Arts & Humanities Seed Grant Program Awardees

The Seed Grant Program to Support the Arts and Humanities provides funding of up to $2500 (as of fiscal year 2024) to help support Arts and Humanities faculty research and scholarly activities. The purpose of the program is to assist faculty in building their careers and contributing to their disciplines by exploring new scholarly, creative, and research activities. Proposals are reviewed and funding is recommended by a panel composed of faculty in the arts and humanities.

2023-24 Awardees


Claire Cage

Dr. Claire Cage
Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Shadows of Empire: The Ethnographic Exhibitions at the Jardin d’Acclimatation in
Paris"

Abstract: This project investigates the ethnographic exhibitions at the Jardin d'Acclimatation in Paris during the late nineteenth century. Beginning in 1877, this zoological garden started featuring live displays of indigenous peoples from various regions, later termed 'human zoos.' These exhibitions garnered significant attention from both the general public and the scientific community, reinforcing racial hierarchies and colonial ideologies, especially with the involvement of the Anthropological Society of Paris. By exploring archival materials, printed documents, and visual sources exclusively available in France, this research aims to provide an in-depth account of these exhibitions, examining their societal impact and their influence on scientific and public discourse regarding race and imperialism. The anticipated book chapter and article manuscript will offer fresh perspectives on the interplay of race, science, culture, and imperialism in French society from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. 


David Durant

David Durant
Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

"New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival 2024"

Abstract: Dr. Esther Lamneck, retired Director of Woodwind Studies at New York University, and I have been selected from a field of over 600 applicants to present my composition The Ball Jar for tárogató and fixed audio at the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF) which takes place June 16-24, 2024 at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture located at 18 Bleecker St. in New York, NY. I will diffuse the live tárogató part and my fixed audio recording over the 16 loudspeakers in the specially outfitted 273-seat neoclassical proscenium theater. The NYCEMF is the largest showcase of electoacoustic music in New York City, and one of the largest and most prestigious festivals of its kind in the world. The works presented each year are chosen by a panel of internationally respected composers and musicians. 


Kip Franklin

Dr. Kip Franklin
Associate Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

"Funding to Support Presentation and Performance of Original Arrangement of Fantasia and Rondo at ClarinetFest 2024 in Dublin, Ireland"

Abstract: This grant proposal aims to address the underperformance of Carl Maria von Weber's Clarinet Quintet, op. 34, specifically the Fantasia and Rondo movements. The project involves presenting an original new arrangement of the work for clarinet and piano, making this piece more accessible to students and feasible for high school and collegiate study. The project's unique quality is its world-premiere performance at the International Clarinet Association's 2024 ClarinetFest® Conference in Dublin, Ireland, an event with a rich and long history but no known performance of this specific work. Expected outcomes include an international presentation and performance, a recording project featuring the arrangement, publication by Alry Publications, and a research article in the Clarinet Journal. This project promises to not only fill a gap in the clarinet repertoire but also contribute to the dissemination of a valuable work to the clarinet repertoire. 


Zoya Khan

Dr. Zoya Khan
Associate Professor, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

"2024 LASA Conference: ‘Seeing with the Ears:’ Guaraní Worldview and Ecology in Three Bolivian Texts"

Abstract: The proposed project will cover my expenses for conference travel to Bogotá, Colombia, where I will deliver a paper at the annual convention of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) from June 12-15 2024. LASA is the most important and selective conference in Latin American Studies. The title of the paper I will present is “‘Ver con los oídos’: Cosmovisión guaraní y ecología sonora en tres textos bolivianos” (“‘Seeing with the Ears’: Guaraní Worldview and Ecology in Three Bolivian Texts”). My paper analyzes the mobilization of indigenous notions of sound and listening in contemporary Bolivian literature. This presentation is part of my in-progress monograph, under contract with Lexington Books. Sharing my research at LASA is important because of the critical feedback I will receive from attending scholars and because I will be able to promote my work at one of the most prestigious annual meetings of Latin Americanists in the world. 


Brian Nozny

Dr. Brian Nozny
Assistant Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

"2023 World Saxophone Congress"

Abstract:

The World Saxophone Congress is in its fifty-fourth year of existence and is the premier international gathering of saxophone artists. This year’s event is taking place in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain from December 6 – 10, 2023. 

Two proposals have been accepted that I am involved with: A performance of "Bleached" by Grammy Award Winning composer Libby Larsen performed by The Cold Quartet, and a commission by the TracyDobbs Duo for a new work for saxophone and percussion of which I am one of the commissioned composers. 

The Cold Quartet is a mixed instrumentation chamber ensemble consisting of faculty from McNeese State University in Lake Charles, LA and the University of South Alabama in Mobile, AL. 

The TracyDobbs Duo consists of Dr. Matthew Tracey (Assistant Professor of Saxophone - Missouri State University) and Dr. Tommy Dobbs (Assistant Professor of Percussion – Oklahoma City University). 


Charlotte Pence

Dr. Charlotte Pence
Associate Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"Attendance to the Convivio Conference as an Invited Visiting Scholar"

Abstract: I am applying for an Arts and Humanities Seed Grant to partially fund expenses to Convivio, an international professional conference for creative writers in Postignano, Italy, where I have been invited as a visiting scholar. My role as a visiting scholar is an esteemed one; while I will participate in the conference, I will also critique conference attendees’ writing in one-on-one sessions and present from my memoir-in-progress, Gardening in the Dark: Raising Resilience. This memoir narrates three years when my brother and I (ages 15 and 9 respectively) were left by our father to care for our paralyzed mother. My brother, the small-town football star, and I, the shy sister, figured out how to run a household, grow vegetables for income, and hide the extent of our mother’s illness to avoid being placed in foster care and likely separated. The opportunity to present my work and receive feedback at Convivio will advance my manuscript by providing opportunities for revision, collaboration, and ultimately, publication. 


Patrick Shaw

Dr. Patrick Shaw
Associate Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

"Travel to the International Society for the History of Rhetoric Twenty-Fourth Biennial Conference"

Abstract: I am applying for an Arts and Humanities Seed Grant to cover some costs of travel to the biennial, international conference held by the International Society for the History of Rhetoric in Vancouver, British Columbia, July 23-26, 2024. I will be presenting a paper jointly with Dr. Rosaleen Keefe of Old Dominion University. Our presentation, “‘Epistemic Foundationalism’: Karl Popper, Cold War Politics and the Reinvention of Plato’s Rhetoric,” is part of our joint work on Plato’s reception in studies in rhetoric in the twentieth century. I will have the opportunity to network with scholars in the history of rhetoric from around the world and to promote the book project Dr. Keefe and I are developing, Plato, Karl Popper, and Cold War Rhetoric. Our conference presentation is a chapter draft of this larger project. 


Justin St. Clair

Dr. Justin St. Clair
Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"Streaming Pynchon"

Abstract: In his classic treatise on auditory perception, Auditory Scene Analysis (1993), Albert Bregman differentiates between sounded phenomena in the world at large ("acoustic events" or "sounds") and our mental representations of those events ("streams"). A similar distinction can be made between aural phenomena in print (both phonemic and depictive) and readers' apprehension of those sounds. In many respects, readers engage in much the same behavior as real-world listeners, deriving mental representations of linguistic phenomena by grouping acoustic data into perceptual streams. In short, this project investigates the "soundedness" of literature by using Bregman's paradigm to assess how readers process the fiction of Thomas Pynchon.


Laura Vrana

Dr. Laura Vrana
Assistant Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"Writing Transgressions: Prestige, Publishing, and Black Women’s Poetic Performance monograph subvention"

Abstract: I am seeking funding for the publication costs (specifically the composition & typesetting and design & layout) of my book Writing Transgressions: Prestige, Publishing, and Black Women’s Poetic Performance. It is under contract with the Ohio State University Press, with a tentative publication date of late 2024. Writing Transgressions examines Black women’s poetry since the Black Arts Movement, analyzing the literary awards industry, academia, and publishers to demonstrate that the common understanding that Black women writers occupy a prominent place in American literature has limited the interpretive lenses brought to Black women’s poetics and that poetry studies continues to marginalize Black women via problematic discourses of authenticity. One reader dubbed the manuscript “innovative in its approach, exceptionally well-researched, and cogently written” and suggested that it “will significantly enhance understandings of contemporary Black women’s poetry.”


