Mellon Advancing Intercultural Studies
Contested Histories: How to Write History
Call for Faculty and Graduate Applications
Deadline November 6, 2017
The Center for Ideas and Society invites applications from UCR faculty and graduate students to participate in the last of four quarter-length seminars (to run Fall 2018) in its Advancing Intercultural Studies project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The seminar topic is “Contested Histories: How to Write History.” During the seminar quarter, faculty participants receive funds to cover one course release and graduate student participants receive compensation as GSRs in lieu of other employment during the quarter.*
Omissions and questions beset the study of the histories of marginalized groups. The subtitle of a 2003 article on the 1873 Colfax Massacre in which white southerners slaughtered a group of African American citizens who had assembled in a local courthouse after a contested election reads “Stumbling on a forgotten Reconstruction tragedy.” Yet this headline represents the fate of countless similar events in the United States not only during slavery and reconstruction but well afterwards. This seminar focuses on questions of historical scholarship as well as on still under-examined historical events and experiences as they affect contemporary intercultural relations in the United States.
Project Overview
From September 2017 through December 2018, a series of quarter-long seminars will explore key themes and topics surrounding economic inequality (Fall 2017), diversity in education (Winter 2018), religious heterogeneity (Spring 2018), and contested histories (Fall 2018).
- Each seminar includes faculty, graduate and undergraduate students.
- Seminar members meet weekly on a formal basis to discuss research.
- Each seminar participant generates an original paper.
- Each seminar group hosts a public lecture and a film screening.
- Each seminar group hosts a wrap-up meeting for the larger AIS project team.
- Seminars are complemented by two summer film series and a final conference.
Project Dates
Summer 2017
Film Series at Culver Center of the Arts
Fall 2017
Seminar #1: Responses to Economic Inequality
Convener: Mathew Mahutga (Sociology)
Winter 2018
Seminar #2: Beyond Access: Diversifying Higher Education
Convener: Jennifer Nájera (Ethnic Studies)
Spring 2018
Seminar #3: Religious Identity: Harmony or Discrimination?
Convener: Muhamad Ali (Religious Studies)
Summer 2018
Film Series at Culver Center of the Arts
Fall 2018
Seminar #4: Contested Histories: How to Write History
Convener: Georgia Warnke (Political Science)
Spring 2019
Final Conference
*updated to reflect GSR appointment information Oct 11, 2017.
Application
Faculty
Download faculty call
Download faculty application cover page
Graduate Students