Blakemore Foundation

It’s not just a matter of improvement, but rather more like having blinders lifted. I was a Chinese History Ph.D. student before I received the Blakemore grant and thought I had pretty much reached the level of Chinese I needed for research.
I passively accepted the fact that Chinese was a confoundedly difficult language and there wasn’t much I could do about it. Now I walk down the aisles of books in the East Asian Reading Room and everything seems clear – I look at sources I struggled with a year ago, and the characters melt and give up their meanings. Inscrutable tomes are now full of stories. I no longer sit at a desk under the suspicious gaze of the librarian, pretending I understand what I’m looking at. Now I do understand. I read the papers. I seize random books from the shelves and pore through them. It is wonderful.

Since 1990, the Foundation has awarded over $13.3 million in language grants.

Blakemore Freeman Fellowships fund a year of advanced language study abroad for college graduates using an East or Southeast Asian language in their careers.  Click here to download a flyer.

Blakemore Refresher Grants are short-term grants intended to provide mid-career professionals an opportunity to refresh their language skills. They are available to former Blakemore Freeman Fellows, professors teaching in an Asian field at a university or college in the United States and professionals working in an Asian field.

The next deadline for language grant applications is December 30, 2012.  An updated application form and grant guidelines will be posted on our website by June 30.  In the meantime, click here to review last year's application form and grant guidelines.

Please refer to our language grant main page for grant guidelines and eligibility requirements, and our FAQ page, which has answers to many common questions.