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Funded Projects Query Form
54 matches

Grant program: Collaborative Research*
Date range: 2020-2023
Sort order: Award year, descending

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Boston College (Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3800)
Conevery Bolton Valencius (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292491-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$124,072 (approved)
$107,026 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 12/31/2024

Shaky Ground: The Untold Story of the Greatest Earthquake Surge to Hit Modern America

Research and writing of a co-authored book on the relationship between the rise of earthquakes and the oil and gas industry in the United States. (15 months)

Shaky Ground is a scientific detective story about researchers tracing recent mid-American earthquake activity to the production of fossil fuels. Innovative drilling techniques led by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, have made the 21st-century United States a leading exporter of both oil and natural gas. Yet getting rid of the huge volumes of wastewater from hydrocarbon production has caused the earth to shake, in myriad small tremors and in M5.7 and 5.8 earthquakes in Oklahoma. This book chronicles how the waste from energy innovation led to the expansion of science, as seismologists had to make room for a significant role in human action in causing earthquakes. Far from a smooth process, discerning the cause of new American earthquakes led to raucous debate, public alarm, and official obfuscation. This is a history of science and science denial, told with keen detail and vivid storytelling and relevant to current fraught debates over responses to global climate change.

Colorado Seminary (Denver, CO 80210-4711)
Andrea L. Stanton (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292607-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

[Media coverage]

Totals:
$50,000 (approved)
$50,000 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2024

Radio and Decolonization Around the Globe, 1920-Present

Planning and holding a conference on the roles of radio and listening in processes of decolonization in subaltern communities. (12 months)

This collaborative research convening project on radio and decolonization brings together an international cohort of scholars to produce and publish scholarship that will help radio archivists and producers, as well as scholars and students in a range of academic disciplines, to better understand and communicate the roles of radio broadcasting and listening in processes of decolonization. Its primary activity is to organize and host an interdisciplinary conference, which will include scholars with different points of view working in diverse fields including literary studies, music, history, sociology, anthropology, and media studies. The conference will be advertised to the public with attendance free of charge. Final outcomes include disseminating the conference via live streamed video, which will be recorded and uploaded to YouTube and linked to the conference website; paper abstracts; and short videos of the participants discussing the primary sources and material objects.

New York University (New York, NY 10012-1019)
Tansen Sen (Project Director: November 2022 to present)
Arunabh Ghosh (Co Project Director: September 2023 to present)
Gal Gvili (Co Project Director: October 2023 to present)

RZ-292626-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$244,624 (approved)
$244,624 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2026

China and India in an Age of Decolonization: An Analysis of the Nehru Papers, 1947-1964

Preparation of a digital archive and open-access edited volume on Indian - Chinese relations during the Cold War based on the papers of Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964). (36 months)

This project is submitted to the Scholarly Digital Projects category. It offers new perspectives on the early Cold War era by studying interactions between China and India. Our work pivots around the analysis and digitization of China-related materials from the recently declassified papers of Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), India’s first Prime Minister. These documents reorient existing narratives of the Cold War by illuminating China-India as a critical nexus which foregrounds an intra-Asian perspective in global histories of the 1950s. Studies of China-India exchange have largely focused on International Relations. In contrast, employing diverse disciplinary perspectives we will develop a digital archive and a peer reviewed open-access edited volume that will provide new understandings of issues that hold historical and contemporary significance, including scientific development, food security, gender and social equity, and popular culture.

Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI 48824-3407)
Christina Boyles (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292627-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$199,737 (approved)
$199,737 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2025

Archiving Puerto Rico: Digital Memory and the Temporalities of Disaster

Writing of a book that describes a digital archiving project based in Puerto Rico and its contributions to disaster studies and the digital humanities. (24 months)

“Archiving Puerto Rico: Digital Memory and the Temporalities of Disaster” explores the intersections of critical disaster studies, digital humanities, and lived experiences in the Puerto Rican archipelago, utilizing the non-hierarchical collaborative strategies of AREPR. The proposed volume, composed of six chapters and an afterword, incorporates contributions from AREPR’s team members and community partners that are grounded in new theories of digital humanities and disaster studies that emerged from the project. Authors explore post-custodial archiving practices used in building AREPR’s digital repository that allow community partners and academics to cocreate research and collaboratively design project outputs. Related topics sit at the nexus of participatory design, memory work, social and climate justice, and digital time. Archiving Puerto Rico provides a framework for scholars, cultural institutions, and community organizations to develop similar collaborative projects.

University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA 94704-5940)
Christine M. Philliou (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292650-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$249,842 (approved)
$246,347 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2026

Visualizing Local Christian Communities in Muslim Cosmopolitan Istanbul in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Preparation of a website that will reconstruct Orthodox Christian communities in late Ottoman Istanbul between 1821 and 1923. (36 months)

We seek NEH funding to develop an expansive and scholarly, public-facing website, in order to build new structures of knowledge and raise public awareness about Istanbul and its constituent Orthodox Christian communities in the 19th and 20th centuries. Drawing on but also bridging fragmented secondary scholarship of the last generation (in Greek, Turkish, French, as well as English), we are using a wide array of archival sources to carry out a systematic and comprehensive, granular reconstruction of the demography and topography of the Greek Orthodox communities of late Ottoman Istanbul (1821-1923). In doing so, we will be collaborating to produce articles, podcast interviews and ongoing blog posts, ArcGIS storymaps, relational databases and virtual as well as in-person exhibitions that grow out of the website, to write that group back into the history of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey, modern Greece and into the comparative study of urban spaces in this region.

CUNY Research Foundation, Bernard Baruch College (New York, NY 10010-5585)
Katrin Hansing (Project Director: November 2022 to present)
Maria de los Ángeles Torres (Co Project Director: September 2023 to present)

RZ-292665-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$248,284 (approved)
$231,376 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2026

Democratizing the Past: Cubans Remember the Angolan Civil War

Research and writing of a co-authored book revealing the stories of Cubans who fought in the Angolan Civil War. (36 months)

“All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.” -- Viet Thanh Nguyen. From 1975 to 1991, over 450,000 Cubans participated in a civil war in Angola that became one of the many arenas of the Cold War. The Cuban state-constructed narrative about the war tells a story of heroism and sacrifice to pay back the debt of slavery and help end apartheid in South Africa. But how do the Cubans, who participated in the war, many of whom today live in the United States, remember their experiences and make sense of what they witnessed? Our manuscript will explore these memories. It will be based on archival research and 75 oral history interviews, including ten in-depth case studies. Given the dominance of the Cuban government’s ideological, heroic and racialized narratives about the war, these grassroots testimonies gathered in Cuba and in the diaspora (mainly South Florida) will offer a more nuanced and complex understanding of the war experiences.

