Call for Proposals!
2026 Doctoral Dissertation Workshop with Evren Savci and Serena Bassi
May 4 - 8, 2026 at Yale University
Applications are due by Friday, February 20, 2026 at 11:59pm
Yale LGBT Studies is pleased to announce that the Sarah Pettit Doctoral Fellowship in Lesbian Studies is welcoming applications for a biennial dissertation-writing workshop for a cohort of doctoral fellows. The 2026 Yale Pettit Doctoral Fellowship Workshop will take place May 4 – 8 in New Haven, CT.
Fellows will convene for a three-day intensive workshop at Yale University where they will present and engage with each other’s work. They will meet with and receive feedback from the workshop’s two faculty mentors, Professors Evren Savci and Serena Bassi. Following the three-day workshop, fellows will stay in New Haven for an additional two days to be in conversation, to write and to take advantage of Yale University libraries and resources. Fellows will receive stipends and travel funding in addition to room and board for the week of the workshop.
2026 Pettit Fellowship Description:
Historically, Queer Studies scholarship has been suspicious of sexual politics and progressive organizing in liberal democracies. Queer scholarship on social movements has disproportionally focused on the allegedly NGO-ized terrain of LGBT activism, and has criticized gay and lesbian political imaginaries oriented towards the future, since that future is imagined as always already normatively reproductive. Geopolitical developments in the last few years stand in sharp contrast with these critical accounts. In the context of rising authoritarian right-wing movements and governments across the world, the need for counter-hegemonic sexual and gender politics proves to be urgent. Radical and powerful queer, trans and feminist movements have risen to the occasion and have been organizing all over the world, often intersecting with labor movements, anti-racist and decolonial formations, environmental resistance and other strands of radical politics. These new movements and their counter-hegemonic aspirations remain at present regrettably understudied. They are also not without historical precedents, although cultural histories of queer resistance to authoritarian forms of government and governance in the 19th century and throughout the 20th have yet to been written. This workshop invites work of graduate students whose projects focus on queer and trans movements worldwide from the 19th century to the present day. We are interested in scholarship employing humanistic or social scientific approaches that document the complexities and the contradictions through which such organizing comes into being.
Eligibility:
Applicants must be enrolled doctoral candidates who have completed coursework, qualifying exams, and submitted their dissertation prospectus (i.e., ABD status). Students studying or located in all geographical regions are welcome. However, funds from the Pettit Fellowship may not be able to cover the total cost of travel for many students coming from international locations. We encourage students from non-US locations to apply for supplementary travel funding from their home institutions. Doctoral students enrolled at Yale University are ineligible to apply for the Fellowship.
Students working on projects concerned with a range of genders, gender identities, sexualities, and sexual practices are invited to apply. We seek applicants who can engage scholarship outside their specializations and who are interested to consider the broad consequences of different methods and approaches for scholarly work.
Background:
The Sarah Pettit Fund was established in 2003 as a permanent endowment to honor and perpetuate the memory of lesbian activist Sarah Pettit, who earned her BA from Yale University in 1988. Pettit died in 2003 in the midst of a high-profile career as a writer, editor, and LGBTQ advocate. She was for many years the editor-in-chief and vice president of OUT Magazine, which she co-founded in 1992. In 1999, she was appointed the senior editor of Newsweek’s Arts and Entertainment section. She served on the advisory board of the New York Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project.
From 2006 to 2014, the Sarah Pettit Fellowship was run as a biennial fellowship providing a year of support to a graduate student, from an institute other than Yale, who was writing a dissertation in LGBT Studies, with lesbian studies as its focus. From 2016 onwards, the format changed to a biennial dissertation-writing workshop for scholars working on select themes in lesbian studies.
Applications:
Applications are due by Friday, February 20, 2026 at 11:59pm and should include:
- completed application form
- cover letter that describes your dissertation and particular interest in this fellowship
- one-page chapter or topic proposal for presentation and discussion at the workshop
- curriculum vitae
- letter of support from the dissertation advisor and the name of two additional references
Application and instructions for submission at lgbts.yale.edu/Pettit. Questions about the program may be directed to lgbts@yale.edu.
We expect notifications by mid-March 2026.
Past Recipients of the Sarah Pettit Fellowship:
2006–07: Emma Heaney (University of California, Irvine)
2008–09: Quinlan Miller (Northeastern University)
2010–11: Serena Dankwa (University of Berne, Switzerland)
2013–14: Nessette Falu (Rice University)
2015–16: Amanda Cachia, Krystal Cleary, Theodora Danylevich, Alejandra Marquez, Melina Moore, Caitlin O’Neill
2019–20: Sahin Acikgoz (University of Michigan), Elyse Ambrose (Drew University), Joe Coyle (University of Illinois), Jallicia Jolly (University of Michigan), Suzanna Krisvulskaya (Notre Dame University), Claire Urbanski (University of California, Santa Cruz)
2023-24: Lauren Bakst (University of Pennsylvania), Devon Betts (University of Maryland), Diana Cage (University of California, Davis), Themal Ellawala (University of Illinois, Chicago), Alejandrina Medina (University of California, San Diego), Nat Rivkin (University of Pennsylvania), Joseph Shaikewitz (New York University), Connor Spencer (Columbia University)