▼   2022-23 Awardees
Ellen Harrington

Dr. Ellen Harrington
Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"JSC Conference: The Urban Gothic Metropolis of The Secret Agent"

Abstract: The proposed project will cover some costs of travel to an international professional conference held by the Joseph Conrad Society UK, a prominent scholarly society, in London. My presentation, “The Urban Gothic Metropolis of The Secret Agent,” has been accepted for presentation at the 2023 conference in July, and the conference focus is strongly relevant to the monograph I have been researching, Madness, Melancholy, and Delusion in the Works of Joseph Conrad. Because this conference focuses in depth on interpretations of Conrad and influences on his work, it offers me a wonderful opportunity to advance my work, building on my earlier monograph, Conrad’s Sensational Heroines. In addition to presenting this paper, I will submit a longer version of the project later this year for publication in a peer-reviewed collection, edited by Deborah Romanick Baldwin, with Routledge Press.


Tracey Heavner

Dr. Tracey Heavner
Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

"Performance at The World Saxophone Congress, Gran Canaria, Spain, December 6-10, 2023"

Abstract: My proposal is for international travel funding to perform at the World Saxophone Congress, Gran Canaria, Spain, December 6-10, 2023. The World Saxophone Congress is the premier event for saxophonists from around the world to perform public concerts and present masterclasses to fellow saxophonists and the public. The World Saxophone Congress meets every three years but the last congress was held over five years ago due to Covid cancelations. Saxophonists submit proposals to perform/present masterclasses and the World Saxophone Congress Artistic Committee selects only qualified, accomplished performers to be included in the congress. There will be all types of performances at the congress ranging from solo and chamber performances to large ensemble/orchestral performances. My proposal was accepted and I would like to perform at the World Saxophone Congress, 2023. This will be an excellent creative opportunity allowing me to perform for an international audience, learn more about saxophone pedagogy/performance through attendance of masterclasses and meet other saxophonists from around the world for future collaborations. Expected products from this project could be invitations to perform at venues in the United States and internationally, to present masterclass at universities in the United States and internationally and invitations to create new performance ensembles for performances/recordings.


Caleb Johnson

Caleb Johnson
Assistant Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"Archival Research for Novel in Progress"

Abstract: I plan to travel to Auburn, Double Springs and Birmingham, Alabama, and conduct research on a novel-in-progress. Currently titled Lou, the novel is based on the life of my paternal grandmother, who grew up on a small farm in northwest Alabama. I will view materials in the Alabama Cooperative Extension Systems (ACES) Records at Auburn, personal effects in Double Springs, and photographs and maps in Birmingham. The purpose of this research is to gain a deeper understanding about agriculture during the first half of the twentieth century in Alabama, as well as details that will provide historical texture to the novel.


Becky McLaughlin

Dr. Becky McLaughlin
Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"Experimentation and Auto-Theory"

Abstract: This project will help support a campus visit by world-renowned, avant-garde feminist scholar Jane Gallop, who is Distinguished Professor Emerita of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the author of nine books including The Daughter’s Seduction, Thinking Through the Body, Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment, Anecdotal Theory, and, most recently, Sexuality, Disability, and Aging. Gallop’s visit is necessary not only for pedagogical but also, and more importantly, for collaborative, scholarly reasons. Her visit will serve two interrelated purposes: 1) she will participate as a guest speaker in the English Department’s Spring Series on Experimentation, which is a cluster of courses, events, and speakers focused on the concept of experimentation, the very essence of Gallop’s work, and 2) her talk will be published as the lead essay in a collection entitled Auto-theory and Its Others, which I am in the early stages of assembling with fellow scholars Eric Daffron, Maria Gil Ulldemolins, and Kris Pint, and I anticipate that Gallop’s cutting-edge work will aid my co-editors and me in securing a prestigious academic publisher such as Duke University Press, the publisher of most of Gallop’s books.


David Messenger

Dr. David Messenger
Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"American Intelligence and Nazi Influence in Wartime Iberia"

Abstract: I am part of a consortium of researchers based in Spain working on the subject of “Influence, Intelligence and Neutrality in the Second World War in Spain.” My particular part of the project is to examine the effort of American intelligence operations in Spain and Portugal to study and gather information on SOFINDUS, a major Nazi Germany- government owed company that handled all economic trade between Spain and Nazi Germany in wartime. SOFINDUS was also often used as a cover to bring Nazi intelligence agents and operations into the Iberian Peninsula. I first began working with American intelligence documents involving its operations with SOFINDUS when writing my book, Hunting Nazis in Franco’s Spain (2014), and thus am in a good position to build on that work and prepare a chapter for our proposed edited volume that offers a more comprehensive overview of SOFINDUS as a target of American intelligence operations in a neutral state during the Second World War. This research requires work at the United States National Archives II in College Park, MD where American wartime intelligence of Nazis and Nazi organizations was released under the 1998 Act of Congress entitled the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. I anticipate one week of research, with my camera, will allow me to add to what I already have on SOFINDUS and get a more comprehensive overview of American efforts against this business in Iberia during the war. This will allow me to return to campus and write up the proposed chapter during the 2023-24 academic year.


Matthew Pettway

Dr. Matthew Pettway
Assistant Professor, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

"The Japan Lectures"

Abstract: The proposed project will help fund travel to Japan to deliver a series of invited lectures at Doshisha University and Ritsumeikan University. Doshisha University and Ritsumeikan University are among the most elite private institutions in Japan; they are nestled in Kyoto, the medieval capital of the Empire of Japan. The Interdisciplinary Research Group of American Studies (Bumon Kenkyu) #3 at Doshisha University invited me to speak on my new research exploring traditional African conceptions of manhood and third-gender identity in pre-colonial West-Central Africa and the Portuguese Empire. The research I conducted at the Portuguese National Archive last summer in Lisbon will be the basis for my talk. In the course of my research in Portugal, I assessed approximately 960 manuscripts divulging details about the African worldview and philosophy of enslaved peoples and their descendants. A bit of historical context is in order. The Portuguese Crown initiated the Atlantic slave trade in the mid fifteenth-century and trafficked an estimated 5.8 million Africans across an ever-expanding global empire. In 1546, Portugal brought some of these captive Africans to Japan as their servants thus introducing the first African population. But the Portuguese judicial system—which was politically aligned with the Catholic Church—did not condemn human slavery as a divine transgression. Rather, the alleged crimes against God and the king were gender non-conformity, same-sex intimacy and what the Portuguese deemed “witchcraft.” Inquisitors prosecuted Africans for these crimes in Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde and Portugal itself from 1536 well into the nineteenth-century. Among those charged with all but one of these crimes was an androgynous African who hailed from the kingdom of Benin (in modern Nigeria) and self-identified as “Vitória”. My lecture, entitled, “African Honeypot: Forging Third Gender Identity in the Portuguese Colonial World,” explores the role that indigenous African knowledge played in the identity formation of a third-gender person from Benin kingdom who was enslaved in Portugal circa 1555.


Laura Vrana

Dr. Laura Vrana
Assistant Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"The Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival (November 1-4, 2023)"

Abstract: I am seeking funding to attend a one-time-only, semicentennial conference that promises to be a historic event in my field, African American literary studies: The Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival at Jackson State University (November 1-4, 2023). My in-progress, book-length research project is about the exact topic of this unique gathering, a serendipitous, fortuitous confluence of timing. My research and particularly my progress on that monograph would benefit greatly from supplementary funding that would let me also attend this one-time-only conference during the upcoming year.

