The National Endowment for the Humanities has announced $28.6 million in grants to support 233 humanities projects nationwide, including four at the University of Illinois. Each of the Illinois researchers will receive an award of $6,000. They include:
Eduardo Ledesma, a professor of Spanish and Portuguese, for “Blind Cinema: Visually Impaired Filmmakers and Technologies of Sight,” a book-length study and companion website about visually impaired filmmakers and their use of various technologies, which illuminate the experience of blindness through film.
Maureen Warren, curator of European and American art at Krannert Art Museum, for “Murder and Memory in the Dutch Republic: Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, Art and Politics in the Long Seventeenth Century.” The award will support the preparation of this book on politics and visual culture based on the artistic responses to the trial and execution of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (1547–1619), a statesman of the Dutch Republic.
Michael Silvers, a professor of musicology, for “The Circulation and Aesthetics of Materials for Classical Bows and Brazilian Rabecas (Fiddles) in an Age of Ecological Change.” The award will support research and writing leading to this book-length study of the history, aesthetics and cultural uses of musical instruments made from brazilwood, with a focus on Brazilian handmade fiddles and bows for Western string instruments.
Theresa Sims, a lecturer in art history, for “Zulu Figurative Art and Colonial Engagement, 1860–1920,” a book that analyzes the emergence of figural art made by the Zulu people of Southern Africa between 1860 and 1920.
