Exploring the Four Elements: Toward a Digital Environmental History of the Americas

FAIN: MD-226651-15

Brown University (Providence, RI 02912-9100)
Neil Safier (Project Director: June 2014 to April 2017)

Development of a series of online and on-site exhibits examining the ways that the ecological elements of earth, air, fire, and water were interpreted by the inhabitants of the early Americas.

This proposal, submitted to the NEH Division of Public Programs for a Digital Projects for the Public Discovery Grant, constitutes a request in the amount of $29,755 to support the exploratory phase of a project to bring a new humanities initiative at the John Carter Brown Library to a much broader public than has traditionally been the case for the Library’s exhibitions and scholarly projects. “Exploring the Four Elements: Toward a Digital Environmental History of the Americas” takes a simple concept, the cultural significance of earth, air, fire, and water to the diverse populations of the Americas, from the continents’ earliest indigenous inhabitants to the last waves of European scientific explorers at the end of the colonial period, and examines the ramifications of human engagement with these elements as a window onto changing ecological relationships throughout the pre-contact and early modern periods in the early Americas.