“From cutting-edge digital projects to the painstaking practice of traditional scholarly research, these new N.E.H. grants represent the humanities at its most vital and creative,” the endowment’s chairman Jon Parrish Peede said.
The first Ferris wheel at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. Source: Bettmann/Getty Images/The New York Times
The list of 253 projects that will receive grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (N.E.H.) includes an interactive history of African-American music developed by Carnegie Hall, the digital re-creation of the acoustics of cultural sites, a series of short animated videos about basic philosophical concepts and a VR game where users can explore the ancient pueblo of Mesa Verde.
The total sum of the grants is $14.8 million. This is the third and final round in 2018. The grants are distributed across 44 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. An additional $47.5 million was granted for operational support to 55 state humanities council partners, according to The New York Times.
The supported digital projects include an interactive graphic story about a slave rebellion in New York in 1741 created by the group Historic Hudson Valley and an augmented-reality project at the Chicago History Museum that will allow visitors to attend the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and see the unveiling of the first Ferris wheel, a technological marvel of its time.
The soundscape, a project by a team at the Rochester Institute of Technology, re-creates the “auditory signature” of a historic studio on Nashville’s Music Row and the 3,000-year-old Chavin de Huantar, an archaeological site in Peru. The projects are part of the programme to preserve the “aural heritage” of historic sites and structures.
Some grants were given to more traditional individual research projects, for example, a study of a recently discovered early draft of the King James Bible, and a biography of Mary Willing Byrd, who ran a large plantation in the American South, which was unusual for women.
Other grants support large-scale institutional projects, for example, a digital database that will allow museums to share information and to help track the international exchange of works of art. Another grant will help museums, libraries and historical groups in the Gulf Coast and Appalachia with disaster planning.
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