▼   2021-22 Awardees
Claire Cage

Dr. Claire Cage
Associate Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Liberty and Captivity: The Menagerie in Revolutionary Paris"

Abstract: This project examines the origins of the first modern public zoo, the founding of the menagerie at the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris during the French Revolution. With the assistance of a seed grant, I will be able to conduct research in French archives and libraries for four weeks in summer in order to trace the history of this institution and demonstrate its significance to French society, culture, and political thought during the Age of Revolution.


Susan Fitzsimmons

Dr. Susan Fitzsimmons
Professor, Department of Art & Art History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Support for Exhibition at Museum of Modern Art in New York"

Abstract: I am requesting support for my participation in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, "Just Above Midtown: 1974 to the Present." It will open October 3, 2022 and be displayed until February 18, 2023. I am asking for help to defray the cost of hotel accommodations in New York and airfare. This is the first museum exhibition to focus exclusively on Just Above Midtown (JAM). JAM was an art gallery that a focused on African American artists, women and people of color and was led by Linda Goode Bryant from 1974 until 1986. The two works selected by the curators are significant because I was the first female artist to work with cast Lucite as an artists’ material, combining it with other materials such as wood and found objects. As part of the stable at JAM, my work helped to create a unique aesthetic movement, Contextures, which is only now being recognized by museums. The selected pieces are from my reliquary series called Hang Ups, made in 1978. They are made from cast Lucite, clothes hangers, my hair and rocks. These pieces have not been displayed since 1979.


Tracy Heavner

Dr. Tracy Heavner
Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

"Travel funding to attend and perform at the National Association of Music Merchants show"

Abstract: The purpose of this proposal is to request travel funding to attend and perform at the National Association of Music Merchants show (NAMM) in Anaheim, California, June 1-6, 2022. NAMM produces the industry's trade largest show and attracts music producers, music product exhibitors, distributors, retailers, artists, celebrities, pro audio and live event production specialists and the media from over 130 countries. The NAMM show will have thousands of exhibits introducing the latest innovations in musical instruments, products, equipment, recording technology and sound production. There will be many product presentations by music companies and performances by well-known artists. 


John Hill

John Hill
Assistant Professor, Department of Art & Art History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Programmable Motion Controlled Photography for Stop Motion Animation"

Abstract: Programmable motion controlled photography is a expanding and integral part of advertising, presentation,and animation art forms that requires specific equipment, technology, and knowledge plus experience in the overlapping fields of photography, design, film, and animation. My proposal is to purchase a mounted programmable camera track and stands to pair with already existing equipment in order to create original stop motion animation for short films and gain more experience with this specific technology, and then share that knowledge and equipment with the BFA and MFA students as well as my fellow faculty.


Becky McLaughlin

Dr. Becky McLaughlin
Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"Autotheory: Criticism and Practice"

Abstract: I am applying for a seed grant to cover travel expenses that will be incurred during my trip to London for the London Conference in Critical Thought, which will take place at Birkbeck College, University of London, July 8-9, 2022. My colleague Eric Daffron, Professor of English at Ramapo College, and I have organized a stream of three panels on the subject of auto-theory to be presented during the conference. Because two of our three panels involve staged performances, Eric and I will need to be on hand to help prepare the sets in the performance space provided by Birkbeck College. Of the two panels that include performances, one includes a three-act play that Eric and I have co-written and that the two of us will perform. Although dialogue is obviously the most important storytelling tool in the theater, the way a play is blocked (or staged) is nearly as important. Blocking includes not only how each character moves from one area of the stage to another but also how the characters’ spatial relations impact their interactions with one another on stage. Because Eric and I live in different states (he in New York, and I in Alabama) and have had no opportunity to work together in anything other than virtual space and because we will be unfamiliar with the space in which we will be performing, we will need time on site to gather stage props, block the play, and rehearse it.


Matthew Patterson

Matthew Patterson
Assistant Professor, Department of Art & Art History
College of Arts and Sciences

“The Hidden Costs of Exhibiting Art"

Abstract: Entry and acceptance of artworks into juried exhibitions is critical for the assessment of my research success in the tenure process. I am seeking funding to offset the costs of exhibition entry fees, packaging of accepted artworks, and shipment both to and from exhibition venues.


Matthew Pettway

Dr. Matthew Pettway
Assistant Professor, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

"Quimbandas and Quilombos: African Conceptions of Manhood in Brazilian and Cuban Slave Societies"

Abstract: I am composing a new body of work to analyze the distortion and racialization of male gender practices among enslaved African men in colonial Brazil and Cuba. Portugal began the Atlantic slave trade in the mid-fifteenth century and nearly a century later in 1536, King João III instituted the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Lisbon to enforce religious and gender norms in his colonial outposts. Consequently, the Portuguese National Archive contains a wealth of information about African cultural, religious and gender norms as depicted in inquisitorial accusations, interrogations, and lengthy court proceedings. Thanks to the generous funding of the Summer Professional Development Award, I acquired 18 manuscripts from the Arquivo Nacional Torre do Tombo. The manuscripts comprise more than 500 pages and detail nearly three centuries of prosecutions by a Catholic tribunal for gender-based crimes and religious heresy. Portuguese Inquisition manuscripts hailing from the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries were written in an archaic orthography, thus rendering them illegible. This project will fund about 50% of the costs to decipher and transcribe the manuscripts for academic study. 


Kelly Urban

Dr. Kelly Urban
Assistant Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Publication Costs: Radical Prescription"

Abstract: This project will fund publication costs (i.e., indexing, proofreading, publicity materials) of my book Radical Prescription: Citizenship and the Politics of Tuberculosis in Twentieth-Century Cuba. It will be published by the “Envisioning Cuba” series of the University of North Carolina Press in spring 2023. Radical Prescription demonstrates how tuberculosis, a paradigmatic social disease and an intractable public health problem, proved central to modern Cuban politics. One reader of the manuscript summarized that the book makes several “consequential” interventions in “Cuban history, the history of medicine and public health in Latin America, and the international history of tuberculosis.”

▼   2020-21 Awardees
Lorraine Ahearn

Dr. Lorraine Ahearn
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication
College of Arts and Sciences

"Safe Harbor: Vietnamese Fishermen of Bayou La Batre"

Abstract: The Vietnamese fishing community of Bayou La Batre is a culturally rich, historically significant feature of the Gulf Coast, but has received limited and fragmented scholarly attention. The contours of the small community’s journey, weathering disruption, environmental change, and evolving generational expectations, reflect global challenges to indigenous people typically underrepresented in mainstream media and discourse. The aim of my study, applying historical, ethnographic, and journalistic methods, is twofold: first, to produce a short documentary film that conveys the visual and cultural complexity of the immigrant fishing community from its own standpoint; second, to produce a companion research publication exploring how media narratives of refugee issues shift over time, inflecting outsiders’ understanding of the dynamics of migration. Through a highly situated case study, I am seeking insight into broader implications of change in the Global South, and the role communication plays in that process.

This project was highlighted in the Spring 2021 issue of our research e-newsletter, discovered@SOUTH.


Justin St. Clair

Dr. Justin St. Clair
Associate Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"Soundtracked Books from the Acoustic Era to the Digital Age"

Abstract: While multimedia products that combine the visual experience of print with a pre-recorded musical complement may seem something of a contemporary phenomenon, the soundtracked book has a robust history stretching more than a century. Patented by Ralph Mayhew in 1917, "books that sing" were a massive cultural phenomenon in the early 1920s. Early soundtracked books were primarily marketed to children, but by midcentury, ethnographers were producing book-and-record combinations that used printed text to contextualize musical artifacts. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed the first soundtracked novels, but it was the rise of digital music distribution that ultimately led to widespread proliferation of long-form soundtracked fiction. By examining print's role in the evolution of recording formats and packaging, this study uses the history of the soundtracked book to theorize emerging modes of media engagement that require cross-platform audience participation.


