Congratulations to the sixteen MLA members who are among the winners of the National Endowment for the Humanities grants announced in August 2023. Their projects include preparation for a publication of an open-access digital edition of the complete letters of the early American writer Catharine Maria Sedgwick; research and writing leading to a biography of the famed English novelist Emily Brontë; a digital repository of findings and research templates based on humanistic research on the simulation of human language, communication, art, and culture by AI software; and much more.
William Hedberg, Arizona State University, Tempe
Project Title: Translation and Traveling Texts: East Asian National Literatures in an Age without Borders
Project Description: A two-week residential institute for twenty-five higher education faculty members to explore issues of translation and cultural contact in East Asian literatures from the seventeenth century to today.
Joshua Smith, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Project Title: Brut y Brenhinedd: Translating the Welsh Reception of Geoffrey of Monmouth
Project Description: Preparation for print publication of three volumes of translations, from middle Welsh to English, of Brut y Brenhinedd (The Chronicle of the Kings), a retelling of British history based on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s twelfth-century Historia regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain).
Patricia Kalayjian, California State University, Dominguez Hills
Project Title: The Letters of American Novelist Catharine Maria Sedgwick: An Online Edition
Project Description: Preparation for publication of an open-access digital edition of the complete letters of the early American writer Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789–1867).
Maria Rosa Olivera-Williams, University of Notre Dame
Project Title: Ruben Dario: Critical Editions Project
Project Description: Preparation for print and digital publication of an edition of four volumes in Spanish of the journal articles written by Ruben Dario (1867–1916), a well-known Nicaraguan poet and critic.
Deborah Lutz, University of Louisville
Project Title: A Biography of British Writer Emily Jane Brontë (1818–1848)
Project Description: Research and writing leading to a biography of the famed English novelist Emily Brontë (1818–48).
Wendy Galgan, St. Joseph’s College
Project Title: Place, Race, and Gender in New England Gothic Literature
Project Description: A three-week residential institute for twenty-five higher education faculty members to study New England Gothic literature with a focus on race, place, and gender.
Robert Levine, University of Maryland, College Park
Project Title: After Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Harriet Beecher Stowe, African America, and the Quest for Interracial Democracy
Project Description: Research and writing for a book on the development of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s relationships with African American writers after the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Kenneth Price, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Project Title: The Late-Life Writings of Walt Whitman
Project Description: Preparation for online publication of Walt Whitman’s (1819–92) late-life writings and poems, including “November Boughs” and “Good-Bye My Fancy.”
Lauren Goodlad, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Project Title: Design Justice Labs: An International and Interdisciplinary Digital Network
Project Description: A digital repository of findings and research templates based on humanistic research on the simulation of human language, communication, art, and culture by AI software.
Tanya Pollard, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
Project Title: The Man Who Made Shakespeare: Richard Burbage and Theatrical Partnership
Project Description: Research and writing a book that shows the nature of William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) collaborations with the actor Richard Burbage (c. 1567–1619).
Julie Crawford, Theatre for a New Audience
Project Title: Teaching Shakespeare’s Plays through Scholarship and Performance
Project Description: A two-week institute for twenty-five K–12 educators on the theme of nature and good government in the text and performance of Shakespeare’s As You Like It and King Lear.
Thomas Hahn, University of Rochester
Project Title: Middle English Text Series
Project Description: Preparation for print and digital publication of six volumes of medieval literary texts (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries) and implementation of a redesigned digital interface.
Kimberly Mack, University of Toledo
Project Title: The Untold History of American Rock Criticism
Project Description: Preparation of a book about American rock criticism, from the 1960s to the present, and the overlooked Black, Indigenous, people of color, and women writers who wrote about rock music for publications such as Rolling Stone and Creem.
Sasha Senderovich, University of Washington, Seattle
Project Title: In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union
Project Description: Preparation for print publication of an annotated translation into English of ten Yiddish and Russian short stories written in the Soviet Union about the Soviet Jewish experience of World War II and the Holocaust.
Eugenia Afinoguenova, Marquette University
Project Title: The Edinburgh Companion to the Spanish Civil War and Visual Culture
Project Description: Research and writing leading to a book of essays on the visual culture of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) and its visual legacy.
Lauren Arrington, National University of Ireland, Maynooth
Project Title: Bohemia on the Breadline: The Women Who Made Art and Created Social Change in Depression-Era America
Project Description: Research and writing of a book about the network of socially and politically engaged women artists employed through the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration in the 1930s and 1940s.