HWW: The Work of the Humanities in a Changing Climate
Grant Opportunity Fall 2018
The Humanities Without Walls consortium invites applications for funding from cross-institutional teams of faculty and graduate students wishing to collaboratively pursue research topics related to “The Work of the Humanities in a Changing Climate.”
This research initiative links the consortium partners in a common commitment to intellectual exchange and dialogue, this time around a broad question that resonates with many contemporary humanist scholars—namely, what is the work of the humanities in a changing climate? This rubric is intended to be both intellectually focused and capacious. In its narrowest interpretation, it calls for collaborative work on climate change, arguably the most pressing grand challenge of our time. We seek collaborative research in the field of environmental humanities, broadly conceived, as well as the development of new humanities-centered paradigms for thinking through the limits and possibilities of climate change policy. We do so out of a conviction that the current climate crisis has deep historical roots yet to be fully tapped; that it calls for new philosophies and theories of the human and the Anthropocene; that its fictions and visual cultures bear mightily on its material consequences, past, present and future; and that collaborative research on these questions and more is indispensable to scholarly expertise on the subject, in the humanities and beyond.
As a metaphor, climate change is pluripotent: it offers humanists the opportunity to think expansively about the meanings of “climate” and “change” as they manifest in their own research, and to bring their contributions to bear on cognate questions in the present. Thus “The Work of Humanities in a Changing Climate” also hails scholars who wish to consider the pressure of other forms of contemporary “climate change” on their fields of inquiry—from a changing racial climate to a changing economic climate to the changing notion of “the public” and what it means for the intellectual work environments of humanists.
Applicants may propose research designed to serve public policy or other applied outcomes, though this is not required. Proposals that deal with climate change and research that explores more metaphoric meanings of “changing climate” are equally welcome as long as they are interdiscjplinary and intentionally collaborative. In other words, scholars invested in “The Work of the Humanities in a Changing Climate” research initiative can pursue specifically environmental studies topics or they can choose to interpret climate change broadly across range of times and places. Above all, applications should nominate a clear and concise research problem and make a persuasive case for the cross-institutional partnerships involved. Examples of previously funded projects may be found on the Humanities Without Walls website.
The Humanities without Walls consortium invites applications for funding from cross-institutional teams of faculty and graduate students wishing to collaboratively pursue research topics related to “The Work of the Humanities in a Changing Climate.” Applications Deadline is October 31, 2017 at 5:00pm, Central Time.
Humanities without Walls "The Work of the Humanities in a Changing Climate”
Information on this program and the online portal for submitting Applications to this program can be found at: http://www.humanitieswithoutwalls.illinois.edu/initiatives/changing-climate/rfp.html
Project leaders and project coordinators should contact their Humanities Center, department chair, and college dean (when applicable) no later than October 1, 2017 with an email indicating intent to apply for this challenge, the project title, and all external collaborators and their institutions
Application Deadline: October 31, 2017, 5:00 p.m., Central Time