Regents of the University of Colorado, Boulder (Boulder, CO 80309-0001)
Zachary Herz (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292694-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$46,903 (approved)
$40,010 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2024

Empire of Correspondence

Planning and holding an international conference on Roman imperial correspondence (31 BCE - 534 CE). (12 months) 

Nearly all communication between Roman emperors and their subjects took place in the form of letters. Emperors responded to petitions, gave orders to lower-level administrators, and managed their aristocratic social obligations through the medium of correspondence. Insufficient attention has been paid, however, to the function of imperial letters as technologies of knowledge and governance within the Roman empire. We propose bringing together scholars of different subfields within Roman history for a conference, entitled Empire of Correspondence, considering how these documents functioned in different times, spaces (e.g., East/West), and archival milieux. These scholarly contributions will then be published as an edited volume of the same name.

President and Fellows of Harvard College (Cambridge, MA 02138-3800)
Joseph Dexter (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292726-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$247,439 (approved)
$247,439 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2026

Computational Methods for Historical Psychology: A case-study in Latin ca. 200 BCE - 1700 CE

Preparation of a series of peer-reviewed articles on the semantics of emotion in Latin texts from 200 BCE to 1700 CE, creation of a linguistic database and development of Latin corpora. (36 months)

We are applying for Manuscript Preparation funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Collaborative Research program for a mixed-methods study of psychology and emotion in Latin texts over two millennia. Leveraging the interdisciplinary backgrounds of our project team, which span classical philology, history of emotions, psychology, anthropology, data science, and natural language processing, we will explore key questions concerning the construction and operation of emotions in historical texts and how they reflect the psychological evolution of individuals and societies. Central to these efforts will be the creation of high-quality infrastructure and tools, including large diachronic Latin corpora, datasets profiling the semantics of emotions, and reproducible computational pipelines. Our work will be described in a coherent series of peer-reviewed articles targeted to a diverse range of audiences, all of which will be submitted by the end of the grant period in 2026.

University of Rochester (Rochester, NY 14627-0001)
Tatyana Bakhmetyeva (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292735-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$25,000 (approved)
$25,000 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2024

Fedchenko: Eco-Biography of a Glacier

Planning and conducting a series of workshops that examine the history of the Fedchenko Glacier, one of the world’s longest nonpolar glaciers located near Pamir, Tajikistan. (12 months)

The purpose of this application is to pilot an interdisciplinary project on the natural and cultural history of the Fedchenko Glacier (Pamir, Tajikistan), one of the world’s longest glaciers outside the polar regions. Conceived as a contribution to both the environmental humanities and the emerging field of the “ice humanities,” it consists of two goals: 1) to produce a transdisciplinary eco-biography of a uniquely significant glacier that will advance our knowledge of how glaciers came to be understood and offer a cultural perspective on the role of glaciology in climate change studies--subjects hitherto neglected by humanists and humanistic social scientists, and 2) to develop an innovative transdisciplinary approach to studying glaciers. At a time when glaciers are fast disappearing, we return by way of the Fedchenko to the moment of their appearance in both the scientific and cultural imagination.

Rutgers University (Piscataway, NJ 08854-8045)
Lauren M. E. Goodlad (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292740-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$250,000 (approved)
$250,000 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2026

Design Justice Labs: An International and Interdisciplinary Digital Network for Community-Centered Research on the “Generative AI” Modeling of Human Languages, Communication, Arts, and Cultures

A digital repository of findings and research templates based on humanistic research on the simulation of human language, communication, art, and culture by AI software. (36 months)

The Design Justice Labs are conceived as a networked scholarly digital project that connects researchers and students with community partners in the US, Australia, and South Africa to develop and share research on the “AI” modeling of human languages, communication, arts, and cultures (“generative AI”). Inspired by design justice principles as elaborated by Costanza-Chock (2020), our labs center groups that are marginalized by design processes. Rutgers will focus on large language models (LLMs) through “probing” experiments that assess bias and errors; explore the tendency for homogeneity and normalization in AI-generated storytelling; and propose new humanities-inflected benchmarks for machine “understanding.” Australian National University (ANU) will work with large image models (LIMs) to explore their visual logics, and the modes of creativity and politics they enable or foreclose in the context of decolonial and contemporary arts and media practices. University of Pretoria (UP) will extend the capacity of research with, and data creation for, local African languages, while exploring the socio-cultural impacts of LLMs that marginalize these languages. (Edited by staff)

Loyola University, Chicago (Chicago, IL 60611-2147)
Peter Hartman (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292749-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$48,300 (approved)
$48,300 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2024

Medieval Theories of Consciousness: Conference

Planning and holding a conference on medieval philosophers’ understanding of the nature of conscious experience (1200-1350). (12 months) 

This is an NEH Convening Grant for an international conference on medieval theories of consciousness to be held in Chicago in 2024, bringing together leading researchers in the field. Our ultimate goal is a volume of collected articles (Fall 2025) related to an under contract volume of translated texts (Medieval Philosophers on Self-Knowledge: 1250-1350, Oxford), both of which will contribute to the growing interest in medieval theories of consciousness among historians and philosophers alike.

Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN 47907-2040)
Paul White (Project Director: November 2022 to present)
Nicole Kong (Co Project Director: September 2023 to present)
Christopher Matusiak (Co Project Director: September 2023 to present)

RZ-292774-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$249,706 (approved)
$249,706 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2026

Mapping London's Theater Districts, 1576-1642

Research and writing leading to a digital project exploring the cultural, economic, and social influence of four theater districts in early modern London. (36 months) 

Shakespeare’s Theaterscape: London Playhouse Districts (1576–1642) is a scholarly digital project that couples theater history scholarship with GIS technology to better understand the place of particular playhouses within their urban contexts. This collaborative project by an international team of scholars centers on digital cartographic reconstructions of four discrete theatrical and entertainment districts in early modern London. A fully open-access website will feature these interactive maps, a collection of edited source materials on which the maps are based, and a series of interpretive essays exploring the implications of the research. The first phase of the project will be completed in September 2026.

Marquette University (Milwaukee, WI 53233-2225)
Eugenia V. Afinoguenova (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292793-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$124,846 (approved)
$124,846 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 12/31/2024

The Edinburgh Companion to the Spanish Civil War and Visual Culture

Research and writing leading to a book of essays on the visual culture of the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939) and its visual legacy. (15 months) 

Manuscript Preparation. The images of the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939)—from propaganda posters to Picasso’s Guernica—reemerge wherever fratricidal conflicts and crimes against humanity occur across the globe. Given that the War lasted less than three years, such a long afterlife is surprising. Our project finds an explanation for this phenomenon through Visual Culture analysis that regards images as tools of meaning that shape and expand the perception of political events. As a decisive moment in the chain of civil wars in 20th-century Europe, the Spanish Civil War led to a collapse of the Popular Front’s attempts at building a broad interclass coalition against Fascism and Nazism and to a triumph of war over diplomacy. The proposed coedited, multi-author volume argues that on both sides of the conflict the disintegration of political solutions triggered a crisis in the language of ideology that images were called upon to replace. The volume has been accepted for publication.

