Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts | News

New ISLA grant program to increase underserved students’ access to research opportunities

2021-12-08T13:00:00-05:00

The College of Arts and Letters’ Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts is dismantling financial barriers to help a wider range of students take part in faculty-mentored summer research.

Starting this May, ISLA’s Research Access Mentoring Program (RAMP) grant will provide awardees from the College of Arts and Letters with a stipend of $3,500, room and board, and a research allowance of up to $1,500 to take part in 10-week, on-campus projects of interest. Recipients also will receive tuition for a 3-credit summer course.

“This is about opening the door wider,” said James R. Brockmole, ISLA director and Arts & Letters’ associate dean for research and strategic initiatives. “Talent is normally distributed but opportunity is not. At Notre Dame, we want to match merit to opportunity.”

The grant, Brockmole said, will provide exceptional undergraduates — including students of color, first-generation students, and those from families with low incomes — with resources, time, and mentorship to explore research-oriented career possibilities and build their record of research in the arts, humanities, or social sciences.

Grant recipients will be matched with a faculty adviser and encouraged to continue the collaborative projects in the next academic year. Students who do so will receive as much as $1,500 for additional need-based research-related expenses.

“This is about opening the door wider. Talent is normally distributed but opportunity is not. At Notre Dame, we want to match merit to opportunity.”

The Notre Dame Class of 2025 is the most diverse ethnically, racially, globally, and socioeconomically in the University’s history. First-generation students, Pell Grant recipients, and students with family incomes less than $65,000 make up 20 percent of the admitted first-year class and 48 percent are international students or students of color from the United States.

The College wants to meaningfully involve more undergraduate students in research aspects of the educational experience, Brockmole said. In doing so, it’s important “to make sure that research opportunities are not closed to some demographics of students,” he said, including those who must work in the summer to earn money for college.

“We must meet students where they are,” he said.

Arts & Letters undergraduates who participate in the AnBryce Scholars Initiative, Balfour-Hesburgh Scholars Program, Building Bridges Program, Posse Scholars Program, QuestBridge Scholars Program, or Transformational Leaders Program are invited to apply by Feb. 4, 2022.

Originally published at al.nd.edu.

Prof. Christopher Chowrimootoo (Small Research Grants ‘19) Researches The Pilgrim’s Progress in London

2021-11-15T11:20:00-05:00

Professor Christopher Chowrimootoo recently traveled to London to research the history of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ opera The Pilgrim’s Progress. Based on Paul Bunyan’s 1678 allegorical novel, the opera began as a one-act production in 1921 before evolving into a motet in 1940 and a radio dramatization in 1942. In 1951, The Pilgrim’s Progress premiered at the Royal Opera House.

Supported by an ISLA Small Grant for Research and Creative Work, Chowrimootoo worked at the British Library for two weeks during the summer of 2019, studying librettos, scores, and photographs of the original production. The research yielded valuable insight into Vaughan Williams’ process and the reception of the work as reported in contemporary newspapers.

The Pilgrim’s Progress is “a particularly good case study” for thinking about a “broader cultural understanding of spiritual experience” and a “more plural vision of spirituality, whose purview stretches beyond the confines of religious dogma or institutions to a wider set of practices and experience,” Chowrimootoo claims. “Not only was it an opera based on a sacred subject, but it mixed Biblical and secular texts in ways that spoke to broader tensions between sacred and secular culture.”

The research is part of a new book project tentatively titled Sacred Secularism: Music and Religion in the Twentieth-Century Public Sphere. The book will analyze The Pilgrim’s Progress along with works by Stravinsky, Messiaen, and Bernstein to “explore the persistence of ‘spiritual’ registers in the supposedly secular spaces of the twentieth-century concert hall and opera house,” Chowrimootoo writes. This work builds on Chowrimootoo’s first book Middlebrow Modernism: Britten’s Operas and the Great Divide, published by University of California Press in 2018.

Christopher Chowrimootoo is an associate professor in the Program of Liberal Studies at Notre Dame. He holds a concurrent appointment in the Department of Music and is a faculty fellow of the Program of Sacred Music and the Nanovic Institute.