Kelly Urban

Dr. Kelly Urban
Assistant Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Pathology and Place: The Transformation of Tropical Medicine in the Caribbean, 1930–2020"

Abstract: This project, Pathology and Place: The Transformation of Tropical Medicine in the Caribbean, 1930–2020, traces the mid-twentieth-century resurgence of the “tropical” category in medicine. While historians have produced substantial scholarship on the rise of tropical medicine in the nineteenth century, few have studied its reemergence from the mid-twentieth century on, and even fewer have considered the Caribbean as a pivotal site for this intellectual transformation. Drawing on medical journals, textbooks, and conference proceedings from the U.S. and the Caribbean, my book manuscript will reconstruct when, where, and why certain diseases, such as tuberculosis, dengue fever, and rabies, were re-conceptualized as “tropical” plagues in the mid-twentieth century. I anticipate that my research will demonstrate how spatial categorizations of disease justify health disparities. Labeling diseases as “tropical” is a phenomenon that deserves critical analysis, as it informs medical knowledge, the design of health policy, and global health care projects.


Brian Whitener

Dr. Brian Whitener
Assistant Professor, Department of Modern and Classical Languages & Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

“Leftward Ho!”: Revolutionary Intellectuals, 1928-1948"

Abstract: “Leftward Ho!”: Revolutionary Intellectuals, 1928-1948 reveals the forgotten vitality of dissident Marxism in the United States by featuring texts dealing not only with theories of economic development but also with the complex interplay of race, class, and gender in the American scene; labor history; analysis of mainstream politics; the interpretation of culture “high” and “popular”; theology and religious experience; variants of feminism; the force of ideology and the dynamics of personality; the nature and course of US imperialism, and the experience of disenchantment and left-wing failure.

▼   2019-20 Awardees
Samuel Baker

Dr. Samuel Baker
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy
College of Arts and Sciences

"Aristotle on the Nature and Politics of Medicine"

Abstract: The pandemic of COVID-19 has raised issues about medicine and government regulation like never before. I have discussed Aristotle’s views on similar topics in an article entitled “Aristotle on the Nature and Politics of Medicine.” The article was recently published in a highly respected journal in my field: Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science. This is hybrid open access journal, and I request a subvention to pay the requisite fee to make my article open access.


Claire Cage

Dr. Claire Cage
Associate Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Sex Crimes and Colonial Courts in Nineteenth-Century French Algeria"

Abstract: My project examines the prosecution of sex crimes in colonial Algeria during the nineteenth century. I am studying the roles of French jurists, juries, colonial and indigenous defendants and victims, and medical experts in trials for indecent assault, rape, and murder in the assize courts, where serious crimes were tried before all-male juries. My research analyzes the narratives that French jurists, doctors, and colonists advanced about the moral character, social practices, and attitudes of Algerian Muslims in relation to these crimes. I am applying for support to conduct research in French archives and libraries this summer for one month. My research will focus on the untapped judicial records involving sexual crimes from the assize courts in Algiers, Constantine, and Oran.


David Durant

Dr. David Durant
Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

"Performance in Belfast, UK"

Abstract: Dr. Esther Lamneck, Director of Woodwind Studies at New York University, and I have been selected from a field of over 300 applicants to present my composition The Crystalline, Radiant Sky for tárogató and fixed audio at the Sonorities Festival which takes place April 22-25, 2020 at the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queen’s University located in Belfast, NIR, UK. I will diffuse the live tárogató part and my fixed audio recording over the 44 loudspeakers in the Sonic Laboratory. Forty-four loudspeakers, strategically located, project and move sounds throughout the space, including underneath the audience. No other auditorium for sonic art performance and experimentation currently exists with this revolutionary feature. The Sonic Lab features flexible acoustics and open seating and staging arrangements. Since its inauguration by Karlheinz Stockhausen in 2004 the Sonic Lab has been the stage for groundbreaking experimentation across a wide range of composition and performance.


Timothy Lombardo

Dr. Timothy Lombardo
Assistant Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Beer Cities: How Craft Brewing Remade Urban America"

Abstract: My second book project, tentatively titled Beer Cities: How Craft Brewing Remade Urban America, examines the late 20th century urban revitalization and gentrification through the prism of the craft brewing industry. The aim of the project is to use the resurgence of small-scale brewing since the 1970s to address larger questions about race, class, gender, inequality, post-industrial economies, popular culture, urban politics and policy, and the use and re-use of urban space. I began archival research for this project in Brooklyn, New York in spring 2019. I am applying for an Office of Research and Economic Development Seed Grant to continue this research in Chicago, Illinois during spring break 2020.


David Meola

Dr. David Meola
Assistant Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Fighting among the Volk: Jews in the German Liberal and Democratic Movements before 1848"

Abstract: “Fighting among the Volk” will research Jewish Germans’ involvement in the constitutional and democratic movements of Vormärz Germany (1830-1848). Using traditional historical methods, I will excavate governmental documents, personal correspondence, and published works in order to discern Jewish Germans’ political and ideological orientations, and to detail their contributions to the rapidly ascending liberal political movements, which advocated for constitutionalism, the rule of law, and democracy. Contrary to current scholarship which depicts Jews in Vormärz Germany as passive political bystanders, I will attempt to demonstrate Jewish Germans’ deep engagement in the promulgation and dissemination of constitutional and democratic ideals. Researching such a topic about Vormärz Germany - an era rife with anti-Jewish politics and antisemitism - will show Jews as active agents of change and working toward a more secular, constitutional, and democratic society within one that considered itself “Christian” at its core and resisted Jewish integration and secularization.


David Messenger

Dr. David Messenger
Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Bombs Along the Mediterranean: Civilians and Aerial Bombardment in the Spanish Civil War"

Abstract: Recent interest in the Spanish Civil War has focused on the deaths of some 200,000 civilians in the conflict, and recasts the conflict as one that is better thought of as a systematic attack against civilians, not just a traditional military confrontation. What is missing in these accounts of the Civil War is an analysis of the impact of the bombing of civilians from the air. The infamous bombing in the Basque town of Guernica, on April 27, 1937, is recognized as the the first air attack that targeted civilians, but was not unique. This study will examine the war against civilians from the air, civilian responses to these attacks, and contemporary memorial sites about the air war, with an emphasis on cities and towns along the Mediterranean. Archival research will focus on municipal governments and civilian groups who built and managed air raid shelters, revealing their understanding of the conflict in Spain as one in which they were primary targets. Research has already been conducted in Barcelona, in summer 2018, and the next stage is to examine similar materials in the cities of Valencia and Cartagena.

 

Steven Trout

Dr. Steven Trout
Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"Indexing costs for two forthcoming books"

Abstract: I am requesting a $1,500 seed grant to help cover the cost of two book indexes - one for my peer-reviewed co-edited essay collection, Portraits of Remembrance: Painting, Memory, and the First World War (forthcoming from the University of Alabama Press) and one for my peer-reviewed monograph, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Angel Fire: War, Remembrance, and an American Tragedy (forthcoming from the University Press of Kansas).

▼   2018-19 Awardees
Samuel Baker

Dr. Samuel Baker
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy
College of Arts and Sciences

"Summer Course in Spoken Ancient Greek"

Abstract: I plan to attend a three-week summer course devoted to the active production Ancient Greek. This course is organized by the Polis Institute, which specializes in the active acquisition of ancient languages. The course will take place in full immersion classes - that is, classes in which only Ancient Greek is spoken. I believe that by attending this course I will acquire a more intuitive grasp of the Ancient Greek language, and that I will thereby become a better interpreter of Aristotle’s philosophy.


Claire Cage

Dr. Claire Cage
Associate Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Travel Costs to Perform Archival Research for Crime, Law, and Justice in the French Revolution"

Abstract: We often associate crime and punishment during the French Revolution with the dramatic spectacle of the guillotine. Yet revolutionaries also continually confronted "ordinary crimes," including fraud, theft, and everyday violence, and applied less dramatic penalties. They decriminalized religious crimes and sexual behaviors. At the same time, they created new categories of criminal acts and put new emphasis on prosecuting political crimes, from emigration to draft-dodging. They also instituted sweeping legal and juridical changes and introduced trials by jury. However, some French men and women who were dissatisfied with the government’s pursuit of justice resorted to their own forms of violent, extra-legal “popular justice,” including prison massacres. My research considers what justice meant during the French Revolution and how competing conceptions of justice shaped the revolution.