University of North Florida (Jacksonville, FL 32224-7699)
Denise I. Bossy (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292794-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$250,000 (approved)
$250,000 (awarded)

Grant period:
1/1/2024 – 12/31/2026

Writing the First Indigenous History of Northeast Florida, 13,000 years ago to the Present

Preparation of a co-authored book on the Indigenous history of northeast Florida. (36 months) 

We are applying for Manuscript Preparation with a completion date of December 2026. We propose to develop the first comprehensive Indigenous history of Northeast Florida. Our book challenges pervasive colonial triumphalist narratives that erase Indigenous peoples to focus solely on colonial “firsts”: the “first” Protestant colony (La Caroline, 1564-65) and the “first” and “oldest city” (St. Agustín, 1565) in the present-day United States. Centering the Timucua-speaking Mocamas, Yamasees, and Guales, we intend a cohesive Indigenous history that does not begin or end with colonization. We will demonstrate how Indigenous people shaped and survived colonialism, undermining prevailing myths of Indigenous “extinction.” Our study will transform not only regional but also national understandings of Indigenous history, European colonization, and Indigenous survivance—advancing the effort to craft inclusive narratives that reshape the understanding of scholarly and public audiences alike.

Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD 21218-2608)
Graham Mooney (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292795-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$50,000 (approved)
$50,000 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2024

Rethinking Injuries: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Harm, Safety, and Society

Planning and holding a conference that explores how individuals and communities live with, and make meaning out of, injuries across time, space, and social contexts. (12 months)

The proposed NEH Collaborative Research—Convening grant will organize and administer an international conference titled “Rethinking Injuries: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Harm, Safety, and Society” to build the emerging field of Injury Studies. This conference draws on the efforts of the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP), the spring 2022 “Governing Safety” workshop, and the newly-formed Injury Studies Research Group (ISRG) to incorporate the humanities into critical conversations about injuries across the social sciences and public health. The event brings together the histories of medicine, technology, and visual culture; literary studies; trauma studies; disability studies; anthropology; law; ethics; sociology; geography; engineering; health policy; and epidemiology to map current research on injuries and to chart directions for its potential futures.

Emory University (Atlanta, GA 30322-1018)
Kristin Wendland (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292797-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$49,312 (approved)
$49,312 (awarded)

Grant period:
1/1/2024 – 12/31/2024

Tango in the Humanities: Examining a Multidimensional Art Form Across Disciplinary and Geographic Boundaries

A three-day conference at Emory University exploring how historical, political, and cultural norms have shaped tango as a transnational art form in the 20th and 21st centuries. (12 months)

This convening project will organize and host an interdisciplinary conference of international scholars and scholar-artists on tango. The project is centered on broadening the scholarly discourse on tango, its history, its influence on culture and society, and its application by uniting twenty-three scholars from around the world and of a variety of humanistic disciplines, including race and gender studies, political history, musicology, anthropology, ethnomusicology, dance history, and performance. The primary product of this project is a three-day conference at Emory University in Atlanta, GA in November 2024. A subsequent product will be a digital project consisting of building a website through the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship of the workshopped and edited conference papers and presentations in spring 2025. With these two outcomes, we expect to provide a model of how an art form like the tango is studied as a humanities concept and reinvigorates the human experience.

Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)
Jocelyn H. Olcott (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292800-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$249,998 (approved)
$249,552 (awarded)

Grant period:
5/1/2024 – 4/30/2027

The Value of Care: A Public Scholarly Exchange

Development of an open-access digital resource on the value of care, including a peer-reviewed blog and an open-access working-paper series. (36 months)

The Value of Care explores both how we center care as an ethical value and how we value care as a practice. This grant would support the development of an open-access digital resource emerging from an international, interdisciplinary research network and highlighting innovative but underrepresented perspectives. The project starts from three core principles: 1) a recognition of the inextricability of ecological, social, and cultural care and the importance of examining them within a shared framework 2) valuing these various forms of care entails a recognition of time, effort, and expertise at a variety of scales from the intimate, household and community to the national, regional, and global 3) knowledge production from the global south and underrepresented communities–particularly where people are seen not as autonomous individuals but rather as beings enmeshed in broader webs of care and dependency–often offer more creative and sustainable solutions to the crisis of care.

Pacific University (Forest Grove, OR 97116-1797)
Lorely Elsa French (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292818-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$25,000 (approved)
$25,000 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2024

The Notebooks of Austrian Romani Writer, Artist, Activist, and Educator Ceija Stojka

Planning for a website exploring the thirty-three unpublished notebooks of Ceija Stojka (1933-2013), an Austrian Romani Holocaust survivor, as art, literature, and social and political commentary. (12 months)

As a Planning International Collaboration opportunity, this project aims to transcribe, annotate, translate into English, and plan for digital presentation the thirty-three unpublished notebooks of Austrian Romani writer, artist, activist, and educator Ceija Stojka, who survived three concentration camps. Experts from the U.S., France, and Austria transcribe the notebooks, which are in phonetic Austrian German and Vlax Romany dialect, and meet virtually in fall 2023.The team convenes in Vienna in January, 2024, to review progress and to research in archives and museums. In spring, the team completes the English translations. In August, 2024, the team presents the project in Bad Ischl during an exhibit of Stojka’s art works. Finally, they develop a plan for the digital presentation that will provide an unexplored perspective on Romani cultures and history and contribute to Stojka’s multifaceted oeuvre and that of the Romani peoples, whose voices have yet to receive overdue attention.

University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0001)
Jennifer M. Feltman (Project Director: November 2022 to present)

RZ-292864-23
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

[Grant products][Media coverage]

Totals:
$249,995 (approved)
$249,995 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2023 – 9/30/2026

Notre Dame in Color: Interpreting the Layers of Polychromy on the Sculptures of the Cathedral of Paris Using 3D Modeling

Research, writing, and data analysis for a website on the polychromy of Gothic sculptures at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. (36 months) 

Traces of polychromy that remain on the sculptures of the west facade of Notre Dame reveal that paint was applied in many layers, perhaps over centuries. Because the chemical composition of polychromy was consistent from Antiquity to the 18th century, it has been difficult to determine the dates of the layers and, thus, to establish the original or subsequent colors of the sculptures. Some upper layers suggest repainting, while others seem related to methods for preparing the stone surface and modeling the sculptures using areas of highlight and shadow. We will develop a 3D model showing layers of paint on the exterior sculptures of Notre-Dame. Data on the stones and paint layers (stone type, chemical composition of paint, and data from historical archives) will be associated with a 3D digitally painted model made using laser T-scanner and photogrammetry (AgiSoft Metashape).

