The application cycle is now open!
Next Deadline: 11:59pm on Sunday, September 14, 2025
HOP 101 Info Sessions
Thursday, August 21 in the Macksey Seminar Room (M-level, Brody Learning Commons)
- Session 1 (3:00pm – 3:45pm)
- Session 2 (4:00pm – 4:45pm)
- Session 3 (5:00pm – 5:45pm)
Application
Apply to be a First-Year Fellow
Launched in 2016, First-Year Fellows (originally known as Freshman Fellows) is an academic opportunity designed to introduce students to conducting research with rare books, manuscripts, and archival material during their first year at The Johns Hopkins University. Limited to only four students a year, the successful applicant will:
- Conduct research with rare books, manuscripts, and archival collections;
- Analyze items of cultural significance and improve their research skills;
- Be partnered with a mentor in Special Collections who will provide them with individualized research plans;
- Create an end-product of their choosing that focuses on their research, such as an academic talk, a poster presentation, a work of fiction, or an online exhibition;
- Receive a $2,000 research award ($1,000 at the end of the fall semester, and $1,000 at the end of the spring semester).
Research outcomes may include a display in the Special Collections Reading Room, a webinar, creative writing or artwork inspired by your discoveries, or other project that showcases your research in an accessible and interesting manner. This is a nice opportunity to expand your skill set beyond the standard research paper! Please contact Heidi Herr (hherr1@jhu.edu), the program manager, for questions about the program or for guidance with the application process. You are also encouraged to directly contact the mentor associated with the topics(s) you are interested in researching.
2025/2026 Research Topics
Divining the Tarot
Mentor: Heidi Herr
Have you ever consulted the tarot for insight into a problem? Or perhaps you just love the art and design of the classic tarot deck. The tarot has a centuries-old history of people seeking guidance or artistic inspiration from the cards, with a renewed interest in the 21st century for both recreation and therapeutic practice. Explore our collection of tarot decks, including everything from an 18th century animal tarot to rare decks created by artists, and see what sort of research you can divine about the past, present, and future of the tarot!
Curating the Sesquicentennial
Mentor: Brooke Shilling
Curate a portion of the Sheridan Libraries’ exhibition in honor of the university’s sesquicentennial (150th anniversary). You will develop a theme, select objects from Special Collections and University Archives, research the objects, and write labels. Potential themes include early acquisitions (1874–), the transition from departmental libraries to a centralized library (1964), technology in the library, and the founding of the archives (1971). The exhibition will open at the George Peabody Library on March 11, 2026. To meet exhibition deadlines, most of the work for this project must be completed in the fall and winter.
Translating Untranslated Works
Mentor: Mack Zalin
The author Italo Calvino once called the translator his “most important ally” who “introduce[d] [him] to the world.” By translating hitherto untranslated works in German, French, Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, Italian, or Classical Greek held in Special Collections at Johns Hopkins University, you, too, can introduce readers to the world and be introduced to the libraries at Hopkins in turn. No matter what your interests or intended major may be, your working knowledge of any one of these languages can be applied to translating a host of texts on a variety of subjects that have never been rendered into English.
