Organizer Information
Princeton University was founded in 1746. The Lewis Center for the Arts, home to the Hodder Fellowship, opened in 2017 as the university's first purpose-built arts facility, following a 2006 initiative from then-president Shirley Tilghman to make the arts a central part of Princeton's academic identity. The center unites Princeton's programs in Creative Writing, Dance, Music Theater, Theater, Visual Arts, and the interdisciplinary Princeton Atelier, and hosts more than 100 public events each year, most free and open to the wider community. The Hodder Fellowship itself is funded by the Charles John Morris Gwinn and Alfred Hodder Memorial Fund and has run for decades as one of the center's flagship fellowship programs, alongside the Princeton Arts Fellowship.
Title & Description
The Hodder Fellowship
The Hodder Fellowship is given to artists and writers described as being of "exceptional promise" to pursue independent projects at Princeton during a single academic year. Unlike the Princeton Arts Fellowship, the Hodder carries no teaching obligation — fellows are selected, in the program's own words, more "for promise than for performance," and the fellowship exists to give them what the source calls "studious leisure": sustained, unstructured time to complete significant new work.
Potential fellows include composers, choreographers, performance artists, visual artists, writers, translators, and other artists or humanists. The program notes that, given the strength of the applicant pool, most successful fellows have already published a first book or reached a comparable milestone in their field, though this isn't stated as a formal eligibility requirement.
Categories
- Composer
- Choreography
- Performance
- Visual Arts
- Writing
- Fellowship
- Translation (not in platform taxonomy — closest fit noted for reference)
- Interdisciplinary Arts
Eligibility
- Artists and writers of exceptional promise, selected more for promise than for prior performance or achievement
- Open to composers, choreographers, performance artists, visual artists, writers, translators, and other artists or humanists
- For this cycle, only applications from the Program in Dance, Program in Theater and Music Theater, Program in Visual Arts, and the Department of Music are being accepted
- One need not be a U.S. citizen to apply
- Previous recipients of the Princeton Arts Fellowship are not eligible to apply
- Applicants may apply for the Hodder Fellowship a maximum of twice in a lifetime
Program Benefits & Awards
- $93,000 stipend for the 10-month appointment
- No formal teaching obligation — the fellowship year is dedicated to the fellow's independent project
- Appointment as a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University for the academic year
Application Fee
None
How to Apply?
Online Application
Key Dates
- Application Deadline: 8 September 2026
- Fellowship term: one academic year (10-month appointment)
Location
Princeton, New Jersey, United States
Additional Details
- Fellowships are not intended to fund work leading toward an advanced degree.
- Five Hodder Fellows were selected for 2026–27: Jos Charles (poet), Eric Gyamfi (photographer), nazareth hassan (theatermaker), Amirtha Kidambi (composer), and Anna Sperber (choreographer).
- Discipline eligibility for the Hodder Fellowship is narrower in some outside sources (some describe an additional $5,000 research allowance), but this detail does not appear on the official Lewis Center page and is not included here as a confirmed benefit — worth verifying directly with the program before publishing if you want to include it.