Psychologist Gerald Haeffel (Themed Grant ’20-’21) and ND Psychology Major Lily Brouder (UROP ’21) Conduct Research on Depression in Black Americans

2021-11-05T10:00:00-04:00

Two ISLA-funded researchers at Notre Dame recently gained new insight into depression, one of the most common and debilitating mental health conditions.

Some psychologists argue that a cognitive vulnerability makes certain people especially susceptible to depression. Prof. Gerald Haeffel defines this cognitive vulnerability in depressed individuals as “the tendency to generate interpretations of life stress that have overly negative implications for their future and self-worth.”

“Research on the cognitive vulnerability hypothesis has focused almost exclusively on white college students,” according to Haeffel. Haeffel found few studies on cognitive vulnerability among Black Americans, despite the fact that depression rates tend to be higher among Black Americans than White Americans and that Black Americans are likely to experience particularly high levels of stress due to systemic racism and recent national events.

To address this gap in understanding, Haeffel set out to test the broader relevance of the cognitive vulnerability theory of depression with the support of an ISLA “Race and Ethnicity in the US” themed grant. Using an online participant platform, Haeffel surveyed 100 Black Americans. The results supported Haeffel’s initial hypotheses. Haeffel was “able to reliably detect individual differences in cognitive vulnerability and depressive symptoms in Black Americans,” and found that “cognitive vulnerability was positively correlated with depressive symptoms.”

Haeffel hopes the research will shed light on the causes and possible treatments for depression. This project is part of a broader effort by Haeffel to understand “the cognitive processes and products that contribute to risk and resilience for depression.”

Lily Brouder, an undergraduate psychology major at Notre Dame, participated in this research project and received support from ISLA’s Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program. Brouder’s related poster presentation was awarded a RISE research award from the Association for Psychological Science, which “acknowledges outstanding psychological science research related to under-represented populations or conducted by students from diverse backgrounds.” Brouder also received the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology Global Mental Health Student Poster Award.

Haeffel is an associate professor in the department of psychology at Notre Dame.

ISLA Hosts Webinar on ND Resources for Funding Research

2021-10-29T12:45:00-04:00

The Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts (ISLA) recently hosted a webinar titled "Funding Research in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences: Available Resources at Notre Dame." This first webinar in a new series from ISLA gave a brief overview of the people and resources available to help scholars in the College of Arts & Letters obtain research funding. Representatives from ISLA, the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations, and the proposal development and pre-award teams at ND Research gave brief introductions to the tools and services they offer.

You can view a recording of the webinar at the link below.

ISLA announces new Interdisciplinary Research Seed Grants

2021-10-15T15:00:00-04:00

In recognition of the growing importance of, and need for, collaborative, interdisciplinary scholarship in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, ISLA is pleased to announce a new Interdisciplinary Research Seed Grants program. This initiative is intended to promote collaborative research among faculty from different disciplines with shared interests and to support the preparation and submission of competitive proposals for substantial external grants (e.g., NEH Collaborative Research, NEH Scholarly Editions and Scholarly Translations, Humanities Without Walls Grand Research Challenge, ACLS Digital Extension Grant, NSF, NIH, etc.).

Seed grants are awarded to groups of faculty. Each group must comprise three or more faculty from at least two departments or academic units at Notre Dame who are committed to exploring a topic of significant importance for the arts, humanities, or social sciences. At least two faculty members must have primary appointments in the College of Arts and Letters. Additional community partners and faculty at other universities may also participate in supported faculty groups.

Interdisciplinary Research Seed Grants can be used to fund books, digital resources, and similar materials needed to explore the research topic, travel expenses (e.g., site visits), and meeting support.

There are three types of Interdisciplinary Research Seed Grants:

Initial Exploratory Research Grants (up to $1,500) These grants support preliminary exploration of a particular topic.
Proposal Development Grants (up to $2,500) These grants support the preparation of substantial external grant applications involving multiple faculty. These grants are intended for projects that have developed beyond the initial exploratory phase.
Proposal Revise and Resubmit Grants (up to $1,000) This grant supports the revision and resubmission of previously unsuccessful external grant proposals that show clear promise following peer-review.