Susan Fitzsimmons

Ms. Susan Fitzsimmons
Professor, Department of Art and Art History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Sculpture Exhibition at Eastern Shore Art Center, Fairhope"

Abstract: I am requesting support for a one person exhibition of my sculpture and works on paper scheduled at the Eastern Shore Art League, August 2 to September 28, 2019. The Eastern Shore Art League is the premier non-profit art space in Fairhope, Alabama. Having a one person show there is considered quite important in this region, and it will give me the opportunity to further expose my work to the Baldwin and Mobile community. This exhibit will be comprised of new work and work not seen in this region. Some of my sculptural pieces are very large (over six feet) and heavy, made from bronze. need to rent a truck and hire two helpers to move and install the exhibition, and then pack them and bring them home at the close of the exhibition. Also I have approximately 20 prints that I need to frame for the exhibition.


Kip Franklin

Dr. Kip Franklin
Assistant Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

"Kip Franklin Supplemental Funding for Conference Travel"

Abstract: One of the more important parts of conducting research is the ability to display and share the results with others in the field. This request seeks to fund the travel costs associated with presenting and performing at two conferences for clarinetists. One of these is a regional event in Birmingham and the other an international convention hosted in Knoxville, Tennessee. My research centers on commissioning, recording, and performing new original works for clarinet, and I have been invited to share this research at both conferences. These invitations were extended as a result of me completing, publishing, and marketing my first solo CD in October 2018. Due to other conference engagements during the fall semester, my allotted departmental funding for travel is depleted and funding from another source is required.


Ellen Harrington

Dr. Ellen Harrington
Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"International Conference Travel for 'Gothic Hauntings in the Work of Joseph Conrad'"

Abstract: I am applying for an Arts and Humanities Seed Grant to cover some costs of travel to an international professional conference held by the Joseph Conrad Society UK, a prominent scholarly society, in London. My presentation, “Gothic Hauntings and ‘acute hallucinations of a woman’ in Joseph Conrad’s ‘The Idiots,’ The Arrow of Gold, and The Rover,” has been accepted for presentation at the 2019 conference in July, and the conference has an overall theme relevant to the topic of the monograph I am currently writing, Madness, Melancholy, and Delusion in the Works of Joseph Conrad. Because this conference centers in part on the Gothic and the centenary of Conrad’s novel The Arrow of Gold, it is uniquely connected to my work on Conrad’s nineteenth-century influences and sources and offers me a wonderful opportunity to advance my work, building on my recent monograph, Conrad’s Sensational Heroines. In addition to presenting this paper, I will submit a longer version of the project later this year for publication in a peer-reviewed journal and use it as the basis for a chapter of the monograph.


Richard Hillyer

Dr. Richard Hillyer
Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"Permission Costs for Auden's Syllabic Verse"

Abstract: Under contract with Lexington Books, Richard Hillyer's monograph "Auden's Syllabic Verse" offers comprehensive and in-depth analysis of all the poet's varied work in this vein. Part One of this study (two chapters) situates Auden's syllabic verse in relation to that produced by his two most significant forerunners among Anglophone poets, Robert Bridges and Marianne Moore. Part Two (nine chapters) classifies and explains the different kinds of syllabic verse that Auden wrote between 1929 and the year of his death (1973), most of it dating from the final three quarters of his career. Various markings bring out the diverse ways in which Auden went about securing his given choice of syllable-count in any particular case. As tied to extensive quotation, however, such meticulous annotation carries a price: permissions have had to be sought for most instances involving the use of copyrighted material, as a necessary prelude to the book's physical production.


Robert Holm

Dr. Robert Holm
Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

"Performances, Master Classes and Recruiting Opportunities in Brazil"

Abstract: I have accepted invitations to perform recitals, deliver a lecture, and give master classes at the Conservatorio de Tatuí and UNICAMP in Campinas, Brazil. I am awaiting approval to give a recital at Teatro Polytheama in Jundiai and have requested an invitation to perform at UNESP in São Paulo City between June 10 and June 15, 2019. I have already performed two programs in preparation for this trip: a memorized solo recital, and a collaborative recital with Mobile Symphony Concertmaster Jenny Grégoire. Ongoing collaboration with Ms. Grégoire should lead to a recording project in the near future.

While at these institutions in São Paulo State, I intend to make connections with music faculty and students and research their playing styles. Through giving recitals and master classes, I hope to attract graduate students to our Master of Music programs and begin an exchange with visiting professors from Brazil.


Christina Lindeman

Dr. Christina Lindeman
Associate Professor, Department of Art and Art History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Travel to International Conference"

Abstract: I am requesting $1,500 to help supplement travel to Leuven, Belgium to give a paper at the international conference Portraits & Poses: Representations of Female Intellectual Authority, Agency and Authorship in Early Modern and Enlightenment Europe at Leuven University. Papers selected for the conference will be published in a peer-reviewed edited volume. Revised versions of papers are due by July 1. 2019. I used departmental travel money in Fall 2018 and so I am not eligible for travel money from the Art and Art History Department.


Timothy Lombardo

Dr. Timothy Lombardo
Assistant Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Travel Costs to Perform Archival Research for Beer Cities: How Craft Brewing Remade Urban America"

Abstract: My second book project, tentatively titled, Beer Cities: How Craft Brewing Remade Urban America, examines the late 20th century urban revitalization and gentrification through the prism of the craft brewing industry. Still in its early stages, the aim of the project is to use the resurgence of small-scale brewing since the 1970s to address larger questions about race, class, gender, inequality, post-industrial economies, popular culture, urban politics and policy, and the use and re-use of urban space. I will begin archival research on this project in spring 2019. I am applying for an Office of Research and Economic Development Seed Grant in order to allay the cost of a four-day trip to New York City to commence research on the revival of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.


Becky McLaughlin

Dr. Becky McLaughlin
Associate Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"Indexing for Hysteria, Perversion, and Paranoia in the Canterbury Tales"

Abstract: I am applying for a seed grant of $1,500 in order to have Arc Indexing, Inc., create the index for my forthcoming book, Hysteria, Perversion, and Paranoia in the Canterbury Tales, to be published by Medieval Institute Publications in December of 2019. Using the model of psychoanalysis as a “talking cure,” this 130,000-word manuscript views Chaucer’s fictional pilgrimage to Canterbury as a journey into the symptom and thus into the unconscious itself. Beginning with the spectacle of hysteria, moving through the perversions of fetishism, masochism, and sadism, and ending with paranoia and psychosis, I explore the ways in which conflicts with the (Oedipal) law play themselves out on the flesh and in language, for Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is rife with issues of mastery that emerge as conflicts not only between authority and experience but also between power and knowledge, the word and the flesh, rule books and reason, man and woman, same and other.


Rebecca Mindock

Dr. Rebecca Mindock
Associate Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

"Compositional Commission for a New Work for Woodwind Trio"

Abstract: I aim to commission a new musical composition from composer Max Wolpert for use by our faculty woodwind trio, Trebuchet. This work, which will exploit the similarly-registered timbres of the instruments in our trio to evoke music that is “circus-inspired” and echoes the sounds of calliopes and accordions as well as incorporating the music of klezmer traditions, would provide our ensemble with a new attention-grabbing piece for our upcoming performance season, any future recital tours or conference performances, and our next recording project. I seek funding for Wolpert’s commission fee of $1000, which will allow him to compose the piece this summer so that we can begin incorporating it into our projects by September 1, 2019. Its creation will also continue to expand the field of treble woodwind trio literature, a genre gravely in need of expansion, and therefore will benefit the woodwind community as a whole.


