Endowing a Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies

FAIN: CH-51222-15

American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia, PA 19106-3309)
Timothy B. Powell (Project Director: May 2014 to May 2016)
Patrick K. Spero (Project Director: May 2016 to June 2019)

Endowment for the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies.

The American Philosophical Society seeks a Challenge Grant of $500,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to establish a foundational endowment of $2 million for a new Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies, which will become a permanent division of the Society's research library. Plans for the Center are grounded in the Library's significant Native American ethnohistory and linguistics collections (including a newly established digital audio archive of extinct and endangered languages) and in the success of four prototype partnerships with tribes in the U.S. and Canada. The Center will promote Digital Knowledge Sharing as the linchpin of partnerships among archives and Native communities; establish a consortium of sister repositories (including emerging tribal archives) to undertake collaborative initiatives; and encourage a new generation of indigenous scholars to participate in academic pursuits as well as cultural revitalization projects.