An interesting opportunity has arisen for horror, dark fiction, and Lovecraftian writers and aficionados: The S.T. Joshi Endowed Research Fellowship, “for research relating to H.P. Lovecraft, his associates, and literary heirs,” is being offered by Brown University. The Fellowship “was established by The Aeroflex Foundation and Hippocampus Press,” and is “named for S. T. Joshi, Brown alumnus (’80, MA ’82) and prominent Lovecraft scholar,” and is designed to support a six-week research period at the John Hay Library, “home to the largest collection of H. P. Lovecraft materials in the world,” with a $2,500 stipend.
“Located in historic Providence, Rhode Island and founded in 1764, Brown University is the seventh-oldest college in the United States,” as the Brown University website explains. Given Lovecraft’s deep association with Providence – his tombstone even bears the inscription “I Am Providence” – there couldn’t be a better place for the budding or established Lovecraftian to study his legacy, especially given the contents of the John Hay Library’s Lovecraft Collection: “more than 1,000 books and magazines, in 20 languages, containing material by or about Lovecraft plus over 2,000 original letters and manuscripts of his essays, fiction and poetry.”
Given Lovecraft’s role as both a pivotal supporter of other horror and weird fiction writers, and a voluminous correspondent, with some 100,000 letters credited to him, there is the fascinating opportunity to draw the net really wide and cover any number of other authors, as well as key themes of cosmic horror. S.T. Joshi himself (in full, Sunand Tryambak Joshi), is one of the finest scholars and biographers in the genre, and contributions to match up to his work would be welcome indeed. As per the timing announced in the earlier notices, Brown is now releasing further details of the Fellowship, and applicants are invited to contact Thomas Horrocks at the email address in the notice above.