Charlotte Pence

Dr. Charlotte Pence
Assistant Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"Seed Grant Request for Writer's Residency"

Abstract: I am requesting a grant to enable me to attend a writing residency over spring break of 2019 so I can make the final revisions requested by my editor for my forthcoming poetry book titled Code. The book has already been accepted by Black Lawrence Press and is scheduled for publication in May of 2020. The residency, Twisted Run Retreat, offers a limited number of $500.00 scholarships to reduce the cost of the stay, which I was honored to receive. This seed grant would cover the other fees associated with the residency such as the remainder of the housing costs, meals, application fee, and mileage. The isolation the residency affords from family and work responsibilities allows for deep reflection on the book’s content, themes, and interdisciplinary weave of genetics with poetics. This grant is not only vital to securing tenure but also my career as a writer.


Matthew Pettway

Dr. Matthew Pettway
Assistant Professor, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

"Travel Costs to Perform Archival Research for Masculinity, Racial Crisis and Insurrection in Colonial Cuba"

Abstract: My project examines how African-descended men negotiated what it meant to be human in Cuban slave society where black men were the legal property of white patriarchs. White Catholic patriarchy was the measure of a man. Catholic patriarchy consisted of property ownership, a procreative marital unions, unblemished lineage and affiliation with the Catholic Church. I analyze how men that were legally free, sought to define masculinity for and by themselves. These free men of color spearheaded a movement to overthrow the Spanish government and abolish slavery in Cuba circa 1844. The final judgment against the conspirators described how mulatto men had seduced African slaves intellectually, had penetrated into slave plantations, and had disseminated seditious ideas. I will research how African-descended men fashioned a masculinity of their own despite the official narrative that portrayed them as sexual predators whose acts of defiance were a pretext for the deflowering of white women.


Justin St. Clair

Dr. Justin St. Clair
Associate Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"International Conference Travel for 'Audioposition in Fiction'"

Abstract: As Philipp Schweighauser notes in The Noises of American Literature, writers often imbue their characters with "a set of distinctive acoustic properties designed to position [those] characters with regard to the ensemble of social facts and practices that constitute the fictional world they inhabit" (71). These acoustic profiles "serve both to position characters on the social scale and to direct readers' judgments of them" (70). Thomas Pynchon is an author often accused of paying little attention to techniques of characterization. This project, however, challenges conventional wisdom by investigating how sound serves as a tool for character development and sociopolitical orientation throughout Pynchon's fiction.


Steven Trout

Dr. Steven Trout
Professor, Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences

"Color Printing Costs for Portraits of Remembrance: Painting, Memory, and the First World War"

Abstract: I am applying for an Arts and Humanities Seed Grant ($1,500) to cover the color printing costs associated with my forthcoming peer-reviewed book (co-edited with Margaret Hutchison, Australian Catholic University), titled Portraits of Remembrance: Painting, Memory, and the First World War. Currently, the University of Alabama Press, which will publish this title before the end of 2019, has a budget that will only allow for black and white illustrations. A seed grant of $1,500 will enable the press to feature 14 crucial illustrations—one per chapter—in color, along with a preferred cover design. Since this book is a detailed examination of the role played by visual art in the remembrance of World War I in twelve different nations, color images of the main paintings under discussion are essential.


Brian Whitener

Dr. Brian Whitener
Assistant Professor, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

"Indexing for Crisis Cultures: The Rise of Finance in Mexico and Brazil"

Abstract: My soon to be published book, Crisis Cultures: The Rise of Finance in Mexico and Brazil (U. Pittsburgh Press, 2019), challenges current cultural histories of the neoliberal period in Latin America by arguing that finance, and not just neoliberalism, has been at the center of the dramatic transformations of Latin American societies in the last thirty years. This book argues that as cultural critics we must center both forms of capital accumulation (as finance) and state form (as neoliberalism) in our work. In so doing, it answers significant historical and theoretical questions regarding the relationship between financial capitalism and culture, race and the neoliberal state, and state violence and surplus populations.

▼   2017-18 Spring Awardees
Dr. Paul Hurley

Dr. Paul Hurley
Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre and Dance
College of Arts and Sciences

"Delving into the Michael Chekhov Acting Technique"

Abstract: Training in various techniques is a critical aspect of professional development for the academic actor. I have been invited to participate this summer in the National Michael Chekhov Association (NMCA) training intensive workshop in Las Cruces, New Mexico from June 4-11, 2018. I have already begun initial research into this acting technique, however the only way to truly learn this methodology is to study with a master teacher. By completing this training, it will benefit my future work by greatly expanding my depth and range of expression as a performer as well as enhancing my skillset as a director of theatrical productions. I plan to explore using elements of this technique when performing in a professional production of Othello later in the summer at the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival. In addition, the training will also allow me to bring this technique to USA students in the classroom.


Christine Rinne

Dr. Christine Rinne
Associate Professor, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

"Disruptive Maidservants in Christ and Fleiβer"

Abstract: Maidservants were integral to their employer’s success, but also a potential source of damage or even destruction. This project considers this liminal figure in the works of Marieluise Fleiβer and Lena Christ, southern German authors during the early 20th century. While Fleiβer is a well-known author, literary scholars have focused on either the earlier or the later versions of her heavily revised texts, not comparisons of them, which will be my emphasis. Lena Christ has been recently rediscovered as a regional author, and the interest in her has been heavily influenced by her dramatic and compelling biography. This project provides a close reading of her texts, focusing on her images of domestic labor. This grant would allow me to complete crucial archival work on both authors near Munich and would result in at least two conference presentations and articles, and likely more, while filling some critical gaps in German literary studies.

▼   2017-18 Fall Awardees
Dr. Kip Franklin

Dr. Kip Franklin
Assistant Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

"Crossroads: Twenty-First Century Music for Clarinet"

Abstract: Countless recordings exist that feature the masterworks of the clarinet literature, centering on works primarily by Brahms and Mozart. Attempts to promote new music for the instrument are done so either in tandem with one of the traditional masterworks or in the guise of the clarinet as part of a larger ensemble. Very few recordings exist of present-day clarinet literature exclusively. This project aims to record the clarinet works of four modern composers: David Biedenbender, Kalmen Opperman, Karel Husa, and David Maslanka. All proposed works were written no earlier than 2007. To date no comprehensive recording exists of these composers’ music for clarinet. I feel fortunate to have a personal relationship with two of the composers and to have been involved in the genesis of two of the proposed works for the project. Recording and distributing these works will help promote these composers and further new music for clarinet.


Deborah Gurt

Ms. Deborah Gurt
Assistant Librarian
Marx Library

"Joseph Bloch, the Father of Mobile’s Music: A Traveling Public History Exhibit"

Abstract: The unique historical voice of Joseph Bloch, a German-Jewish immigrant to Mobile in 1848, will be heard through this collaborative interdisciplinary project. The Bloch project will encompass a six-panel visual display featuring archival images and interpretive text to illustrate the history of Mobile’s immigrants, cultural life, and Jewish community. With scholarship from the fields of History, Public History, and Archival Science, the project will produce a portable exhibit exploring the life and experience of Joseph Bloch (1826-1903). This work seeks to broaden public knowledge of and engagement with Mobile’s history and vibrant cultural life in the late 19th century. The exhibit will travel to numerous venues across the region during 2018. The exhibit is part of a collaboration supported by the Southern Jewish Historical Society and the University Libraries. Seed grant support will contribute to the production of the physical exhibit and its successful dissemination.


Dr. Marsha Hamilton

Dr. Marsha Hamilton
Associate Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Research in New York"

Abstract: The early modern Atlantic world was a region of dynamic cultural and commercial interaction, especially for merchants from England’s North American colonies. As traders on the periphery of England’s burgeoning empire, these men developed a different outlook on commerce, advocating for the decentralization of policies which would allow them to trade with French and Dutch merchants in the West Indies and Europe. Yet, even as they opposed the control of trade by London, the networks developed by these merchants were integral to the development of the British empire and a British identity in the eighteenth century. The larger project examines the trade networks of John Borland, a Scottish merchant in Boston from 1682-1727; this research trip will focus on the papers of Borland’s New York connections. By tracing his partnerships throughout the Atlantic world, we can illuminate the role of peripheral commerce to the growth of empire in this period.


