Mellon Foundation Call for Concepts

FAS Pre-Proposal Deadline: April 18, 2022 by 5PM

FAS/OSP Deadline (if nominated): May 9, 2022

Sponsor Deadline (if nominated): May 16, 2022

Award Amount:$250,000–$500,000 for up to three years. Please note that the Mellon Foundation does not provide overhead whereas 15% is required per FAS policy. Please discuss with your grants administrator before beginning an application.

Eligible Applicants: The Principal Investigator (PI) should be a faculty member or dean in a program or department in the humanities or humanistic social sciences. 

• Civic Engagement and Voting Rights: The Higher Learning program invites ideas for scholarly and/or curricular projects that illuminate the significance of voting rights controversies in any period of US history, from any of the various angles of approach that characterize work in the humanities. While proposals might address many different issues related to struggles for enfranchisement—including property requirements, poll taxes, literacy tests, race- and gender-based prohibitions, redistricting systems, voter registration and ID protocols, felony disenfranchisement laws, and recent instances of election interference from the federal executive branch—Mellon especially welcomes those that focus on the role of college and university communities in expanding voter access, whether historically or in the contemporary moment. 
• Race and Racialization in the United States: The Higher Learning program aims to promote rigorous humanities scholarship and pedagogy on past and present effects of racial differentiation across the entire spectrum of national life. Mellon seeks fresh perspectives that can expand and deepen the national conversation, recognizing that conventional tools used in analysis of race—e.g., chronologies, geographies, linguistics—have inevitably been shaped by the very phenomena they purport to study, and recognizing, too, that deep study of US racialization may well extend far beyond the nation’s boundaries. Mellon welcomes ideas for collective research, curricular innovation, and/or program development focused on any aspect of race and racialization in US culture and society, and is particularly interested in projects that would investigate the relationships and tensions between the social-structural constitution of race, on the one hand, and subjective experiences of it, on the other.
• Social Justice and the Literary Imagination: The Higher Learning program welcomes concepts dedicated to the role of the literary imagination in making and remaking worlds and societies, past and present. Inquiries might outline curricular development, new scholarship, community engagement, writer convenings, and other efforts that highlight and advance the role of literature—from canonical works to less-studied popular writing—in truth-telling and social change.

The Call for Concepts is limited to three applications per institution. In order to be considered for the Harvard nomination, interested applicants should send the following to Erin Hale at erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu by 5pm on April 18, 2022:

• A project concept of approximately 1,000 words
• CV of the principal investigator
• Budget estimate and brief budget description

Questions about this announcement may be directed to Erin Hale (erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu) or Susan Gomes (sgomes@fas.harvard.edu).