multidisciplinary Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center Arts transdisciplinary game studies

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1 multidisciplinary Arts Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center transdisciplinary game studies

2 A new chapter in integrative research and instructional excellence is opening up here as our humanities faculty collaborate with faculty and students in a far broader sweep of disciplines on projects for a networked information age. Ann Ardis

3 A Message from the IHRC Director Since its founding just five years ago, the Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center (IHRC) at the University of Delaware has distinguished itself in the larger universe of humanities research centers and institutes by only supporting collaborative research and creative activity and its integration into the curriculum while fostering intellectual community and public engagement. National and international conferences have borne fruit in edited collections and journal special issues. Instructional grants have seeded the establishment of popular interdisciplinary minors in areas of signature strength at UD, such as political communication and environmental humanities; and they have supported ambitious cross-college research and instructional collaborations in emerging interdisciplinary fields, such as game studies. The significance and impact of these projects is tangible. As more and more of our projects harness inter-institutional and community-based partnerships, the scope, scale and ambition of the work undertaken continues to expand. AMBRE ALEXANDER-PAYNE Ann Ardis IHRC Director and Deputy Dean, College of Arts and Sciences While the IHRC was not originally conceptualized as a digital humanities center, the projects we are supporting currently include a strong focus on digital platforms for the dissemination of, and public engagement with, research. And our three-year partnership with the UD Library, College of Arts and Sciences and English Department on a Perspectives on Digital Humanities lecture and workshop series has facilitated campus-wide conversations about the transformations in scholarly communication practices underway in 21st-century humanities research, teaching and learning environments. It also is opening up exciting opportunities for regional and international partnerships. Although the humanities have been under siege in the national media, crossdisciplinary collaborations in and beyond the humanities on our campus, and with regional, national and global institutions and cultural organizations, are thriving at UD. I find the sense of urgency and possibility in these 21st-century humanities projects exhilarating, and invite you to visit us at to learn more about them. A new chapter in integrative research and instructional excellence is opening up here building on but also expanding beyond UD s distinguished 60-year history in public humanities research and education at the graduate level as our humanities faculty collaborate with faculty and students in a far broader sweep of disciplines, and with new interinstitutional partners, on research and teaching projects for a networked information age. 5 years 104 grant recipients QUICK FACTS 28 projects 46 external partners 4 colleges 27 UD

4 RESEARCH PROJECTS Two-thirds of the projects we have supported have been research-focused, and an interdisciplinary boldness and ambitiousness of purpose characterizes each. We invite you to discover more about each of the research projects the IHRC has supported to date at The Ancestral Lands of the Ese eja The True People The Beauty Shop Project The Colored Conventions Project IMusic 8: Campus Chatter Digital Humanities Working Group Earth Perfect? Nature, Utopia, and the Garden Dave the Potter s Couplet Pots: Dancing History and Dred Scott Encountering Others in the Atlantic World: Comparative Perspectives from the Material World Games Studies Research Group Uncovering an Invisible Demographic: Faculty, Disclosure, and Disability in Higher Education Mediamorphosis: Print Culture and Transatlantic/ Transnational Public Sphere(s) IMusic 5: Encounters Qing and West Common Threads: History of Fashion through a Woman s Eyes The African Americas Playwright in Residence: Theresa Rebeck, O Beautiful Hemispheric Dialogues: Interrogating Social Justice in the Americas Live Cinema Live Things in Common Electroacoustic Collaborations

5 CURRENT PROJECT SPOTLIGHT Jon Cox Art Ancestral Lands of the Ese Eja The University of Delaware IHRC grant we received in spring 2014 enabled our cultural mapping team of UD professors, alumni, undergraduate students and outside consultants to embark on a three-week expedition to collect data, images and video in the remote Ese Eja hunting, gathering and fishing communities in the Amazonia region of Peru. After a year of planning, a highlight was watching the team members share their individual expertise with the Ese Eja while all working toward the common goals of cultural preservation and educational programing. Initial results of our ongoing cultural mapping initiative have been published on National Geographic, the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research, Dickinson College and University of Delaware websites.

