Mellon grant supports humanities workshops

The Center for the Humanities has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support its program of interdisciplinary workshops in the humanities for faculty, staff and graduate students.

This is the second award to the center from the Mellon Foundation. Two years ago, the center received $50,000 from Mellon to inaugurate the program. The new grant will ensure the continuation of the program for another four years.

Each of the five yearly workshops receives $5,000 to support its activities. These have included bringing in outside speakers to address the groups and organizing conferences.

During the academic years 2000-01 and 2001-02, the center used the money to support workshops on themes including: conflicting cultures and the invention of modernity in Africa; disability studies in the humanities; the ritual(s) of everyday life; visual culture; early modern studies; language and the mind; Holocaust and humanity in the 21st century; and museum worlds, past, present, future.

Proposals for the 2002-03 workshops will be invited starting Jan. 22.

The Mellon Foundation makes grants on a selective basis to institutions in higher education; in cultural affairs and the performing arts; in population; in conservation and the environment; and in public affairs.