The Story Behind The Christine Downing Dissertation Fellowship
Dr. Christine Downing reflects on the origins of the dissertation fellowship that bears her name
In this special issue, Dr. Christine Downing reflects on the inspiration behind the dissertation fellowship established in her name. First conceived in 2010 to mark her 80th birthday, the fellowship honors her lifelong love of teaching and expresses gratitude to Pacifica Graduate Institute, OPUS Archives, and the many students whose work she has guided. Beginning this week, two PhD students from Pacifica will share the fellowship and commence on-site research in the archives. We are honored to share Dr. Downing’s personal account of how the fellowship came to be, and the meaningful role archives can play in mythological and depth psychological scholarship.
Almost a year ago as I began to think about how I might mark my 80th birthday (which will come up this March) I knew I'd want to celebrate with friends somewhere in Europe (and soon realized it should be Venice this time not Paris) and to have a family gathering here on Orcas during the summer, but that I wanted to do something beyond that--something that would be related to the central place that love of teaching has had in my life. I also hoped to find a way of expressing how immeasurably grateful I am to Pacifica for for providing me with the richest teaching environment anyone could ask for, to thank OPUS for housing my professional and personal archives (in the company of those of Joseph Campbell and Marija Gimbutas and James Hillman!) and thus making them available to future students, and above all to thank my students, for their responsiveness, their commitment, their creativity, especially those whose dissertations I've been privileged to help bring to completion.
Suddenly it became obvious: what would mean more to me than anything else I could think of would be for a Dissertation Fellowship to be established in my name. Over the years as I have written letters supporting student applications for grants or fellowships I have become painfully aware how few are likely to be awarded to students writing dissertations with a depth psychology or mythological studies focus and how demoralizing this can be. I know many of our students really need some financial support and that all would feel honored by receiving the kind of acknowledgement of the worth of their work that receiving a research fellowship implies. I know from my own experience that being awarded a fellowship by the Society for Values in Higher Education when I was writing my dissertation made me feel that my project had been given a kind of recognition that in a strange way has buoyed me up ever since, a kind of promise that the work I was engaged in and the work I'd do later would somehow matter. The money helped, significantly, but the recognition mattered even more.
As I began to share this idea with others it became clear that the fellowship would need to be administered through OPUS (in order that gifts could be tax-deductible) and therefore could not be specified as available only to Pacifica students (though we imagine that, given the criteria, a high proportion of applicants will indeed be connected to Pacifica.) The connection to OPUS also meant that the fellowship would need to have some direct connection to the archives. Although this had not been part of my original vision (and I certainly never intended the fellowship to be tied to research that might focus on my own work) I have come to applaud it. The resources of those collections are I believe more extensive (and indeed amazing!) than most of us realize. My hunch is that almost any dissertation project adopting a mythological or depth psychological perspective would be enriched by exploring how these pioneering figures (or some among them) considered the particular topic (or, significantly! failed to.)
My idea was quite embryonic at first but as I’ve begun to share it, I’ve been delighted by how many have been moved by it. Lots of discussions with the powers that be at OPUS, with colleagues and former students, have now given what began quite nebulously a well-defined and practicable shape. I think it's going to happen and I couldn’t be more pleased!
Chris Downing
December 1. 2010