At its regularly scheduled meeting in early March, the Foundation’s Board approved grants that had been developed during the fall and winter, awarding a total of $6,925,000 to 24 organizations. These grants, awarded in seven program areas, affirm the Foundation’s commitment to creating and disseminating knowledge, strengthening international understanding, and enriching public discourse.
Seven new grants reflect the American Art Program’s deepening support for academic museums, collection-based exhibitions, and Native American art. The Theology Program’s single grant, also in the museum sector, will bridge the areas of religious studies, migration studies, and American history in an expansive exhibition project exploring religion and the American West.
The Asia Program awarded five grants that will promote intellectual exchange between American and Asian scholars, provide leadership development opportunities to emerging scholars and policymakers, and support collaborative research projects that seek to broaden knowledge and support constructive dialogue around North Korea, Myanmar, and Southeast Asia. Seven grants from the Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion in International Affairs examine issues of national identity, nationalism, citizenship, and democracy, with many sharing a regional focus on South and Southeast Asia.
A project that explores the evolving definitions of “American-ness” exemplifies the Higher Education Program’s commitment to innovative curriculum, multidisciplinary experimentation, and collaboration between scholars and non-academics, while another grant in the higher education space, awarded by the Initiative on Native American Intellectual Leadership, will support scholarly research and writing by tribal college faculty.
Lastly, the Public Policy program provided renewed support for two Congressional leadership and education programs.
The grants awarded by the Foundation’s programs are described in more detail below, with links to the full list of grantees.
View the full list of new grants
American Art
The American Art Program’s slate of seven grants reflects its growing emphasis on academic museums, collection-based exhibitions, and Native American art.
Five grants to academic museums and galleries fund ambitious, collection-based projects including the presentation of a landmark collection of African American art at the Berkeley Museum and Pacific Film Archive and reinstallation of a nationally significant collection of post-war and contemporary art at Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum. The Western Gallery at Western Washington University and the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, both leaders in the practice of innovative museum pedagogy, have proposed multi-exhibition projects that include wide-ranging interdisciplinary curricula.
Three projects focusing on Native American art will seek to implement culturally sensitive collection protocols, indigenize curatorial work through consultation and collaboration, and reconnect Native objects and their communities. RISD Museum of Art will study, document, and plan presentations of indigenous objects from its holdings, most of which have never been shown before, while the Montclair Art Museum plans a major reinstallation of its Native American art collection. The Anchorage Museum’s planned exhibition on the cartography of Northern and Arctic landscapes will feature traditional Indigenous mapping practices and will contribute to the museum’s burgeoning art-based programming related to climate change.
View the new American Art grants
Asia
Five grants awarded by the Asia Program advance its goals of developing expertise on East and Southeast Asia and fostering scholarly and cultural exchange between the United States and Asia.
A grant to ASIANetwork furthers the development of early-career Asia scholars, while opportunities for intellectual dialogue between American and East Asian humanists are being supported through a grant to the National Humanities Center. Three grants address U.S.-Asia relations: the Taiwan–U.S. Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which aims to broaden understanding of Taiwan among emerging scholars and policymakers; the Southeast Asia Program at the Brookings Institution, which focuses on the region as well as its relations with China; and initiatives of the Henry L. Stimson Center that seek to deepen knowledge of North Korea’s economy, and to contribute to Myanmar’s peaceful development and regional stability through dialogues with China and other external actors.
Higher Education
An innovative, multidisciplinary project at Arizona State University’s School of Social Transformation has been awarded a grant from the Higher Education Program. The collaborative project will convene scholars and community-based thought leaders representing a wide range of American identities to discuss changing definitions of “American-ness.” The project leaders hope that these ideas will inform public discussion and contribute to the development of new curricula.
View the new Higher Education grants
Initiative on Native American Intellectual Leadership
A grant to the American Indian College Fund will further the Initiative’s support for Native intellectual leaders and the development of research tools and resources for Native leaders and communities. For several years, the College Fund has made a concerted effort to bolster tribal colleges’ research capacity, and this grant will provide renewed funding for faculty to attend research conferences, participate in writing workshops, and publish their work.
View the new Native American Leadership grants
Public Policy
The Public Policy Program continues to support Congressional leadership and education through two grants. One will provide renewed funding for the Aspen Institute’s Congressional Seminar Program; the other for an orientation seminar for new Members of Congress, organized by the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress.
View the new Public Policy grants
Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion in International Affairs
The Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion in International Affairs (HRLI) promotes interdisciplinary scholarship and collaboration among scholarly, media, and policy communities to bring nuanced understanding of complex issues at the intersection of religion, politics, and policy to wider publics.
Many of the Initiative’s seven grants address the relationship among religion, nationalism and challenges to citizenship and democracy, and many of these have a regional focus on South and Southeast Asia. A grant to Sciences Po (The Paris Institute of Political Studies) will support an interdisciplinary research project on Muslims in India, while the Carnegie Endowment will examine recent tectonic shifts in the legal and constitutional architecture of citizenship in India, and the ways in which citizenship is increasingly being defined in religious terms. The Council on Foreign Relations will research “democratic regression, rising populism, and sectarianism” in Southeast and South Asia. India, Indonesia and Myanmar are the focus of a grant to Human Rights Watch.
A grant to the International Crisis Group will support in-depth field research in many countries where religion plays a significant role in conflict and instability (including Myanmar). PRX/The World will report on multiple regions, including South and Southeast Asia, examining challenges to pluralism and citizenship. Reset Dialogues will hold a summer school and international conference on related issues: cultural pluralism and political liberties in the Mediterranean.
View the new Religion in International Affairs grants
Theology
The Theology Program awarded one grant, to the New-York Historical Society, for a project on religion and the American West. The museum will present a major historical traveling exhibition that will explore the ways in which diverse American religions and spiritual traditions have helped shape westward expansion and the exercise of religion in the United States. The grant will also support the establishment of an early-career fellowship program and the creation of publications and public programming to engage local audiences.
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