The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Tennessee

FAIN: CH-50076-04

University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Knoxville, TN 37916-3801)
Michael Kulikowski (Project Director: June 2003 to November 2009)

Endowment for staff salaries, academic fellowships, and programming in a Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

The University of Tennessee Medieval and Renaissance faculty are seeking a three million dollar NEH Challenge Grant to establish a permanent Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. The fundamental purpose of the Center is to promote the kind of rigorous interdisciplinary scholarship that has recently become so fruitful in the study of this defining period in western civilization. Twenty-four faculty members from eight different disciplines represented by the Center, presently dispersed across the University's large campus, will benefit from regular encounters in one single place. Modestly housed in an existing University building, the Center will offer an alert and lively scholarly atmosphere, with a classroom, a small library, and offices for postdoctoral and visiting fellows. Activities will range from informal faculty workshops to formal presentations by the center fellows. Faculty members will be able to offer their seminars at the Center, and visiting lecturers will be invited to attend these seminars and to meet informally with faculty. In every case, the Center will support a sharpened exchange of ideas among faculty, fellows, and students from various disciplines. The Center will also sponsor scholarly initiatives, including visiting and postdoctoral fellowships, an annual symposium and its published proceedings, and an enlarged undergraduate Medieval Studies curriculum. It is expected that the Center, in supplenmenting an incresaingly distnguished faculty and superior library resources, will create a prominent focus for Medieval and Renaissance studies in the Southeast, joining a handful of similar centers across the country.