What are the fellowships?

My fellowship at Durham (Lendrum Priory Residential Research Library Fellowship) was transformative for my research as it enabled me to access the little-studied medieval collections of Ushaw College in situ and even discover a hitherto unknown original charter of King John (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-47698594)

My DRRL Visiting Fellowship allowed me the time and scope – and, crucially, the financial support – I required in order to initiate a new research project on English northern cathedral communities in the eighteenth century. At every stage of my Fellowship, I had prompt organisational support and tie-ins with other resident Fellows and permanent members of the History and Theology Departments. No less supportive were the staff at Ushaw College and the opportunity for membership of St Chad ‘s College SCR added a much-valued additional dimension of academic collegiality. Above all, it was the helpfulness of library staff in facilitating my research that has given it such a flying start. The visit as a whole has given me what I hope will be enduring ties to many people and places in contemporary Durham.

I was honoured and delighted to be awarded the visiting fellowship. Although I have visited Durham many times for the purpose of my project it was only on this visit that I had a formal link with the university itself and the opportunity to collaborate. I enjoyed giving talks to the History Department and to the Durham Sixth Form Centre and teaching Latin Palaeography; and it was a great pleasure to have the affiliation with St Chad’s College during my time in Durham.

My Durham Research Library Fellowship was a fantastic experience. I collaborated with Durham faculty and other visiting researchers, and made great headway on my research projects in early modern British and Catholic history. In the Ushaw College library, I was able to trace how English Catholics were interpreting and responding to the political and religious conflicts that rent the European continent in the late eighteenth century. I now have invaluable epistolary and other evidence of the English Catholic communities divisions during this exciting time in history.

'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!'

I had a particularly productive time in Durham, during which I carried out research in the Ushaw College, Cathedral, and University Libraries. This was made possible by the generous assistance of staff at each of these locations, who were swift to understand and accommodate the needs of readers. During my time in Durham, I was fortunate to organise an international conference in collaboration with the Classics Department, for which the beautiful surroundings of the city provided the perfect backdrop.

The Barker Visiting Fellowship allowed me to become a temporary member of the vibrant community of Durham University and to extend my network with UK scholars that I am sure will bring fruitful cooperation in the future. From the scientific perspective, it permitted me to boost my progress on my project provisionally titled Uranian Poetics: Girolamo Fracastoro and the Tradition of Medical Scientific Poetry. The core of my activity consisted of the consultation of manuscripts and old printed editions preserved by the Palace Green Library, particularly the texts from the Kellet Collection and the Magby Library. Among the material that turned out to be particularly relevant and inspirational, I refer only to the De arte poetica and the didactic poems of Girolamo Vida (1485-1566), the carmina of Théodore de Bèze (1519-1605), the Paedotrophiae, sive De puerorum educatione by Scévole de Sainte-Marthe (1536-1623), and ten volumes of the Carmina illustrium poetarum italorum. This scholarly material allowed me to study in detail numerous precedents, contemporaries, and successors of Fracastoro. The study, in turn, contributed to placing his theory of poetry and his medical-poetic works into a clearer historical, scientific, and literary context. In conclusion, the Fellowship was extremely beneficial, both in heuristic terms and for concrete research activities. I am very grateful to the committee and the philanthropic funders, and I hope to continue my collaboration with them in the future.

Barbara Jones Denison is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Shippensburg University, where she was the director of the interdisciplinary Organizational Development and Leadership graduate program, department chair of Sociology and Anthropology, and director of the undergraduate online degree completion program. With a 1985 PhD in sociology from Northwestern University, Denison has worked professionally within sociology as well as a number of interdisciplinary contexts. She recently published “Giving Up the Good for the Better: Dorothy Day’s Ethic of Direct Action” in A Research Agenda for Organizational Ethics (2023). Having been active in a number of international, national, and regional sociology and leadership studies organizations, she is the incoming president-elect of the North Central Sociological Association for 2024. She continues her research on the intersectionality of leadership and gender in re-examining the contemporary imaging of lessons from historical religious women, and is currently examining Joseph Lightfoot’s late 19th c. ideas on diaconesses as leaders in the context of assessing a typology for understanding the role of gender in women’s religious leadership..

The Barker Fellowship was invaluable because it enabled me to continue my research during a period when I was without other institutional funding. The material that consulted in Durham’s collections — about early modern market toll disputes, and grain toll disputes in particular — illuminated neglected aspects of the socio-economic history of the northeast and added new dimensions to my thinking about the dynamics that operated in similar disputes elsewhere in England.

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.