Pennsylvania State University, Altoona Campus (Altoona, PA 16601-3777)
Julie L. Reed (Project Director: December 2021 to present)

RZ-287010-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$250,000 (approved)
$229,985 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2022 – 9/30/2025

Sovereign Kin: A History of the Cherokee Nation

Preparation of a coauthored book on the history of the Cherokee Nation (pre-1600 to 2010). (36 months) 

The most recent comprehensive history of the Cherokee Nation was written in 1963; it continues to sell more than 500 copies a year through an academic press. It fails to address key issues, such as gender and race, raised by social and cultural historians since the 1960s, let alone cover the last sixty years of Cherokee history. Cherokee Nation citizens, journalists, and academics understand its limitations and have requested an up-to-date book written in accessible, engaging prose. We are working with an agent to pitch this project to presses able to bring this book to the widest audience. As we identify a publisher and seek funding, we already are writing "Sovereign Kin: A History of the Cherokee Nation." With the support of the NEH Collaborative Grant, we intend to conduct research trips to the Cherokee Nation and the Oklahoma Historical Society and collect interviews with key Cherokee Nation citizens. We will complete a draft of the manuscript by August 2025.

California State University, Long Beach Foundation (Long Beach, CA 90840-0004)
Clorinda Donato (Project Director: December 2021 to present)

RZ-287012-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$25,000 (approved)
$24,542 (awarded)

Grant period:
2/1/2023 – 1/31/2024

Rethinking Eighteenth-Century Italian Culture and Its Transnational Connections

Virtual planning activities and travel to conduct fieldwork in Naples leading to a book on Italian engagement with the literary, cultural, and intellectual discourses of the 18th century. (12 months)

This NEH Planning International Collaboration Grant will fund two working group meetings of eighteenth-century scholars of the Italian peninsula to plan an interpretive volume of studies in English on the rethinking of eighteenth-century Italian culture and its transnational connections. With its emphasis on transmissions and reciprocities across borders, the transnational perspective has been redefining the parameters of eighteenth-century studies for the past twenty-five years. It is the goal of our project to establish a strong foothold for Italy in the cultural panorama of the transnational eighteenth century, altering our erroneous sense of a field that appears to be British and French driven. A comprehensive assessment of the significant shift in our understanding of the role of Italy in the global eighteenth century is lacking. Our project seeks to rectify this gap.

Regents of the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001)
Samuel J. Truett (Project Director: November 2021 to present)

RZ-286898-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$50,000 (approved)
$50,000 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2022 – 9/30/2023

Indigenous Borderlands in North America and the World: Borders, Crossings, Histories, and Futures

Planning and holding a conference centering Indigenous people and knowledge-making in the study of North America’s borderlands. (12 months) 

We seek funding to hold a conference on Indigenous borderlands in North America–the first in a series of international conferences on Indigenous borderlands, crossings, histories, and futures in both American and global contexts–and to prepare a volume of essays for publication. The goal is not only to Indigenize our approach to the world’s borderlands, but also to bring these spaces and their crossings to the fore in humanistic approaches to planetary change. We seek nothing less than to center Indigenous histories and interrelationships as a bedrock of world history and to use this foundation to envision new paths into the future. Bringing historians into a strategic conversation with scholars of other disciplines and with Indigenous community representatives, we ask how cross-disciplinary and community-facing dialogue can advance humanistic knowledge, developing new ways to envision borders, crossings, histories, and futures in contexts of social and environmental change.

Texas A&M University-San Antonio (San Antonio, TX 78224-3134)
Katherine A Gillen (Project Director: November 2021 to present)

RZ-286906-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$50,000 (approved)
$50,000 (awarded)

Grant period:
5/1/2023 – 4/30/2024

Adapting, Translating, and Performing Shakespeare in the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands

A conference on adaptations of Shakespearian plays by playwrights in the US/Mexico borderlands. (12 months)

We plan to host a conference in San Antonio, TX, in May 2024, which will be co-sponsored by the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS), and subsequently to edit a special issue of Borrowers and Lenders composed of essays generated by the conference called Shakespeare and Borderlands Cultura. The project foregrounds marginal rewritings of a canonical author while also representing new cultural praxis in decolonizing the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands, a contested area encompassing Northern Mexico and parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

SUNY Research Foundation, University at Buffalo (Amherst, NY 14228-2577)
Douglas Perrelli (Project Director: November 2021 to present)

RZ-286910-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$249,369 (approved)
$249,369 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2022 – 9/30/2025

From the Cataract House to Canada: African American Activism and the Underground Railroad in the Niagara River Borderland

Research and preparation of a print manuscript and accompanying website about the Cataract House hotel in Niagara Falls, New York, an important stop on the Underground Railroad. (36 months).

In the Manuscript Preparation category, From the Cataract House to Canada highlights the activism of African American hotel workers who operated Niagara’s busiest Underground Railroad station. This project is a synthesis of archaeological and archival research, enhanced by an ambitious public information program. Results of excavations begun in 2017 will be integrated with new research identifying and exploring the experiences of an ever-changing staff of seasonal employees. Applying advances in borderland theory with an emphasis on Black agency, the team will examine how the hotel’s employees collaborated with African-descended people on both sides of the US-Canadian boundary to ensure safe passage for uncounted numbers of freedom seekers. Products will include an accessibly written, richly illustrated volume, complemented by a web-based StoryMap, QR-coded interpretive materials linked to the Cataract’s location, and a social media campaign inviting descendant participation.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Knoxville, TN 37916-3801)
Nicole Eggers (Project Director: December 2021 to present)

RZ-286936-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$199,611 (approved)
$199,611 (awarded)

Grant period:
1/1/2023 – 12/31/2024

Refuge in the Spirit: Religion in the Lives of Congolese Refugees

Research and writing leading to a co-authored book on the role of religion in the lives of Congolese refugees. (24 months)

In this study, we seek to illuminate how religion functions both as a space for building community for people who have lost their social safety net, as well as its role in addressing gaps — material, social, psychological, and spiritual — that state and international organizations too often neglect.

Hastings Center (Garrison, NY 10524-4125)
Nancy Scerbo Berlinger (Project Director: December 2021 to present)

RZ-286981-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$147,630 (approved)
$143,509 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2022 – 3/31/2024

The Meanings of Dementia: Interpreting Cultural Narratives of Aging Societies

Preparation of a special supplement to the Hastings Center Report composed of 18 essays analyzing cultural narratives concerning dementia in the US and Europe to be made available in print and online. (18 months)

The Meanings of Dementia: Interpreting Cultural Narratives of Aging Societies is an 18-month project to produce new critical writing on meanings of dementia in diverse social groups in the United States and other aging societies. Dementia refers to a group of common, age-associated, progressively debilitating, ultimately terminal conditions affecting thought, memory, speech, and behavior. Humanities scholarship has long studied personal narratives; this humanities-social science collaboration will consider how greater attention to cultural narratives – concepts expressed through metaphors, tropes, images, and other representations that circulate through a society to make meaning out of experience – can translate into public humanities work fostering greater inclusion for fellow citizens living with dementia or providing dementia care. We will produce a print and open-access digital volume of 18 essays for peer review and print publication as a supplement to a scholarly journal.

