regions immigrated to the region. She examines their involvement in the production of national imaginations that sought to transform the ‘backward’ indigenous frontier into a beacon of national progress and racial whitening. Through the inter-relationships that developed among these diverse groups, she examines why at particular historic junctures -- like forced labor debates in the 1880s and 1890s -- racial boundaries became particularly troublesome areas where politics unfolded. Through these historic junctures, Gibbings examines how the national state security apparatus evolved in relationship to racial boundaries that distinguished between those who could lead the onward march of history or were racially improved, and those who were perennially relegated to the nation’s past. In doing so, she sheds light on Guatemala’s late twentieth century legacy of state violence and genocide.
Gibbings conducted research not only in Guatemala’s national archives, including documents related to state security, but in abandoned municipal archives in Alta Verapaz. In conducting this research, she worked closely with communities discussing the role documents could play in contributing to new local and national histories and how to preserve their records. Describing her experience in Alta Verapaz , Gibbings said, “It was an amazing experience working with these communities. It also brought greater insight to my work. For example, when we were relocating a municipal archive to a more suitable location, a wealthy landowner noticed us transporting large boxes and sternly asked one of the employees, of very modest means, what he was doing. The employee responded with a proud smile, ‘We’re carrying history, sir.’ It was these kinds of everyday occurrences that I think really made a difference both for me and for the communities.”
Gibbings is currently writing her dissertation. She will be presenting a paper, “The Just Punishment of God for the Evil of Our Times”, at the upcoming American Society for Ethnohistory Conference in New Orleans.
Vilas Winner Profile: Pritika Chowdhry
A Master of Fine Arts candidate in Ceramics and Sculpture, Pritika Chowdhry focuses on making socially relevant, large-scale sculptures representing themes of cultural memory. A winner of the International Vilas Travel Grant, Pritika visited Kumartuli, India, an artisan town near Kolkata, to research the annual tradition of making large-scale deity sculptures out of unfired clay and straw.
The tradition is unique in that these sculptures are produced every year for the Pooja festival season in the fall. Durga Pooja is a ten-day festival that culminates in a public procession carrying goddess statues through the city to the banks of the Ganges river and then ceremonially immersing them into it. The clay used to make the sculptures is also dug from the banks of the Ganges.
"It was an amazing learning experience to work with and learn from the artisans in Kumartuli. However, in this town dedicated to the creation of protimas or sculptural images of the goddess, I did not see a single woman artisan. When I asked a couple of artisans that I had become close to about this, I was told with a smile that that is just how it is. As a woman artist myself, I want to understand and remedy this situation in some way. Therefore, here in Madison I would like to make feminist sculptures using the process of the Kumartuli artisans. These sculptures will be large-scale, secular in content, and will question gender roles in society," says Pritika.
The knowledge and insights Pritika gained about indigenous arts and artistic traditions of India not only inspired her in making the sculptures for her MFA thesis exhibit, but also inspired her to return to graduate school to pursue an M.A. degree in Visual Culture and Gender Studies; she will focus her studies on the visual cultures and history of South Asia.
Pritika’s upcoming solo exhibit in the Class of 1925 gallery in the Memorial Union is titled “Silent Waters.” It will feature a site-specific installation of 101 ceramics feet glazed black as a memorial to the partition of colonial India in 1947 along religious lines, which resulted in the creation of India and Pakistan. This watershed event sparked off the worst communal riots in the history of the sub-continent and two million Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs were killed, and a hundred thousand women were raped or abducted. Pritika’s artwork can also be seen online on her website www.pritikachowdhry.com.
2008-2009 Award Winners
2007-2008 Award Winners