Awards Support 45 Emerging Scholars Pursuing Pathbreaking
Dissertation Research
NEW
YORK, April 19, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The
American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is proud to announce
the 2024 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellows, made possible
by the generous support of the Mellon Foundation.
"We look forward to following the progress
of these remarkable emerging scholars as they explore new research
methodologies, forge collaborative partnerships in the co-creation
of knowledge, and engage new audiences for humanistic
scholarship."
This year, the initiative will support 45 doctoral students in
the humanities and interpretive social sciences as they pursue bold
and innovative approaches to dissertation research. ACLS launched
the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship Program in 2023
to advance a vision for doctoral education that prioritizes
openness to new methods and sources, underrepresented voices and
perspectives, and scholarly experimentation. The awards are
designed to accelerate change in the norms of humanistic
scholarship by recognizing those who take risks in the modes,
methods, and subjects of their research.
"We look forward to following the progress of these remarkable
emerging scholars as they explore new research methodologies, forge
collaborative partnerships in the co-creation of knowledge, and
engage new audiences for humanistic scholarship," said John Paul Christy, Senior Director of US
Programs at ACLS. "Each of these awards is an opportunity for the
sector to learn about approaches to fostering the evolution of
doctoral education."
Meet the 2024 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellows and
learn about their projects.
Each fellow receives an award of up to $50,000, consisting of a $40,000 stipend for the fellowship year; up to
$8,000 for project-related research,
training, professional development, and travel expenses; and a
$2,000 stipend to support external
mentorship that offers new perspectives on the fellow's project and
expands their advising network. With fellows pursuing their
research across the country and beyond, ACLS will also provide
opportunities for virtual networking and scholarly programming
throughout the fellows' award terms.
ACLS employed a rigorous, interdisciplinary peer review process
to select this year's 45 fellows from a pool of more than 700
applicants, representing over 125 US universities and dozens of
humanistic disciplines. The program's peer reviewers praised
applicants' ambition, creativity, and sense of purpose, with
several reviewers noting that the process gave them a sense of
optimism for the future of humanistic research.
The 2024 awardees will pursue a range of non-traditional
approaches to the dissertation, incorporating trans- and
inter-disciplinary research, digital scholarship, and community
engagement. Their research includes:
- a project utilizing photo-ethnography and photovoice to
foreground the contested perspectives surrounding the building of
the Maya Train in Southern
Mexico;
- a project employing critical digital spatial modeling and
original art design to illuminate the embodied and sensorial
experiences of disabled Afro-Indigenous women;
- research bringing together the sociology of war and conflict,
feminist political ecology, environmental humanities, and
reproductive justice to investigate the consequences of the
environmental effects of war in the Columbian Caribbean—including
pollution and water contamination—on women's reproductive
health;
- research that weaves together the emerging framework of "crip
linguistics," critical disability studies, and discourse analysis
to better understand the experiences of disabled people; and
- a study integrating oral history methodologies and legal
anthropology to interrogate the relationship between history,
memory, and law in the Black Power Movement in New York between 1920 and 1970.
Formed a century ago, the American Council of Learned Societies
(ACLS) is a nonprofit federation of 80 scholarly organizations. As
the leading representative of American scholarship in the
humanities and interpretive social sciences, ACLS upholds the core
principle that knowledge is a public good. In supporting its member
organizations, ACLS utilizes its endowment and $37 million annual operating budget to expand the
forms, content, and flow of scholarly knowledge, reflecting our
commitment to diversity of identity and experience. ACLS
collaborates with institutions, associations, and individuals to
strengthen the evolving infrastructure for scholarship. In all
aspects of our work, ACLS is committed to principles and practices
in support of racial and social justice.
The Mellon Foundation is the nation's largest supporter of the
arts and humanities. Mellon believes that the arts and humanities
are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone
deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom to be found there.
Through its grants, Mellon seeks to build just communities enriched
by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and
imagination can thrive. The Foundation makes grants in four core
program areas: Arts and Culture; Higher Learning; Humanities in
Place; and Public Knowledge.
Media Contact
Anna Polovick Waggy, American
Council of Learned Societies, 6468307661, awaggy@acls.org,
https://www.acls.org/
Twitter LinkedIn
View original content to download
multimedia:https://www.prweb.com/releases/american-council-of-learned-societies-announces-2024-mellonacls-dissertation-innovation-fellows-302121303.html
SOURCE American Council of Learned Societies