University of Washington (Seattle, WA 98105-6613)
Purnima Dhavan (Project Director: November 2021 to present)

RZ-286795-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$194,284 (approved)
$194,284 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2022 – 9/30/2024

Urdu’s Origins Revisited: Vali Dakhani’s Reception in Multilingual South Asia

Completion of a co-authored manuscript on the origins and development of Urdu, an important language spoken primarily in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

We are applying to the NEH Collaborative Research Grant (Manuscript Preparation) to complete our co-authored book, Urdu’s Origins Revisited: Vali Dakhani’s Reception in Multilingual South Asia. 100 million Urdu speakers are present in South Asia and a global diaspora today. Many are unable to read it but understand its spoken form. Urdu’s origins, misrepresented by colonial scholars as coming solely from elite Muslim networks, were also miscast in late nationalist histories. Urdu’s publics remain fragmented today. Our research places early Urdu texts in a broader historical and multilingual context. We offer concrete evidence for the circulation of Urdu across diverse communities. The resulting manuscript intervenes in the humanities debate about the relationship between cosmopolitan and vernacular cultures. We argue that cosmopolitanisms are influenced, accessed, and mediated by local networks and constantly change. Our work also seeks to broaden the Urdu canon.

Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)
Adam Mestyan (Project Director: November 2021 to present)

RZ-286808-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$185,130 (approved)
$185,130 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2022 – 9/30/2024

Digital Cairo: A Study of Urban Transformation, 1828-1914

Preparation of a digital database and interpretive website about the modernization of Cairo between 1828 and 1914.

We request funding for a two-year (2022-2024) Scholarly Digital Project in the Collaborative Research grant competition. In this project, the participants study the impact of capitalism and bureaucratic agency from pre-industrial to industrial Muslim-majority urban societies through the example of nineteenth-century Cairo, the capital of the Egyptian province in the Ottoman Empire. A historian, a digital humanities specialist, five students at Duke University, and international collaborators in France and Egypt investigate this research topic through the creation of a born-digital tool (an XML TEI database of Arabic and Ottoman Turkish newspaper articles) and an HTML website about Cairo’s urban transformation. The products will include articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as the born-digital, peer-reviewed, and freely available dataset, short interpretative essays, and visualizations on the website, hosted by GitHub and double-stored at Duke University Library.

Arizona Board of Regents (Tucson, AZ 85721-0073)
Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer (Project Director: November 2021 to present)

RZ-286848-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$248,474 (approved)
$248,474 (awarded)

Grant period:
1/1/2023 – 12/31/2025

Shared Churches in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1800

Preparation of an interactive map and searchable database on the history of shared devotional spaces in early modern Europe (1500-1800). 

We are applying for an NEH Collaborative Research Grant (digital scholarly project) to develop an interactive map and searchable web-based database revealing the widespread phenomenon of parish churches shared by multiple denominations or congregations in early modern Europe. Between 1500 and 1800, sharing any devotional, ritual, and sacred spaces added complexities to social, political, and economic relationships in Europe and beyond and heralded the rise of mutually exclusive, denominational religious groups. This research project investigates the local spatial arrangements made for sharing sacred spaces in select shared parish churches in central Europe to draw broader conclusions about the abilities and limitations of the human capacity to accommodate religious differences. The Shared Churches Project shows how diverse understandings of holiness could—and could not—coexist under a single roof and how that space functioned to unify and separate diverse faith groups.

Trustees of Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH 03755-1808)
Mark J. Williams (Project Director: November 2021 to present)

RZ-286881-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$50,000 (approved)
$49,938 (awarded)

Grant period:
11/1/2022 – 1/31/2024

Legacies of USIA Moving Images Through International Lenses

Ten planning workshops and a semi-public symposium on the filmic production and international organizational infrastructure of the United States Information Agency (USIA, known internationally as the United States Information Service, USIS) between 1953 and 1999. (12 months)

The “Legacies of USIA Moving Images Through International Lenses” project will bring together (virtually) a team of renowned international scholars and archivists who are committed to developing international studies of the USIA and its corresponding USIS acronym in offices around the world. This team will schedule a series of ten workshops that develop an interrogative process toward the production of granular analyses of hundreds of USIA films, which will lay the groundwork to identify the opportunities, challenges, and inter-disciplinary potentials to realize new humanistic research about the history and impact of USIA moving images (motion pictures and television/video), especially regarding select areas of the world: Latin America, East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the U.S. itself. This grant will entail two years of research, workshops, and granular analysis culminated by a major public conference plus publication in a blind-peer-reviewed online journal.

University of Hawaii at Manoa (Honolulu, HI 96822-2247)
J. Noelani Goodyear-Kaopua (Project Director: November 2021 to present)

RZ-286888-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$182,486 (approved)
$182,486 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2022 – 9/30/2024

A Biography of Native Hawaiian Leader and Scholar, Haunani-Kay Trask (1949 - 2021)

Preparation of a coauthored book on the life and work of Haunani-Kay Trask (1949-2021), Native Hawaiian scholar, educator, poet, and community leader. (24 months) 

An intellectual and political biography of Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask. A poet, political scientist, activist, and international advocate for human rights, Trask is arguably the most important Native Hawaiian scholar of the 20th century. Her life and works contributed to the global rise of Indigenous subjectivity, and she profoundly shaped Hawaiian movements for justice from the 1970s onward. Written for broad audiences, the book will shed light on ways Native Hawaiians have navigated and organized against inequalities resulting from forced political incorporation into the US in 1898. Charting Trask’s roots and routes, the project illuminates connections between major social movements that transformed Hawaiian, Pacific, and American life in the late 20th century and early 21st centuries, including the ways such movements changed universities. The project engages Trask’s work to consider issues of gender justice, Indigenous-settler relations, and ways public universities shape democratic life

Yale University (New Haven, CT 06510-1703)
Nicholas R. Jones (Project Director: December 2020 to present)
Elizabeth Rebecca Wright (Co Project Director: February 2021 to present)

RZ-279836-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$96,347 (approved)
$96,347 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2021 – 9/30/2023

Recovering Black Performance in Early Modern Iberia (1500–1800): A Conference and Special Journal Issue

Planning and holding a conference on Black performance in early modern Iberia (1500-1800) and preparation of conference papers for publication in a journal special issue. (24 months) 

This project will convene a conference on 29-30 April 2022 focusing on how the Atlantic slave trade and resulting African diaspora shaped Iberia’s “Golden Age” of theater. Diverse modes of Black performance enriched this quintessentially early modern entertainment as it took shape in Portugal and Spain on the Iberian Peninsula. This theater also thrived across the Atlantic as these two maritime empires extended their reach. To explore this topic in depth, we will bring together nineteen scholars from North America, Europe, and Latin America to present papers at the conference, which will be free and open to the public, at New York University’s King Juan Carlos I Center. After going through peer review, papers will be published in the Bulletin of the Comediantes (volume 75, no. 1 & 2, 2023), reaching a worldwide audience through print and online editions.

