The Banjo Project Digital Museum and Interactive Narratives from the African Diaspora to the Folk Revival, 1680-1980.

FAIN: FEL-289752-23

Marc Fields
Emerson College (Boston, MA 02116-4624)

Research and writing leading to six digital exhibitions on the history of the banjo in America.

For the past twenty years, I have been studying the history of the banjo as the quintessential American instrument during its three centuries of cultural exchanges and collisions. In 2010, I began exploring new media and interactive forms with a Mass Humanities New Media grant, and began building a website shortly thereafter. In 2019, my team and I were fortunate to be the recipients of an NEH Digital Projects for Public grant that allowed us to complete The Banjo Project digital museum as a beta prototype. Thanks to the NEH, I have the infrastructure to continue my journey as a cultural historian. I have a place to publish new scholarship in a new form, and a curatorial perspective on the areas of banjo history that merit additional narratives. As a scholar of banjo history, I am seeking an NEH-Mellon Fellowship to allow me the time away from teaching to write these narratives, which will then be published and disseminated on The Banjo Project digital museum.