6 CURRENT PROJECT SPOTLIGHT PHOTOS COURTESY: Dan Dunlap photography Dave the Potter s Couplet Pots: Dancing History and Dred Scott In a true collaboration of university and community partners, the story of David Drake, an enslaved potter/poet, was created and shared with support from the IHRC. David Drake (also known as Dave the Potter) is considered one of the most accomplished artisans of the nineteenth century. Today his clay pots have traveled to locations all over the world. His story of life as an enslaved potter, captured in the paintings and demonstrated through the integration of poetry, music and choreography, provided another opportunity for audiences to gain a deeper understanding of the impact of slavery and the extraordinary accomplishments of one man. Lynnette Overby Theatre

7 CURRENT PROJECT SPOTLIGHT The Beauty Shop Project (BSP) uses vernacular communal spaces like beauty shops and social media as sites of collective creativity and imagination directed toward improving quality of life for black women in Delaware. Tiffany Gill Black American Studies and History The Beauty Shop Project Colette Gaiter Art In Spring 2014, we invited artist Aisha Cousins to the University of Delaware for a public lecture and to help our interdisciplinary team of faculty, students and community workers develop specific methods to engage black women culturally and artistically in beauty shops. BSP s booth at the Naturally Redefined Hair Expo in September 2014 allowed us to interface with hundreds of African American women, record their hair stories, and provide a place for them to participate in two art projects related to hair. AfroBattles, an activity created by visiting artist Aisha Cousins, was a big hit. The Expo, the only one of its kind in Delaware, connected us with local beauticians and beauty entrepreneurs who want to use their salons in more creative and proactive ways.

8 CURRENT PROJECT SPOTLIGHT Earth Perfect? Support from the IHRC was fundamental to fostering a series of sustained collaborative projects on the meaning, history, and future of all manner of gardens and gardening enterprises (community gardens, kitchen gardens, botanic gardens, literary gardens, philosophers gardens, art gardens, and state gardens included). The particular focus of these projects was the garden as symbol of humanity s quest to define an ideal relation with nature. The IHRC enabled me to bring together scholars and garden practitioners from around the world to produce a highly acclaimed book, EARTH PERFECT? Nature, Utopia, and the Garden, and to further develop and expand upon themes and questions raised in that book in a garden immersion a five-day symposium held at the University and a group of local gardens (Winterthur, Mt. Cuba Center, Longwood and the Delaware Center for Horticulture). The most compelling material from the symposium then became the core of another publication, THE GOOD GARDENER? Nature, Humanity, and the Garden (Artifice Books on Architecture, 2014) Annette Giesecke which, in turn, has raised questions Foreign Languages to be explored in a second and Literatures symposium on the same general theme to be held at the Botanic Gardens of Adelaide, Australia, in 2016.

CURRENT PROJECT SPOTLIGHT The Colored Conventions Project IHRC s generous grant in support of the Colored Conventions Project (CCP) has served as the project s linchpin, allowing CCP to achieve

Through a national crowdsourcing project that also includes UD student groups, we are currently making versions of all known and previous unlisted national and state conventions available, creating a

9 CURRENT PROJECT SPOTLIGHT The Colored Conventions Project IHRC s generous grant in support of the Colored Conventions Project (CCP) has served as the project s linchpin, allowing CCP to achieve ambitious goals and attract other funding. Though CCP has experienced significant growth in the past, with the support of the IHRC, it is making lasting contributions to the humanities. Through a national crowdsourcing project that also includes UD student groups, we are currently making versions of all known and previous unlisted national and state conventions available, creating a much more robust collection than has ever been listed or cataloged in the past in searchable form. We will also host a national symposium in Spring 2015 with the Delaware Historical Society, to feature presenters from multiple disciplines who too rarely come together in one forum. Alongside support from the University of Delaware library, the IHRC has provided resources for all-important staffing of CCP this year, without which the project would not be able to continue. The IHRC grant also provided crucial support for the symposium itself and initial funding to secure a publishing Gabrielle Foreman home that will be able to work English and Black seamlessly with a digital project American Studies as the symposium papers become available in an edited collection in book and online formats.

INSTRUCTIONAL PROJECTS IHRC instructional grants have seeded the establishment of popular interdisciplinary minors in areas of signature strength at UD and supported cross-college and community-based

10 INSTRUCTIONAL PROJECTS IHRC instructional grants have seeded the establishment of popular interdisciplinary minors in areas of signature strength at UD and supported cross-college and community-based collaborations on courses. We invite you to discover more about each of the instructional projects the IHRC has supported to date at Developing Research and Research-based Teaching with Victorian Periodicals Transnational Encounters: World-Renowned Authors at UD Environmental Humanities Working Group Renewing the Museums Working Group The Art of Liberation The Art and Literature of the American Revolution in Global Contexts Serious Games Textiles in a Global World: An Interdisciplinary Conversation Political Communication and Engagement in the 21 st Century

11 These projects exemplify the significance and the impact that humanities research can have when it is pursued through creatively cross-disciplinary, inter-institutional and community-based partnerships. George Watson Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

12 We remain grateful to our friends and partners who support the important work of the IHRC. For detailed information on the role and contributions of our partners, we invite you to visit the Research and Instructional project webpages at

STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK Updated August 2017

STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK Updated August 2017 STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK The UC Davis Library is the academic hub of the University of California, Davis, and is ranked among the top academic research libraries in North