SCHUMER, GILLIBRAND ANNOUNCE NEARLY $2 MILLION TO SUPPORT LOCAL CULTURAL NONPROFITS AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING TO SUSTAIN HUMANITIES ORGANIZATIONS ACROSS UPSTATE NEW YORK
NEH Grants Support Research And Learning In History, Literature, Philosophy & Other Areas Of The Humanities
Upstate New York Awarded Over 7% Of Total Funding For Humanities Projects Across The Country
Senators: Investment In Humanities, Cultural Organizations, And Non-Profits Paints Bright Picture For New York’s Future
U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand today announced $1,977,376 million in grants distributed by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which will bolster humanities projects and organizations across Upstate New York. Specifically, the grants will fund educational resources, programs, curricula, and other projects that enhance teaching and learning in the humanities at colleges and universities across the state, as well as support advanced research and writing projects by humanities scholars. Overall, the awards will support research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities.
“Non-profits and cultural organizations are critical parts of our communities that not only create jobs, but serve the vital purpose of maintaining research and learning in the humanities,” said U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer. “This funding will foster important projects in our communities, including an interactive experience at the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, renovations for North Country Children’s Museum, research and writing for a book about hip-hop history, and much more. I am proud to deliver another year of this critical federal support to help these organizations and their projects thrive.”
“This crucial Upstate New York investment will promote education and humanities research in our communities,” said U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. “Because of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), our cultural institutions can reach more families and cultivate inspired communities with programming that enriches and educates. This critical funding is essential to advancing education and the economy in our state, and I will continue pushing to fund cultural organizations and the humanities.”
Senators Schumer and Gillibrand said that New York State was awarded $5,024,586 million for 30 NEH grants across the state, including $1,977,376 million for 13 NEH grants in Upstate New York. They also said that Upstate New York’s NEH awards account for over 7% of the total funding awarded to humanities projects across the country.
Examples of recipients of NEH grants in Upstate New York are listed below, in addition to the corresponding project and its funding amount:
Capital Region—$210,000
Research Foundation for the State University of New York: $150,000
Project Title: Building Community and Belonging for Hispanic Students through the Humanities
Project Description: The creation of an advanced course, a community-wide speaker series, and digital humanities resources for the study and teaching of Spanish language and culture for heritage speakers.
SUNY Research Foundation, Albany: $60,000
Project Title: Phillis Wheatley Peters’s Poetic Worlds
Project Description: Transcription of archival documents and writing a book on Phillis Wheatley Peters’s (c. 1753–1784) poetry production in the context of transatlantic manuscript culture.
Central New York—$310,000
Hamilton College: $150,000
Project Title: Curatorial Studies: Expanding the Impact of the Humanities through Interdisciplinary and Experiential Partnerships
Project Description: A two-and-a-half-year project to develop an interdisciplinary program and minor in curatorial studies.
Hamilton College: $60,000
Project Title: Cornell Capa and the International Center of Photography
Project Description: Research and writing leading to a book on Cornell Capa (1918– 2008), a photographer and curator, and the International Photography Center (ICP), which he founded in 1974.
North Country Children’s Museum: $100,000
Project Title: Second Floor Capital Project Phase II
Project Description: Complete interior renovations for new humanities exhibits and program spaces at the North Country Children’s Museum in Potsdam, New York.
Finger Lakes Region—$469,987
Cornell University: $349,987
Project Title: BERT for Humanists
Project Description: The development of case studies about and professional development workshops on the use of BERT (bidirectional encoder representations from transformers) for humanities scholars and students interested in large-scale text analysis.
Cornell University: $60,000
Project Title: Law Between Empires: The Impeachment of Warren Hastings and the Origins of the Modern State in Britain and India
Project Description: Research and writing leading to a book on the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings, former British governor in Bengal (1787–1795), and the origins of the modern state in Britain and India.
University of Rochester: $60,000
Project Title: The Earth Songs of the Seneca Nation
Project Description: Research and writing towards a digital multimedia book on the Earth Songs of the Seneca Nation of Indians.
Southern Tier—$60,000
SUNY Research Foundation, Binghamton: $60,000
Project Title: Living Room Revolutions: Black and Brown Women Collecting Records, Selecting Sounds, and Making New Worlds in the 1970s Bronx
Project Description: Research and writing leading to a book about hip-hop history, showing how the record collections and home-DJ practices of Black women and Latinas in the 1970s Bronx shaped the artform’s birth, sound, and development.
Western New York—$927,389
National Comedy Center, Inc.: $400,000
Project Title: Discovering Lucy and Desi: Interpretive Content on the First Couple of Comedy
Project Description: Production of four interactive touchscreen kiosks for a museum dedicated to entertainers Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
SUNY Research Foundation, University at Buffalo: $30,000
Project Title: On the Logics of AI and GIS Analysis of Land Use
Project Description: Research and writing leading to a web-based publication that explores how artificial intelligence, geographic information systems, and satellite imagery can be deployed to describe land use in the Alas Merta Jati forest of Bali, and how these descriptions interact with local knowledge and sustainability strategies.
SUNY Research Foundation, Buffalo State: $250,000
Match award: $100,000
Project Title: Fellowships for Graduate Students in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage and Art
Project Description: Partial fellowship stipends for graduate students enrolled in the Buffalo State College, State University of New York (SUNY Buffalo State) program in art conservation. Students to receive funding would include ten in the class of 2024, eight in the class of 2025, and ten in the class of 2026.
St. Bonaventure University: $147,389
Project Title: Native American and Indigenous Studies in the General Education Curriculum
Project Description: A three-year curricular and faculty development project in conjunction with the Seneca Nation to incorporate the teaching of Native American and Indigenous Studies into general education classes required for all first-year students.
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