The Bard Graduate Center is proud to announce that it has received two NEH awards totaling nearly $500,000.
BARD GRADUATE CENTER RECEIVES MAJOR GRANTS FROM NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES
New York, NY, July 25, 2014—The Bard Graduate Center is proud to announce that it has received two National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awards totaling nearly $500,000. An NEH Scholarly Editions and Translations grant of $307,000 will support the preparation for publication of an annotated print edition of The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians (1897) by anthropologist Franz Boas, which is considered the first systematic attempt to document all sociocultural, spiritual and aesthetic aspects of an indigenous North American ceremonial system. The funding advances a 2012 NEH startup grant for the project directed by Professor Aaron Glass with Judith Berman, a research fellow at the University of Victoria, Canada.
Funding of $192,000 has been awarded to Professor David Jaffee who will direct a fourweek NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers in July 2015 entitled “American Material Culture: Nineteenth-Century New York.” Focusing on that century’s artifactual materials with an emphasis on New York City as a national center for fashioning cultural commodities and promoting consumer tastes, it builds upon Dr. Jaffee’s two previous summer institutes in 2011 and 2013.
“We are grateful to the NEH for their support,” said Dean Peter N. Miller. “Both of these programs reinforce our commitment to the study of material culture and intellectual history, which has always been the cornerstone of the BGC academic and research mission.”
Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. “The projects made possible by these grants will enrich our knowledge of our history and ourselves, encourage reflection on the traditions and values that have shaped our culture, and help preserve and make accessible our nation’s diverse wealth of humanities materials and resources,” said NEH Acting Chairman Carole Watson.
About the BGC
The Bard Graduate Center is a graduate research institute in New York City. Our MA and PhD programs, research initiatives, and Gallery programs explore new ways of thinking about decorative arts, design history, and material culture. A member of the Association of Research Institutes in Art History (ARIAH), the BGC is an academic unit of Bard College. For more information, visit www.bgc.bard.edu.
Contact:
Hollis Barnhart, [email protected], 212-501-3074
