Mellon Grant: Beyond the New Normal

Dickinson College is the recipient of three-year grant from the Mellon Foundation to fund “Beyond the New Normal: Disability, Literature, and Reimagining Social Justice”—a project that supports the study of disability and normality, and to affirm the enduring value of literary study and the humanities across programs and disciplines. Over the next three years, the grant will support faculty scholarship and teaching in literary and humanities studies at Dickinson. The grant includes significant funding for faculty in three main areas: 

(1) scholarship (writing groups, seminars, and workshops; summer research grants; Dana research assistants, workshops on public-facing humanities work; course reassigned time for research projects, especially those with upcoming deadlines or that require travel to archives, etc.); 

(2) curricular innovation (course reassigned time for developing new courses and/or significant augmentation of a course--i.e., the development of new expertise that will inform your pedagogy beyond the one specific course for which you’re applying for support; especially for team-taught courses and/or those that will be taught regularly and/or taught at the sophomore and senior level); and 

(3) community engagement projects (literary artists-in-residence; visiting speakers; discussion groups).

Please note: decisions on awards go through the R&D Committee as elected by the faculty. The grants, however, are funded by the Mellon Foundation and are competitive.

All colleagues who engage (or would like to engage) literature in their research and/or teaching around questions of disability, normalcy, embodiment, war, or other related topics, regardless of home department, are invited to participate. You can read more about this award here and here.

Upcoming Opportunities and Deadlines:

• Literary artists-in-residence. We are accepting proposals for literary artists-in-residence on a rolling basis. Candidates' work should be connected to the broader goals and themes of the grant, and will be able to engage with faculty and students across two or more departments/programs. Please reach out to Claire Seiler and Alyssa DeBlasio for more information.

For more information contact:

Claire Seiler, Professor of English

& Alyssa DeBlasio, Professor of Russian