The Marian Fellowships are a collaborative endeavor from the Marian Library and the International Marian Research Institute (IMRI) to support research and artistic creation using the Marian Library’s collections and the expertise of IMRI scholars.
Graduate Scholar Fellowship
Alaina Keller, a doctoral student at Georgetown University in theology and religious studies, is the recipient of the 2026 Graduate Fellowship for her proposal “The Handmaid Is Emptiness, Emptiness Is the Handmaid: An Interreligious Study of the Virgin Mary as ‘Handmaid of the Lord.’” In her application, Keller wrote, “I aim to investigate the term ‘handmaid’ through an interreligious study of the Virgin Mary as the ‘handmaid of the Lord’ alongside the Buddhist figure Kannon, the ‘bodhisattva of compassion,’ who shares similarities with Mary in the devotion of early modern Japan.”
Keller’s research will span theology in the Marian Library’s books; Marian art prints by Carmelite nuns and Sadao Watanabe; and archives. She also noted the work of 2023 Resident Fellow Hsuan Tsen on Kannon and Mary as a source of connection for her work.
Resident Scholar Fellowship
David Sievers, a lecturer in voice in the Department of Music at the University of Dayton, is the recipient of the 2026 Resident Scholar Fellowship. Inspired by his work as a Marianist Educational Associate, his knowledge of the Paul Laurence Dunbar Archive and his experience as a church musician (he is the pastoral associate of music and liturgy at St. Luke Parish in Beavercreek, Ohio), Sievers recognized the need for a Marian music resource that didn’t yet exist. He envisioned a digital archive of Marian music “where musicians, both professional and amateur, who work in academic or religious institutions can find information about the music,” including publication, performance and where to find digital or print scores.
Sievers began work on the project in summer 2025 with support from Dean’s Summer Fellows in the College of Arts and Sciences and will explore the Marian Library’s music collections in depth as the resident scholar. He plans to make scores in the public domain available through existing resources like the International Music Score Library Project, as well as more broadly making the music accessible through recitals.
Visiting Scholar Fellowship
Madison Felman-Panagotacos, assistant professor of Spanish and Latin American studies at Otterbein University, received the 2026 Visiting Scholar Fellowship for her monograph project Alternative Maternities: Bodies, Death, and Argentine Citizenship Since 1820, which “explores how maternal figures have shaped the symbolic foundations of Argentine nationhood from the 19th century to the present.”
During her fellowship, Felman-Panagotacos will explore Marian devotion from 18th- and 19th-century Argentina in the Marian Library’s collections, including books, holy cards and print ephemera. Her proposal noted that this visual and textual evidence “will allow me to situate Argentine literary and cultural representations of motherhood within a broader transatlantic Marian framework” that in turn influenced “ideals of feminine virtue, sacrifice and maternity that were later secularized in nationalized discourse.”
More Information
Applications for the 2027 summer fellowships will open in October. More information about the fellowships, including reflections from previous recipients, is available on the Marian Library website.
— Henry Handley is an associate professor and the assistant director of the Marian Library and Special Collections.