The Charles Singleton Center offers funding to support a wide variety of faculty initiatives, including, but not limited to, the sponsorship of special workshops and conferences, subventions for the invitation of relevant speakers to departmental colloquia, journées d’étude, and especially our signature initiatives—the transatlantic seminars and seminars-in-situ.

The center welcomes fresh ideas and proposals for programming from all Hopkins faculty. Contact the director, Lawrence Principe, at [email protected] with your ideas.

Transatlantic Seminars

This signature program, initiated at the very origins of the Singleton Center, encourages collaboration and contact between Johns Hopkins and a European counterpart institution by funding a pair of themed conferences, one to be held at Homewood and the other at the European institution. Such conferences would include presentations by faculty and graduate students from the two institutions. The transatlantic seminars generally build upon contacts between two faculty members. Singleton funding ordinarily pays for transportation costs to Europe, lodging costs for European guests in Baltimore, and the costs of the Baltimore conference. The European partner is expected to cover the costs of their own participants to come to Baltimore, the lodging expenses of JHU participants for the conference in Europe, and the costs of the European conference. Previous transatlantic seminars have been held at Oxford, Nijmegen, Dresden, Barcelona, and elsewhere. Please send proposals to the Singleton Center director.

Seminars-in-Situ

This program, initiated in 2015, provides travel and lodging expenses to faculty to bring their graduate seminars (including any undergraduates who might be enrolled) to specific locales of special relevance to the seminar. Past recipients have, for example, brought seminar students to special art exhibitions and to archeological sites. In general, faculty are encouraged (but not obliged) to fund their own travel from departmental funds and employ Singleton funds for students. Please send proposals to the Singleton Center director.

Conferences, Workshops, and Journées d’étude

The Singleton Center offers funding to faculty for organizing conferences and workshops that take place either in Baltimore or in Europe. The Singleton Center does not fund travel to annual conferences (such as RSA).  Conferences organized at Hopkins can receive funding to cover the travel and lodging expenses of invited speakers, receptions, advertising, refreshments, etc. Co-sponsorship is equally possible and preferred for large events. Past examples include the 2016 Aristo at 500 conference, the 2014 Sources of Early Alchemy workshop, and cosponsorship of the Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies in 2015.

The Singleton Center also funds travel and living expenses for Hopkins faculty and graduate students to attend and present their research at special Singleton-sponsored or co-sponsored conferences organized in Europe with a European partner. Past examples include the conference “Epistemic Exchange in the Early Modern World: European and non-Europeans in Dialogue” held at the Villa Schifanoia in Fiesole in 2012.

Journées d’étude provide opportunities for relatively small-scale programming on focused topics and for introducing graduate students to active members of their field from other institutions. Ordinarily, they would include Hopkins faculty and graduate student presentations as well as speakers invited from the outside, especially from Europe. Funding can cover travel and lodging expenses of invited speakers, receptions, advertising, refreshments, etc. Recent examples include “Conjecture in the Age of Diderot” (2013) and “Climates Past and Present” (2017).

Departmental Colloquia

One of the Singleton Center’s prime objectives is to increase the profile and presence of premodern European studies across the University. To this end, the center is willing to share costs to bring distinguished speakers from Europe (or elsewhere abroad) to regularly-scheduled departmental colloquia, costs that would ordinarily be too high for departmental colloquia budgets to cover on their own. Ordinarily, the center will cover 50% of the total costs of transportation and lodging, although this is subject to negotiation for each invitation. The invitee must of course speak on a topic relating to premodern Europe; Singleton Center cosponsorship must appear on all listings, posters, and advertising for the event; and an announcement of the lecture must be circulated on the Singleton mailing list.

Faculty Exchanges with European Institutions

The Singleton Center has signed memoranda of understanding with several European institutions, which include the possibility of faculty exchanges. The center is especially keen to embark upon such exchanges. See the Collaborating Institutions page for a listing of these institutions. Faculty with links to other European universities are encouraged to explore the possibility of developing additional memoranda of understanding for collaborative programming with the center director.