Terra Foundation Affiliated Fellowship in Rome


This fellowship offers support for a postdoctoral or senior scholar to conduct research on American art and visual culture (not including architecture) prior to 1980 while in residence at the American Academy in Rome for a period of four to six months. During that time, the fellowship recipient will pursue their work in an atmosphere conducive to intellectual and artistic freedom, interdisciplinary exchange, and innovation. Topics dealing with Italian-American exchanges and requiring firsthand exposure to collections and archives in Rome and its vicinity will be given priority.

Anna E. Arabindan-Kesson is an Associate Professor of Art and Archaeology and African American Studies at Princeton University. Her research and teaching focus on Black diasporic art, with an emphasis on histories of race, empire, and medicine in the nineteenth century. The American Academy in Rome named Arabindan-Kesson a Terra Foundation Fellow for her project “A Dream of Italy: Black Geographies and the Grand Tour.” She is in residence at the American Academy in Rome in 2022–23.

Please note, this program is no longer active. If you have questions about our grant and fellowship opportunities for individuals, please contact [email protected].

Past Recipients

2021–22

Gloria Bell, Assistant Professor, Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University
“Eternal Sovereigns: Indigenous Artists, Activists, and Travellers Reframing Rome”

Julia A. Sienkewicz, Associate Professor, Fine Arts Department, Roanoke College
“Forms of white Hegemony: Transnational Sculptors Racialized Identity and the Torch of Civilization, 1836–1865”

2019–20

Melanie Masterton Sherazi, Howard E. and Susanne C. Jessen Postdoctoral Instructor, Humanities Division, California Institute of Technology
“Nero e Rosso: Desegregationist and Antifascist Aesthetics in Cold War Rome”

2018–19

David Ogawa, Associate Professor of Art History, Union College
“The Photographs of William James Stillman: Catalogue of the Union College Collection”