University of Florida (Gainesville, FL 32611-0001)
David Rifkind (Project Director: December 2020 to present)
Itohan Iriagbonse Osayimwese (Co Project Director: February 2021 to present)

RZ-279864-22
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$250,000 (approved)
$249,999 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2021 – 9/30/2024

Architecture of the African Diaspora in/of the United States

Preparation of a collection of essays on the architecture of the African diaspora in the United States. (36 months)

Architecture of the African Diaspora in/of the United States is a collaborative effort by six scholars to write the first book-length study of architecture by people of African descent in, and from, the United States. The project includes histories of buildings, cities, communities, landscapes, and interiors created by architects, planners, builders, artists, residents, public officials, and activists. This includes professional design work, vernacular architecture, urban design and preservation projects, cultural landscapes, and ephemeral buildings. The work draws connections between disparate topics and situates architectural production within its political, social, and cultural contexts. This collaboration challenges conventional historiographic distinctions between architects and builders, interpreting a range of actors who cross and complicate that dichotomy, and likewise shift the lens of architectural history to diasporic narratives that transcend familiar Eurocentric frameworks.

Cornell University (Ithaca, NY 14850-2820)
Iftikhar Dadi (Project Director: December 2020 to present)

RZ-279879-21
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$65,892 (approved)
$65,892 (awarded)

Grant period:
9/1/2022 – 8/31/2024

The Next Monsoon: Climate Change and Contemporary Cultural Production in South Asia

A three-day conference and open access volume on the topic of climate change in South Asia. (24 months)

This application for Collaborative Research: Conference is a collaboration between Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and School of Environment and Architecture, Mumbai, India. This project includes conference and allied publications and outputs that will focus on humanistic approaches to climate change in South Asia. This conference will not only contribute to the emerging field of environmental humanities but also serve to curate the diversity of experiences of a changing planet in South Asia. The project will enable faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars based in the US and abroad to come together in punctuated outputs leading up and subsequent to the major conference convened at Cornell University in September 2022. These outcomes include monthly reading groups, a podcast series, a teaching tools online forum, and an open access edited volume.

American Center of Research (Alexandria, VA 22314-2909)
John D. M. Green (Project Director: December 2020 to September 2021)
Pearce Paul Creasman (Project Director: September 2021 to present)

RZ-279826-21
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

[Grant products]

Totals:
$199,914 (approved)
$199,914 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2021 – 9/30/2024

The Temple of the Winged Lions Publication Project

Preparation of a print manuscript and digital archive detailing the American excavations at Petra in Jordan (1973-present). (24 months)

The American Center of Research (ACOR) will bring together more than twenty-five contributors to complete a final report on the Temple of the Winged Lions (TWL), an important Nabataean ritual complex within Petra, Jordan, dated to the 1st to 4th century CE. This manuscript preparation project will present the findings of the American Expedition to Petra (1973-2005), and the work of ACOR through the Temple of the Winged Lions Cultural Resource Management Initiative (from 2009). An editorial and advisory team will support specialists in archaeology, geology, and cultural heritage to conduct research using archives, artifacts, and site visits within Jordan. Collaborative research conducted online and in person will relate to the archaeological themes of ritual, economy and society, empire, and local communities, opening up new comparative research directions. In addition to completion of a final manuscript, scholarly and public facing outputs will raise awareness of the final publication.

University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN 46556-4635)
John David Deak (Project Director: December 2020 to present)
Jonathan Edward Gumz (Co Project Director: February 2021 to present)

RZ-279828-21
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$249,859 (approved)
$249,859 (awarded)

Grant period:
1/1/2022 – 12/31/2024

The First World War and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire

Preparation for print publication of a co-authored monograph on the collapse of the Habsburg Empire in the First World War (1914-1918). (36 months)

We are applying for an NEH manuscript preparation grant in order to complete the research and writing of a co-authored book manuscript and two research articles on the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire in the First World War. Our work will consist of new archival research that focuses on the internal dynamics of the Habsburg State after war is declared and emergency law goes into effect. The project will build on recent trends in Habsburg studies which have brought to light the empire's political vibrancy and adaptability, in place of longstanding traditional narratives of its inevitable decline and fall. As such we hope to offer a critical new explanation for how the Habsburg Empire collapsed during the First World War and, more importantly, show how the story of the Habsburg Empire as a state collapse helps us to understand the political extremism and the fall of the rule of law during the twentieth century in Europe and the world.

University Of Houston (Houston, TX 77204-3067)
Nancy Beck Young (Project Director: December 2020 to present)
Leandra Zarnow (Co Project Director: February 2021 to present)

RZ-279848-21
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

[Grant products]

Totals:
$249,998 (approved)
$249,998 (awarded)

Grant period:
1/1/2022 – 12/31/2024

Democratizing Politics: Mapping the Stories and Significance of the 1977 National Women’s Conference

Preparation of an open-access website on the legislative, political, and social impact of the 1977 National Women’s Conference. (36 months)

“Democratizing Politics” is a multi-year, multi-state, multi-institutional effort led by the University of Houston to analyze the thousands of participants at and legacy of the 1977 National Women’s Conference (NWC). Our open-access digital humanities website launches in March, 2021, and our fully-featured website will be complete by 2027, NWC’s 50th anniversary. Congress created the NWC with bipartisan support, appropriating $5 million and mandating a diversity requirement for conference delegates. The NWC stands out in U.S. history as the most diverse and only federally funded convention of American women. In 1977, 2,000 delegates, elected by 150,000 participants at 56 lead-up state and territory meetings, convened in Houston to outline 26 policy action areas to present to President Jimmy Carter. One of the greatest experiments in civic engagement, the NWC modeled democracy in action. The participants offered an expansive agenda to make the nation more inclusive and the U.S. government more responsive.

University of South Dakota (Vermillion, SD 57069-2390)
Joseph John Tinguely (Project Director: December 2020 to present)

RZ-279861-21
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

[Grant products]

Totals:
$98,683 (approved)
$98,683 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2021 – 9/30/2024

Philosophy and Money: A Historical and Interdisciplinary Consideration of Economies and Worldviews

A three-day conference and two edited volumes on the relationship between philosophy and money. (24 months)

“Philosophy and Money” is a two-year Conference Grant proposal in support of a first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary collaboration to survey the role of money in the history of ideas. Although the history of philosophy is rich in discussions of money, the topic has been largely neglected in contemporary academic philosophy. There are practical and moral implications, but this project foregrounds foundational questions concerning the relation between economic practice and the development of philosophical theories. In the first year a team of scholars across the humanities and social sciences convene in workshops hosted by The Toolbox Dialogue Initiative to share feedback on original research and to address methodological challenges to interdisciplinary collaboration. In a second year, participants reflect on the results of the conference to revise individually composed chapters and to co-author section introductions to Volumes One and Two of The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Money.

