Other Significant Fellowships
Past Fellows
Durham is a lovely town, and the University is a stimulating place for scholars. I believe that the Fellowship will offer wonderful experiences, both academically and socially, to anyone interested in research and life at an English university.
Shunsuke Katsuta
Sasakawa Visiting Fellowship (University of Tokyo, Japan)
I was successful in obtaining a Barker Fellowship which allowed me to spend a month researching in the fantastic libraries attached to Durham University. A wonderful month of not just intense research but also I was made very welcome by staff and students and was able take full part in university life. A very rewarding experience.
Professor Jack Cunningham
Barker Visiting Fellowship (University of Lincoln, United Kingdom)
My time in Durham as a researcher under the Research Fellowship scheme was both congenial and very fruitful. It provided me with access to significant and essential materials that facilitated my project in transformative ways. The library and archives staff were exemplary in their welcome and generous assistance. Living in Durham for one month was also a most pleasant experience. My thanks to all who support the scheme and I commend it to any who are considering making an application.
Rev Dr Robert Fennell
Barker Visiting Fellowship (Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)
At Durham, Vanessa consulted Seventeenth and Eighteenth-century oeuvres from the Ushaw and Palace Green libraries on mystical theology and instructions for religious rituals to explore the understanding and rationalization of occult practices at a time of global Counter–reformation. Two of the most influential works in her search were Martín Antoine Del Rio, Disquisitionum magicarum libri sex, quibus continentur accurata curiosarum artium, et vanarum superstitionum confutatio, vtilis theologis, iurisconsultis, medicis, philologis (Moguntiae: Sumptibus Petri Henningii, 1624); and Giovanni Bonna's Rerum liturgicarum libri duo (Augustae Taurinorum: Ex Typographia Regia, 1747). Some of the findings of this research were presented at the ‘Conferencia...
Vanessa Portugal
Barker Visiting Fellowship (University College London, England)
The Durham Residential Research Library Fellowship offered a chance to work with the University’s wonderful collection of early books in a really supportive environment. Between the study spaces, the library and fellowship staff, and especially the cohort of fellows, the month in Durham didn’t just give space to think and write, but offered new connections and lasting friendships. The work I did there inspired new directions in my own research, and is now informing a larger project on the paratextual features of manuscripts and early printed books. This has been a real highlight in my academic career.
Jonathan Zecher
Barker Visiting Fellowship (Australian Catholic University, Australia)
During my Fellowship (4-28 July 2022) I carried out a research on the VIth century Gallic bishop Sidonius Apollinaris – a key figure in Late Antiquity, also in the light of the new great interest in his works and within the International project SAxii – Sidonius Apollinaris for the XXIst century (www.sidonapol.org) –, having the chance to consult, right through the original documents, some of the first modern commentaries on him, available at Durham historic collections, at Palace Green Library and at Ushaw College: the XVI-XVIIth century editions by Jean Savaron (magistrate and humanist) and by Jacques Sirmond (Jesuit scholar)....
Filomena Giannotti
Barker Visiting Fellowship (University of Sienna, Italy)
'The opportunity to work intensively with the manuscript treasures of Durham special collections was invaluable. The collegial and friendly atmosphere generated in the cohort of fellows was an added bonus!'
Professor Gordon Pentland
Barker Visiting Fellowship (University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom)
My fellowship was a great experience and the working conditions were ideal. I was allotted a host college and made welcome everywhere. As well as working productively in the archives I met an expert on the material I was using, and attended seminars and events. Durham is the perfect thinking environment, and has the cafés to complement it - highly recommended.
Robert Poole
Barker Visiting Fellowship (University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom)
I was honoured to be granted a Visiting PhD Bursary at the DRRL. Durham University staff gave me a warm welcome and helped me all throughout my research stay. This fellowship was a great opportunity to work on the Poor Clares Darlington Collection held in Palace Green Library. With the assistance of the archivists and librarians, I was able to consult a great number of manuscripts. These primary sources allowed me to analyse and compare different aspects of female lived spirituality within English Poor Clare convents which is at the heart of my PhD. Last but not least, this award...
Claire Schiano-Locurcio
PhD Bursary (Aix-Marseille Université, France)
My month spent in Durham was incredibly rewarding. In addition to having time and resources to complete a major book project about John the Baptist, it was also incredible to investigate the rare books and manuscripts related to this topic that are to be found across the university’s, Ushaw College’s, and the Cathedral’s collections. I was also able to consult the books and papers of my doctoral supervisor when I was a student at Durham University, Prof. James D. G. Dunn, allowing me to complete an essay that he left unfinished when he died.
Dr James McGrath
Barker Visiting Fellowship (Butler University Indianapolis, USA)