Making the Humanities Public In Montana: Racial Justice, Death in a Time of COVID, and Sustaining Native Scholarship

FAIN: ZPP-283460-22

University of Montana (Missoula, MT 59801-4494)
Tobin Miller Shearer (Project Director: May 2021 to November 2021)
Tobin Miller Shearer (Project Director: November 2021 to present)
Kelly J. Dixon (Co Project Director: January 2022 to present)
Kathryn Shanley (Co Project Director: January 2022 to present)
Ashby Kinch (Co Project Director: January 2022 to present)
Gillian Glaes (Co Project Director: March 2022 to present)

An extensive one-year calendar of activities conducted by three University of Montana departments on a variety of humanities topics.

The University of Montana (UM) in Missoula is Montana’s flagship university and its leading humanities institution. Humanities scholars from UM’s Humanities Institute (HI), the Departments of Anthropology, English, Native American Studies (NAS),and History, and the African-American Studies (AAST) Program join in this proposal to “Make Humanities Public” through a coordinated program of public-facing events, research, classes, and other offerings focused on racial justice, death in the COVID era, the history of pandemics, and Native American programming. This team of scholars has a strong record of humanities education and engagement, as well as close relationships with diverse community partners. Accordingly, the team is uniquely suited to ensure the continued vitality of the humanities in Montana and the surrounding region.