Miami University (Oxford, OH 45056-1846)
Daniel G. Prior (Project Director: December 2020 to present)

RZ-279862-21
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$24,977 (approved)
$24,977 (awarded)

Grant period:
1/1/2022 – 12/31/2023

Early Modern Kyrgyz Oral-Derived Narrative Sources (EMKONS)

Planning and convening of an international collaboration among scholars of Silk Road literature for two weeks at the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic. (12 months)

This project will use a Planning International Collaboration Grant to convene six colleagues from the U.S. and Kyrgyzstan in the archives of the Kyrgyz National Academy of Sciences to plan fundamental research on premodern Central Asian Turkic manuscript narratives, and dissemination of our work in electronic and print venues. These narratives were created within networks of changing oral and written genres including history, genealogy, and epic poetry, and thus lie at the nexus of interpretive problems where historians, linguists, paleographers, philologists, and scholars of oral tradition require each other's insights and methods to do sustained work. Scholars and the public can benefit from the project to study ethnic, regional, and Islamic identities; the intertwining of oral and written modes of transmitting knowledge about the past; Central Asian Turkic linguistic fluidities; and Central Asian nomads' experience of the Russian Empire.

Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY 13244-0001)
Romita Ray (Project Director: December 2020 to present)

RZ-279793-21
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$23,247 (approved)
$23,247 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2021 – 9/30/2023

Taj of the Raj? Decolonizing the Imperial Collections, Architecture, and Gardens of the Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata

Planning and holding a workshop and virtual symposium on Indian, British, and American contributions to the architecture, collections, and gardens of Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta. (12 months) 

Our collaborative project focuses on the Indian legacy of the Victoria Memorial Hall (VMH), an imperial museum and memorial to Queen Victoria set amidst 64 acres of gardens in Calcutta (Kolkata). While a handful of scholars have discussed the VMH as an imperial museum, the histories of Indian contributions to its imperial legacy remain largely overlooked. Remarkably, these contributions were entangled with British imperial art, architecture, and gardens, as well as with American collections of European art. As such, the VMH represents the confluence of Indian, British, and American networks of art, architecture, and garden-design. Our project investigates how the VMH’s Indian legacy was shaped by these transnational networks, and how that legacy might be analyzed within the broader context of decolonizing imperial histories. This project involves scholars from the United States, the UK, and India, who will participate, first, in an exploratory workshop at the VMH and, next, in a virtual symposium.

Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA 18015-3027)
Mary Foltz (Project Director: December 2020 to present)
Maxine Montgomery (Co Project Director: February 2021 to present)
Suzanne Edwards (Co Project Director: September 2021 to present)

RZ-279805-21
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$100,000 (approved)
$89,479 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2021 – 9/30/2023

Engaging Black Women’s Archives: Gloria Naylor and Twentieth-Century Literary History

Preparation of two edited volumes and a series of public-facing essays focused on the archive of American author and intellectual Gloria Naylor (1950-2016). (12 months)

This project proposes to produce an edited collection of scholarly essays on archival materials relevant to Naylor’s published novels, a second manuscript of criticism focused on previously unpublished works found in the archives, and a series of public-facing essays that attend to the collected papers and unpublished material of Gloria Naylor, one of the most widely-read authors at the vanguard of contemporary letters. With Naylor’s substantial archives as our focus, we aim to create a robust model for activating black women’s literary archives through interinstitutional, interdisciplinary, and intergenerational collaboration aligned with black feminist practices. Through ground-breaking academic and public-facing scholarship this project communicates the value of archival research for opening up new avenues for understanding black women writers’ intellectual and literary history of the late-20th and early-21st centuries.

Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8559)
Lauren M. E. Goodlad (Project Director: December 2020 to present)

RZ-279883-21
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$24,970 (approved)
$24,970 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2021 – 9/30/2022

Unboxing Artificial Intelligence: An International Collaboration Bringing Humanities Perspectives to AI

Planning of an international collaboration on the topic of bringing humanities perspectives to the creation of Artificial Intelligence. (12 months)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an emergent set of technologies. Though touted as a fourth industrial revolution, AI is subject to hype and misinformation. Despite increasing talk about making AI “ethical” and “human-centered,” humanists seldom shape these discussions. “Unboxing AI” is a new international collaboration: at Rutgers, Lauren Goodlad, is leading an interdisciplinary working group in “Critical AI.” At Australian National University, Katherine Bode works with faculty in three AI-related institutes. “Unboxing AI” will organize and publicize two exploratory workshops that put humanistic thinking at the core of research questions that move beyond the technical issue of AI’s “Black Box.” Our written plan will lay out steps for a peer-reviewed special issue and may also project 1) a jointly-hosted international conference, 2) jointly-developed and/or team-taught curricula for ANU/RU students, and 3) a white paper for international circulation.

Penn State (University Park, PA 16802-1503)
Michelle Ursula Campos (Project Director: December 2020 to present)
Orit Bashkin (Co Project Director: February 2021 to present)
Lior B. Sternfeld (Co Project Director: February 2021 to present)

RZ-279900-21
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$249,842 (approved)
$249,842 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2021 – 9/30/2024

Reimagining Jewish Life in the Modern Middle East, 1800-Present: Culture, Society, and History

Preparation for print publication of a multi-authored monograph on the history of Jewish life in the Middle East from 1800 to the present, for preparation of a special journal issue, and a website. (36 months)

We propose a large-scale collaborative project to rewrite the histories, narratives, and memories of and by Jews in the Middle East in the 19th-21st centuries. Drawing on original primary sources in numerous languages, diverse interdisciplinary approaches, and creative synthesis of the recent scholarship, we reframe Jews at the center of the modern Middle East and globe rather than on its margins. By analyzing, historicizing, and contextualizing the multifaceted processes of minoritization and sectarianization that took place in different contexts (imperial, colonial, national) beginning in the mid-19th century, we examine the overlapping ways that Jews were both incorporated into and excluded from Middle Eastern polities and societies. These varying trajectories across the region impacted the changing and ongoing political salience of remembering and erasing Jewish presence in the Middle East. We will publish a journal special issue, a multi-authored book, and a robust, dynamic website.

California State University, Stanislaus Foundation (Turlock, CA 95382-3200)
Ellen Elizabeth Bell (Project Director: December 2020 to present)
Ricardo A. Agurcia Fasquelle (Co Project Director: February 2021 to present)
Loa Traxler (Co Project Director: February 2021 to present)

RZ-279915-21
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$248,762 (approved)
$248,762 (awarded)

Grant period:
10/1/2021 – 9/30/2024

The Architectural Development of Temple 16 at the Classic Period (400-825 CE) Maya Center of Copan, Honduras

Preparation of a print manuscript detailing the American-Honduran excavations at the ancient Maya site of Copan (1989-2010). (36 months)

The comprehensive volume entitled, The Str. 10L-16 Sequence: The Architectural Development of the Core of the Early Copan Acropolis, details the evolution of a Classic Maya capital that dominated the SE Maya area for 400 years (426-822 CE). This two-part volume presents the Structure 10L-16 architectural sequence in its entirety, with Part A focusing on the earliest levels excavated by the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Part B concentrating on the later levels excavated by the Asociación Copán. The proposed project will support the intensive collaboration needed to produce a cohesive study of the architecture, iconography, and hieroglyphic inscriptions that formed a narrative of royal power and legitimacy throughout Copan’s history. The manuscript, to be delivered in 2024, presents an intensively researched case study of the development, maintenance, and eventual dissolution of an ancient political capital that will inform analyses of archaic states in the Maya area and beyond.

Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ 85281-3670)
Yasmin Saikia (Project Director: December 2019 to present)
Charles Haines (Co Project Director: January 2020 to present)

RZ-271307-20
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$249,952 (approved)
$249,747 (awarded)

Grant period:
1/1/2022 – 12/31/2024

Unfinished Partitions in South Asia and the Making of Miyahs, Biharis, and Christians into Noncitizens (1947 - the Present)

Preparation of a co-authored volume providing a comparative study of three groups in South Asia marginalized because of their religion and cultural backgrounds. (36 months)

With a publication grant from the NEH’s Collaborative Research Program we will complete research for writing a book on the Miyahs in India, the Biharis in Bangladesh, and the Dalit Christians in Pakistan. Each of these communities are deemed non- or sub-citizens and the target of harsh state and majoritarian discrimination and violence. In our research we ask: What is it like to live as precarious non-citizens in one’s own country and how do these communities create and maintain a sense of belonging? Each of these communities were left behind as borders shifted in South Asia following Partition in 1947 and the creation of Bangladesh from East Pakistan in 1971. As such, their lives are interconnected, providing a unique South Asian history of precarity, belonging, and enduring humanity, contributing to larger academic discussions on what it means to be human in our divided world today.

Anchorage Museum (Anchorage, AK 99501-3544)
Kirsten Anderson (Project Director: December 2019 to October 2020)
Julie Michelle Decker (Project Director: October 2020 to present)

RZ-271321-20
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals (outright + matching):
$150,000 (approved)
$150,000 (awarded)

Grant period:
9/1/2020 – 12/31/2023

Alaska Is: A Collaborative History of Alaska, Digital Publication Project

Preparation of an open-access digital history of Alaska. (35 months)

The Anchorage Museum is requesting support for the development of a collaborative, open-source digital textbook for the history of Alaska. The project will create a comprehensive resource that tells Alaska’s history with inclusive, multi-layered narratives and perspectives, broadening an understanding of Alaska’s place in regional, national, and international contexts. Through multimedia links with primary and secondary sources, new research and historic material, the publication will bring together curated content that fosters a robust understanding of Alaska as a place of extremes, as well as a place of constant change and resilience. It will build a foundation that can scale from broad chronological overviews, to the personal story, to archival images and art. It will honor the authentic voices of the state’s history, deepening an understanding of Alaska in the context of place, identity, and adaptation, with scholarship reaching across history, the humanities, and the social sciences.

University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN 46556-4635)
Paul J. Weithman (Project Director: November 2019 to present)

RZ-271100-20
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$26,725 (approved)
$26,725 (awarded)

Grant period:
7/1/2021 – 6/30/2022

John Rawls's "A Theory of Justice" at Fifty: An Anniversary Conference

Planning and holding a conference on the 50th anniversary of the publication of A Theory of Justice by American philosopher John Rawls (1921–2002). (12 months)

John Rawls was one of the greatest philosophers of the last century. 2021 will bring the 50th anniversary of the publication of his book A Theory of Justice. In September of that year, the University of Notre Dame will host an international conference to mark the anniversary. The University seeks a Convening Grant to support the conference. The interpretation of Rawls's work, the usefulness of his philosophical method and the validity of his conclusions have all been hotly contested in recent years. The Notre Dame conference will bring together approximately thirty of the best political philosophers in the world who engage Rawls's work, some critically and some sympathetically. The conference promises to advance scholarly understanding of his thought and its relevance to contemporary politics. It also promises to advance knowledge of what the NEH calls "America's core principles of government" and thereby to further the purposes of the NEH's initiative "A More Perfect Union".

Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL 32306-0001)
Michael David Carrasco (Project Director: December 2019 to present)
Joshua D. Englehardt (Co Project Director: January 2020 to present)

RZ-271159-20
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$249,850 (approved)
$247,217 (awarded)

Grant period:
1/1/2021 – 12/31/2023

The Origins of Writing in Early Mesoamerica

Preparation of a print monograph and digital archive detailing the origins of writing in Mesoamerica (1500-300 BCE). (36 months)

This book project charts the origins and development of writing in Mesoamerica to explore the critical time in the Early and Middle Formative Periods (ca. 1500–300 BCE) when Mesoamerican peoples developed a number of writing systems from sophisticated iconography. Further, it examines the continuous dialogue between these ancestral artistic systems and later scripts, such as those of the Maya and Zapotec cultures, as well as how writing influenced visual culture. Building on a range of theoretical models, new discoveries, and recent field research, this book project elucidates the transition from a shared foundational iconography to phonetic writing. The aim is to craft a robust understanding of the emergence of writing and contextualize it in the rich visual culture of Mesoamerica, thereby contributing to a better theoretical conception of the origins and role of writing in early civilizations.

New York University (New York, NY 10012-1019)
Alexander Raymond Jones (Project Director: December 2019 to present)
Richard Lewis Jasnow (Co Project Director: January 2020 to present)

RZ-271167-20
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$49,998 (approved)
$43,365 (awarded)

Grant period:
12/1/2020 – 11/30/2022

Prescription to Prediction: The Ancient Sciences in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Planning and holding a conference on the ancient sciences in comparative perspective between the Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman worlds. (12 months)

The aim of this NEH Collaborative Research Grant is to host a major interdisciplinary conference and workshop on ancient medicine, astronomy, astrology, and divination, in cross-cultural perspective. Particularly, the exchange of scientific knowledge between the ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek and Roman worlds will be explored, with an emphasis on broadening the scholarly foundation for such inquiries through new research on unpublished primary texts.

Emory University (Atlanta, GA 30322-1018)
Jia-Chen Fu (Project Director: December 2019 to present)

RZ-271209-20
Collaborative Research
Research Programs

Totals:
$50,000 (approved)
$50,000 (awarded)

Grant period:
8/1/2021 – 7/31/2023

Chinese Foodways in the Modern World (19th C. - Present): Reexamining Culinary Continuity and Change

Planning and holding a conference on Chinese food and food culture in the modern world, from the 19th century to the present. (12 months)

We are applying for an NEH Collaborative Research grant to host a major international conference on modern Chinese food and foodways. This conference will serve as the first step in organizing and writing a critical volume of essays that will frame and define the field of modern Chinese food studies. We will be bringing together scholars working in and between fields such as history, anthropology, food studies, rural sociology, ethnic studies, film and literature, and media and communication studies to discuss issues surrounding the central themes of modern Chinese foodways, including politicization, industrialization of food production and consumption, scientific rationalization, migration and global circulation, and identity formation.