NEH Announces $31.5 Million in Awards and Offers for 201 Humanities Projects

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced $31.5 million in grants for 201 humanities projects. This funding will support a wide variety of projects, including the production and development of radio and television programs, digital scholarly resources, professional development for teachers and college faculty, and the development and staging of museum and library exhibitions. NEH grants will also help institutions improve and secure long-term support for their humanities programs and resources, and support state humanities council programs exploring significant events and themes in American history.

“The NEH grants announced today seek to discover, preserve, and share the stories that have shaped us,” said NEH Chairman Jim Leach. “Whether through continuing education opportunities for teachers, public debates on issues of civility and democracy, or the development of digital scholarly and educational tools, these projects underscore the power of the humanities to enrich our understanding of our history, our society, and ourselves.”

Among the grants announced are those that will enable the digitization of records of Delaware’s industrial history and allow fifty community college faculty members to attend a workshop at Jackson State University on the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike and its role in the civil rights movement.

Funding will also support digital textual analysis of 15 editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica, expanding our understanding of the development of concepts, ideas, and language, and will permit the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to diversify its American art holdings. Other grants will support an interactive digital simulation of the experiences of Japanese Americans in wartime internment camps in the Arkansas Delta, and allow the Folger Library to mount a traveling exhibit on the history and influence of the King James Bible.

This funding cycle also marks the first grant awards as part of the NEH’s new Bridging Cultures initiative, which supports projects that explore the ways in which cultures from around the globe, as well as the myriad subcultures within America’s borders, have influenced American society. Projects receiving support through Bridging Cultures grants include a symposium at the National Constitution Center on the role of dissent and protest in American culture, and a public forum at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, on the influences of Islamic cultural and intellectual traditions on the development of Western humanist and scientific thought.

This award cycle, institutions and independent scholars in 41 states and the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, Northern Marianas, and the Virgin Islands will receive NEH support. Complete state-by-state listings of grants are available here.

Selected projects have received a We the People designation for their efforts to strengthen the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture. In this cycle, grants were awarded in the following categories:

• We The People Project Grants for State Humanities Councils support programs sponsored by state humanities councils that explore significant events and themes in American history and culture, and advance knowledge of the principles that define America.
• Digital Humanities Start-up Grants encourage innovations in the digital humanities by supporting the planning stages of projects that advance humanities research, education, preservation, access, and public programming through the use of technology.
• Summer Seminars and Institutes for College and University Teachers Grants support intensive two- to six-week projects in which fifteen to twenty-five college and university faculty members, working with scholarly experts, engage in collegial study of significant texts and topics in the humanities.
• Summer Seminars and Institutes for School Teachers Grants support intensive two- to six-week projects in which fifteen to thirty school teachers, working with scholarly experts, engage in collegial study of significant texts and topics in the humanities.
• Landmarks of American History and Culture: Workshops for School Teachers support a series of one-week workshops for K-12 educators that address central themes and topics in American history, government, literature, art history, and other humanities fields related to historic landmarks.
• Landmarks of American History and Culture: Workshops for Community College Faculty (WTP) support a series of one-week workshops, conducted by leading scholars, for community college educators in which participants study central issues in American history related to historic landmarks, enhancing both their knowledge and their ability to teach.
• America’s Historical and Cultural Organizations: Planning & Implementation Grants support traveling or long-term museum exhibitions, library-based projects, interpretation of historical places or areas, websites, and other project formats that engage audiences in exploring humanities ideas and questions. Planning grants develop the content, interpretive approach, and formats of projects; implementation grants support their final development, design, and production.
• Interpreting America’s Historic Places: Planning & Implementation Grants support public humanities projects that exploit the evocative power of historic places to explore stories, ideas, and beliefs that deepen our understanding of our lives and our world. Planning grants develop the content, format, and design of projects; implementation grants support the final preparation of a project for presentation to the public.
• America’s Media Makers: Development & Production Grants support media projects, including radio, television, and digital technology projects, that explore significant events, figures, or developments in the humanities. Development grants enable media producers to collaborate with scholars to develop the humanities content and to prepare programs for production; production grants support the preparation of a program for distribution.
• Bridging Cultures: Planning and Implementation Grants for Academic Forums and Program Development Grants support the planning and implementation of an academic forum and workshop that explore the ways in which cultures from around the globe, as well as the myriad subcultures within America’s borders, have influenced American society.
• NEH on the Road Grants help small sites defray the cost of hosting an NEH traveling exhibition.
• Challenge Grants strengthen the humanities by encouraging non-federal sources of support and helping institutions secure long-term improvements in and support for their humanities programs and resources. Recipients are required to match NEH funds on a three-to-one or, in some cases, two-to-one basis.