IPRH is fortunate to be the home of many activities funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This collection of Mellon-funded projects provides opportunities for external scholars as well as Illinois faculty and graduate and undergraduate students. IPRH is pleased to announce its newest cohort of Mellon appointees. Please join IPRH in congratulating these scholars on achieving this distinction.
ANDREW W. MELLON ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES RESEARCH GROUP, 2019–20
Andrew W. Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellows in Environmental Humanities
Jessica Landau, Art History: “‘Critical Habitat’: Picturing Conservation, Extinction, and the American Animal in the Long Twentieth Century”
Douglas Jones, History: “The Cult of the Yankee Mining Engineer: Engineering Nature, Race, and Labor in the US, Canada, and South Africa, 1886–1922”
Andrew W. Mellon Undergraduate Interns in Environmental Humanities
Alaina Bottens, major in Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences / Gender & Women’s Studies
Sarah Gediman, major in History / Earth, Society & Environmental Sustainability
Amanda Watson, major in English / Political Science
The newly appointed pre-doctoral fellows and undergraduate interns will join Mellon Faculty Fellow and research group director Robert Morrissey (History) and Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellows, Leah Aronowsky (PhD, History of Science, Harvard U, 2018) and Pollyanna Rhee (PhD, Architecture, Columbia U, 2018). Led by Professor Morrissey, the fellows and interns will pursue their own Environmental Humanities-related research projects and participate in all activities of the Mellon Environmental Humanities Research Group. The Mellon Research Group is funded by a grant of $2,050,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to IPRH to support the development of emerging areas in the humanities. You can learn more about the Emerging Areas in the Humanities programand the work of the Environmental Humanities Research Group at the IPRH Website.
ANDREW W. MELLON GRADUATE FELLOW IN PUBLIC HUMANITIES, 2019–20
Meghann Walk, Education Policy, Organization & Leadership
IPRH was recently awarded a five-year grant of $650,000 from the Mellon Foundation to support the Odyssey Project at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The grant will permit IPRH to enhance ongoing efforts to bring foundational humanities knowledge and learning to non-traditional income-eligible adult students and to highlight the critical role that study in the humanities plays in preparing students for the worlds of opportunity that await them. Among its provisions, the grant funds a yearly Public Humanities Fellowship for a doctoral student in the humanities to be in residence with the program and pursue a public humanities-related project in the span of the academic year, under the guidance of a designated faculty mentor. The fellow participates in the Odyssey Project’s activities and spends the year co-thinking and co-learning with the Odyssey Project staff to develop the public humanities dimensions of his or her research. IPRH is grateful to the Mellon Foundation for our ability to appoint this our inaugural Public Humanities Graduate Fellow.
ANDREW W. MELLON FACULTY FELLOWSHIP IN LEGAL HUMANITIES, 2019–22
A. Naomi Paik, Asian American Studies
The final “emerging area” to be funded by the Mellon Emerging Areas in the Humanities grant (see above) is “Legal Humanities.” Professor Paik will spend next academic year laying the groundwork for the launch of the Mellon Legal Humanities Research group in fall 2020, including participating in the selection of the first cohort of external post-doctoral fellows and internal pre-doctoral fellows and undergraduate interns affiliated with the group. The Andrew W. Mellon Legal Humanities Research Group will run for two academic years, 2020–21 and 2021–22, and will offer programming and curriculum development in legal humanities, among its activities.
More information about IPRH fellowship programs can be found online at www.iprh.illinois.edu.