Dr. David Meola

Dr. David Meola
Assistant Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"Jewish Liberals along the Rhine and their Impact within German Liberalism"

Abstract: This proposal asks for $1500 to support a research trip to Germany this December. I will visit archives in the Rhineland-Palatinate to research Joseph Bloch, a Jewish German who moved to Mobile in 1848—after fleeing due to suspected revolutionary activities—and later helped establish our city’s music scene. This research project will benefit two projects. First, it will immediately benefit a traveling exhibit about Joseph Bloch produced in conjunction with Ms. Deborah Gurt and Ms. Paula Webb, both staff at Marx Library. Second, this project will help inform my second project, which interrogates Jewish Germans’ involvement in the German democratic movement of the 1830s and 1840s. The research on Joseph Bloch will not only highlight an important Mobilian, but will also highlight important contributions to intellectual and political networks by a minority group (and not just great men) that have yet to receive any substantial historical treatment.


Dr. David Messenger

Dr. David Messenger
Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"The Spanish Civil War: In the Air, on the Ground and in Memory"

Abstract: Recent interest in the Spanish Civil War has focused on the deaths of some 200,000 civilians in the conflict, and recasts the conflict as one that is better thought of as a systematic attack against civilians, not just a traditional military confrontation. What is missing in these accounts of the Civil War is an analysis of the impact of the aerial bombing of civilians. The infamous bombing in the Basque town of Guernica, on April 27, 1937, is recognized as the the first air attack that targeted civilians, but was not unique. This study will examine the war against civilians from the air,  responses to these attacks, and contemporary memorial sites about the air war, with an emphasis on Catalonia. Archival research will focus on military history and on civilian groups who built air raid shelters, revealing their understanding of the conflict as one in which they were primary targets.

▼   2016-17 Spring Awardees
Dr. Nicole Amare

Dr. Nicole Amare
Professor, English Department
College of Arts and Sciences

"Through the Veil of Unbelief: Twain's Transformative Grief and Mormon Imagery"

Abstract: I am requesting funds to present at the Mark Twain Quadrennial Conference, held at Elmira College, NY, August 3-5, 2017. Elmira is also the home to Quarry Farm, Twain's former summer home and library (he wrote Roughing It there, among other works), and the Center for Mark Twain Studies, one of the world’s three major Twain archives. In “Through the Veil of Unbelief: Twain’s Transformative Grief and Mormon Imagery,” I explore how the major deaths in Twain’s life propelled him toward communion with God, not toward determinism, as other scholars have argued. Twain’s drafts in despair reveal Christian allusions and, more specifically, Mormon images. Attending this particular conference provides a rare opportunity to receive valuable feedback from more than 50 major Twain scholars who attend this conference every four years as well as access to the archive to substantiate claims that Twain’s biographic intersections with Mormons influenced his darkest writings.


Dr. Claire Cage

Dr. Claire Cage
Assistant Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

"The Science of Proof: Forensics in France, 1789-1900"

Abstract: This book project examines the history of history of forensics, or legal medicine, in France in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. My research analyzes how medical and scientific knowledge was constructed in relation to transformations in the legal and penal systems, shifting political configurations, class, and gender. With the assistance of a Support and Development Award, I would be able to conduct research in French archives and libraries this summer for one month.


Dr. Pat Cesarini

Dr. Pat Cesarini
Associate Professor, English Department
College of Arts and Sciences

"American Newspapers and the Poetry of the Civil War"

Abstract: I request funding, totaling $1500.00, for my current research project: a study of poetry about the Civil War printed in American newspapers during the conflict, and of changes in the relations between poetry and audience in the war’s aftermath. I have written a conference paper on this topic, which I want to develop into a full-length article, to be submitted for publication to an academic journal. To that end, I need to undertake archival research at several facilities in the Northeast. My paper contrasts the poetry of Henry Howard Brownell and Herman Melville, who both published Civil War verse collections that are pertinent to my interests. During the research trip I will examine such non-circulating materials as the personal and family papers of Henry Howard Brownell at the Brown Library, Civil War-era periodicals at the American Antiquarian Society and the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Herman Melville Papers at Harvard University.


Dr. Matthew Hopson-Walker

Dr. Matthew Hopson-Walker
Assistant Professor of Printmaking, Department of Visual Arts
College of Arts and Sciences

"Comparative Photographic Aluminum Litho Plate Exposure Tests"

Abstract: I am requesting $1507.57 to purchase all the required materials to do extensive side by side exposure tests of the two commercially available fine art positive working photo litho plates. The requested amount will allow me to purchase a bulk quantity of each brand of plate and the materials to process them so that I can create a body of research the comprehensively contrasts the different emulsions used on each plate and how they function with different types of autographic and digital films or transparencies. The gathered information will allow me to expand the use of this process in my classes and be used in my application for presentation at the Spring 2018 Southern Graphics Council International Conference and/or Mid American Print Conference Fall 2018. I have attached a shopping cart that contains all the materials I am requesting this small grant for.


Dr. Becky McLaughlin

Dr. Becky McLaughlin
Associate Professor, English Department
College of Arts and Sciences

"Filmmaking and the Antinomian Controversy"

Abstract: Although I have no expertise in screenwriting, I have expertise in other forms of creative writing that involve storytelling such as fiction, poetry, and playwriting.  Seeing what a talented director and a professional actor could do with my script was one of the highlights of my life as a writer, and it seems to me that writing a successful screenplay might offer a similar kind of artistic satisfaction.  Having never written a screenplay, however, I would like to take a course that would teach me how to do so.  The course that looks most promising to me is an online course taught by Scott Myers, who has developed over thirty movie and TV projects at every major Hollywood studio and broadcast network, working with such producers as Larry Gordon, Dawn Steel, Wendy Finerman, Chuck Gordon, Castle Rock Entertainment, Working Title, and Outlaw Productions.  A member of the Writers’ Guild of America West, Myers has taught screenwriting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, receiving its Outstanding Instructor Award in 2005.  He currently teaches in the School of Cinematic Arts at DePaul University.  Given the nature of my project, Myers’ course is a particularly good choice because of Myers’ background in the study of religion and theology: he graduated from the University of Virginia with a BA in Religious Studies and from Yale University with an MDiv.


Dr. Chris Raczkowski

Dr. Chris Raczkowski
Associate Professor, English Department 
College of Arts and Sciences

"Indexing for A History of American Crime Fiction"

Abstract: My recently completed book, A History of American Crime Fiction, is under contract with Cambridge University Press. An edited anthology of 25 chapters and over 140,000 words, A History places crime fiction within a context of aesthetic practices and experiments, intellectual concerns, and historical debates generally reserved for canonical literary history. The book is divided into five sections that reflect the periods that commonly organize literary history in university English departments, with chapters highlighting crime fiction’s reciprocal relationships with early American literature, romanticism, realism, modernism and postmodernism. As a result, the history reveals crime fiction’s capacity to signify beyond the narrow boundaries of popular genres and explores the symbiosis between crime fiction and canonical literature that sustains and energizes both. In short, crime fiction history is American literary history. Cambridge University Press requires its authors to provide their own indices, and I am requesting funds to hire a professional indexer.


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Dr. Lars Tatom
Professor, Department of Theatre and Dance
College of Arts and Sciences

The Natural Escalation of Theatrical Conflict: Stage Combat for the Upcoming Theatre USA Production of She Kills Monsters

Abstract: As presently constituted, the faculty members of the University of South Alabama Department of Theatre & Dance, though trained, skilled and experienced in a wide variety of theatrical tools and techniques, have limited training and no current certifications in the area of stage combat and fight choreography. During the upcoming Theatre USA 2017-18 theatrical season, an experienced and certified fight choreographer will be required, both for artistic and for safety reasons, for the February 2018 production of Qui Nguyen’s She Kills Monsters. This play, which premiered in 2012, and has already been produced over 300 times in professional and educational theatres all over the United States, is set in the world of fantasy role playing games, and requires extensive stage combat. This proposed grant, will help fund the costs of bringing a certified fight choreographer to stage the production’s fight and combat sequences, will not only provide a major and necessary production element, but will also add to the skills and knowledge of the student actors working the show.


