Description
From its inception, one of the goals of the HRLI has been to foster collaboration among scholars, journalists and public policy professionals working on religion in world affairs. In 2015, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) launched the Luce/ACLS Program in Religion, Journalism & International Affairs (RJIA) to foster connectivity between the worlds of scholarship and media. Following an initial planning grant, HRLI made two-year grants in 2015 and 2016 ($771,000 and $790,000, respectively) to roll out the first two full cycles of RJIA.
In each cycle, in consultation with an advisory committee, ACLS selected three institutions to receive grants ($60,000 each) for programs that included some of the following: thematically-organized projects, working groups, collaborations with media outlets or media training for academics, journalists’ residencies at universities, and other activities to promote interaction between scholars and journalists. Six universities received grants: Columbia, Indiana, Northeastern, Arizona State, Northwestern and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Each cycle also made individual fellowship awards (approximately $60,000 each). Targeted at scholars in the humanities and social sciences who have the PhD in hand, the fellowships support work on religion in international contexts by scholars who are interested in connecting their work to the public sphere, especially to journalism and the media. Since RJIA’s inception, 13 fellows have received awards.
ACLS now requests support for a third cycle of RJIA that will focus exclusively on the fellowship competition. Excitement about the fellowships remains strong; in the second round, numbers of applicants were almost double those in round one. Since a majority of fellows have not taken up the option of year-long residency at one of the institutional grantees, ACLS proposes instead to introduce more flexible partnership and networking opportunities; the fellowship includes $5000 that can be used for short-term residencies at other institutions. These should provide greater flexibility for fellows to pursue their projects while honing their journalistic skills.
In the next phase, six one-year awards would be offered to U.S.-based scholars, including stipends and modest funds for research and short-term residences at universities, research centers and media organizations. Our grant would also support a fall workshop at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (which has chosen religion and media as its theme in 2018), and a spring symposium in which fellows, other scholars and journalists would convene to assess both accomplishments and challenges.
ACLS has a distinguished record of managing national fellowship programs, including those supported by the Luce Foundation’s American Art and Asia programs. The program proposed here, under the leadership of John Paul Christy, fits well with the organization’s interest in strengthening publically engaged humanities scholarship. As Director of Public Programs for ACLS, Christy is also responsible for the Council’s Public Fellows and Digital Innovation fellowship programs.
Pauline Yu is the president of the American Council of Learned Societies.