Dr. Steve Trout

Dr. Steve Trout
Professor, English Department 
College of Arts and Sciences

"An Alabama Family Remembers the Civil War: A Documentary"

Abstract: An Alabama Family Remembers the Civil War, is a documentary film currently in development based on the Frye Gaillard’s Journey to the Wilderness: War, Memory, and a Southern Family’s Civil War (New South Books, 2015). The 50-minute film is intended for a general audience and will explore how memory of the Civil War evolved through the letters and remembrances of the Gaillard family from the beginning of the Civil War into the 21st century. The Alabama Humanities Foundation has already funded the project in the form of a $1300 planning grant and a $9952.80 major grant. We are requesting funds in the amount of $1000 to serve as a partial match with the AHF major grant.


Dr. Brian Whitener

Dr. Brian Whitener
Assistant Professor of Spanish, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

"The Rise of Finance: Cultural Production and Politics in Mexico and Brazil After 1982"

Abstract: The Rise of Finance: Cultural Production and Politics in Mexico and Brazil after 1982 challenges current cultural histories of the neoliberal period in Latin America by arguing that finance, and not just neoliberalism, has been at the center of the dramatic transformations of Latin American societies in the last thirty years. This book argues that as cultural critics we must center both forms of capital accumulation (as finance) and state form (as neoliberalism) in our work. In so doing, it answers significant historical and theoretical questions regarding the relationship between financial capitalism and culture, race and the neoliberal state, and state violence and surplus populations.

▼   2016-17 Fall Awardees
Dr. Leanne Good

Dr. Leanne Good
Assistant Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

Imperial Aristocracy from the Carolingian to the Ottonian Age


Dr. Ellen Harrington

Dr. Ellen Burton Harrington
Associate Professor, English Department
College of Arts and Sciences

Gender and Representation in the Late Fiction of Joseph Conrad


Dr. Anne Jeffrey

Dr. Anne Jeffrey
Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department
College of Arts and Sciences

Moral Failure and Recovery


Dr. Timothy Lombardo

Dr. Timothy Lombardo
Assistant Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

Blue-Collar Conservatism: Frank Rizzo's Philadelphia and the Politics of the Urban Crisis


Dr. Susan McCready

Dr. Susan McCready
Professor of French Language and Literature, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

War and Memory Podcast


Dr. Justin St. Clair

Dr. Justin St. Clair
Associate Professor, English Department 
College of Arts and Sciences

Music and Sound in the Work of Thomas Pynchon


▼   2015-16 Spring Awardees
Dr. Jasmin Arakawa

Dr. Jasmin Arakawa
Assistant Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

Participating in Dallas International Piano Competition 2016


Dr. Kara Burns

Dr. Kara Burns
Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Arts
College of Arts and Sciences

The Iconography of Mystery: The Relationship between Orpheus and Bacchus on the Orpheus Mosaics of Southwest Britain


Dr. Claire Cage

Dr. Claire Cage
Assistant Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

Questions of Proof: Legal Medicine in France, 1789-1870


Dr. Robert Holm

Dr. Robert Holm
Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

Musically Creative Work with Shoaxing University, China


Dr. Mara Kozelsky

Dr. Mara Kozelsky
Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

War and Recovery: the Crimean War


Dr. Christina Lindeman

Dr. Christina Lindeman
Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Arts
College of Arts and Sciences

Image Rights Fees for Forthcoming Manuscript


Dr. Luis Rivera

Dr. Luis Rivera
Assistant Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

Conference Presentation and Concert Tour in Europe


Dr. Eleanor ter Horst

Dr. Eleanor ter Horst
Associate Professor of German and French, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

Transnational Opera in a Literary Context: The Case of E.T.A. Hoffman


▼   2015-16 Fall Awardees
Dr. Nicole Amare

Dr. Nicole Amare
Professor, English Department

Traveling with Mr. White: Mark Twain and the Mormons Revisited


Dr. Tracy Heavner

Dr. Tracy Heavner
Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

UAE Travel and Professional Development Conference


Dr. Paul Hurley

Mr. Paul Hurley
Assistant Professor of Acting and Voice, Department of Theatre and Dance
College of Arts and Sciences

Becoming Intimate with the Pinch and the Ouch: The Sanford Meisner Acting Technique


Dr. Matthew Johnson

Dr. Matthew Johnson
Associate Professor, Department of Visual Arts
College of Arts and Sciences

Request for Competition Entry Fees and Supplies


Dr. Mihaela Marin

Dr. Mihaela Marin
Associate Professor of French, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

Reading the Body: Anatomy, Illness and Metaphor in 19th-Century French Literary and Medical Discourses


Dr. Rebecca Mindock

Dr. Rebecca Mindock
Associate Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

Compositional Commission for a New Work for Woodwind Trio


Dr. Matthew Patterson

Dr. Matthew Patterson
Department of Visual Arts
College of Arts and Sciences

An In-Depth Introduction to Venetian Techniques


Dr. Roberto Robles-Valencia

Dr. Roberto Robles-Valencia
Assistant Professor of Spanish, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and literature
College of Arts and Sciences

Book project


Dr. Mira Rosenthal

Dr. Mira Rosenthal
Assistant Professor, English Department
College of Arts and Sciences

New Polish Literature in Translation


Dr. Justin St. Clair

Dr. Justin St. Clair
Associate Professor, English Department
College of Arts and Sciences

Contemporary Fiction as Cultural Critique


▼   2014-15 Spring Awardees
Dr. Jasmin Arakawa

Dr. Jasmin Arakawa
Assistant Professor, Department of Music
College of Arts and Sciences

Professional CD recording of Leopold Godowsky's Java Suite for Piano 


Dr. Nicholas Gossett

Dr. Nicholas Gossett
Assistant Professor of Russian, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

South Alabama Language Institute Development Project 


Dr. Alma Hoffman

Dr. Alma Hoffman
Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Arts
College of Arts and Sciences

From the poet to the dancer, from the dancer to the typographer: three layers of art 


Dr. Christina Lindeman

Dr. Christina Lindeman
Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Arts
College of Arts and Sciences

Copy Editor, Indexer, and Image Right Fees for Forthcoming Manuscript 


Dr. Peter Wood

Dr. Peter Wood
Professor, Department of Music

International Trumpet Making Workshop


▼   2014-15 Fall Awardees
Dr. Isabel Brown

Dr. Isabel Brown
Associate Professor of Spanish, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

Recovering Anacaona: Dominican Women Writers Owning Their Space 


Dr. Claire Cage

Dr. Claire Cage
Assistant Professor, Department of History
College of Arts and Sciences

Masculinity in Enlightenment and Revolutionary France


Dr. Christine Rinne Eaton

Dr. Christine Rinne Eaton
Associate Professor of German, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

Reading the Paper behind Barbed Wire: German POW Newspapers in Alabama Camps 


Dr. Susan McCready

Dr. Susan McCready
Professor of French Language and Literature, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

Modernist Fracture/Classical Revival: Maeterlinck and Theatre of the Great War


Dr. Justin St. Clair

Dr. Justin St. Clair
Associate Professor, English Department
College of Arts and Sciences

Musical Transmedia: Fiction from Bubble Books to Booktrack


Dr. Steven Trout

Dr. Steve Trout
Professor, English Department
College of Arts and Sciences

War and Remembrance on the Gulf Coast: A Museum Installation


▼   2013-14 Awardees
Dr. Renee Culler

Dr. Renee Culler
Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Arts
College of Arts and Sciences

Imagery in Kiln formed Glass


Dr. Christina Lindeman

Dr. Christina Lindeman
Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Arts
College of Arts and Sciences

Image Rights Fees for Publications in 2014


Dr. Harry Roddy

Dr. Harry Roddy
Associate Professor of German, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature
College of Arts and Sciences

Bringing Germany's Contemporary Poetry Scene to American Readers