You can read more about ISLA’s new Interdisciplinary Research Seed Grant initiative, including application requirements and allowable expenses, here.

English Ph.D. alumnus Jay David Miller awarded ACLS fellowship to explore how Quaker rhetoric addressed injustice in early America

2021-06-30T10:00:00-04:00

Jay David Miller

Jay David Miller, who received his Ph.D. in English from Notre Dame in spring 2020, has been awarded a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies for his project, Quaker Jeremiad.

As an ACLS Carl and Betty Pforzheimer Fellow in English and American Literature, Miller will spend a year at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies in Philadelphia. There, he will convert his dissertation to a manuscript by incorporating new archival research from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College’s Quaker collection, and other area libraries to better represent Quaker literary history.

Miller, currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, focuses his research on early American literature. His dissertation traces the development of Quaker rhetoric on agrarian labor and justice, examining the ways that rhetoric shifts from the beginnings of the Quaker movement in 17th-century England as it moves across the Atlantic and confronts agrarian issues like enslavement and indigenous dispossession.

“I explore how Quakers addressed those forms of injustice in early America, in part, by attending to their theological background and the religious ideas that inform that rhetoric over time,” Miller said. “I see the Quaker jeremiad as an alternative to the Jeffersonian agrarian tradition that’s associated with the United States, and I show that this Quaker tradition goes on to influence many writers in the 19th and even the 20th century.”

Because of its association with the Jeffersonian tradition, agrarianism is often seen as an idealized vision of agriculture that hides a problematic background of labor exploitation and injustice, Miller said. He seeks to offer a more complex view that explores how environmental justice can be achieved through agrarianism.

Miller is also exploring why theological writers tend to have a more holistic vision of the economy, by considering it in a broader moral context.

“One of the arguments in my book is how that theological context is able to inspire a form of agrarianism that is more attuned to questions of environmental justice,” he said. “In light of that, Notre Dame has provided a great context for working on this project because of the resources for the study of religion and theology here.”

“One of the arguments in my book is how that theological context is able to inspire a form of agrarianism that is more attuned to questions of environmental justice. In light of that, Notre Dame has provided a great context for working on this project because of the resources for the study of religion and theology here.”

Miller appreciated the support he received from his dissertation advisor, professor Sandra Gustafson — as well as the international opportunities he had as a Ph.D. student at Notre Dame.

Through the Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures, he received a Summer Language Abroad program grant to study German at the Goethe Institute in Germany so that he could better explore early American literature in the language.

And he participated in the Global Dome Exchange Program, cofounded by Patrick Griffin, the Madden-Hennebry Professor of History and director of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies; and Elliott Visconsi, an associate professor of English, associate provost, and chief academic digital officer.

The program allows Ph.D. students from various disciplines to gather at Oxford University, the University of Edinburgh, and Notre Dame to workshop their dissertations and receive feedback from scholars.

“Elliott and Patrick did a great job of creating a stimulating academic community in these really amazing places in the United Kingdom,” Miller said. “I got to workshop my first chapter there, and it was invaluable to have that experience with other doctoral students and to hear from more experienced academics.”

Prior to the pandemic, Miller had secured a postdoctoral position at Heidelberg University, near Frankfurt, Germany for the 2020-21 academic year. When travel restrictions precluded him from assuming that role, the College of Arts & Letters was instrumental in helping him find his current position in ISLA through the 5+1 Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.

That role not only gave him a broader view of academic research, but also gave him valuable insight when he was preparing his own ACLS fellowship application.

“Especially in the context of the pandemic, it was great to have the support of the 5+1 program and to have several options for what I could do,” he said. “I’m really happy I was able to spend a year with ISLA. It was a great opportunity to get a lot of hands-on experience with research administration — and it certainly helped prepare me to write stronger grant proposals, too.”

“Especially in the context of the pandemic, it was great to have the support of the 5+1 program and to have several options for what I could do. I’m really happy I was able to spend a year with ISLA. It was a great opportunity to get a lot of hands-on experience with research administration — and it certainly helped prepare me to write stronger grant proposals, too.”

Originally published by Carrie Gates at al.nd.edu on June 08, 2021.

Research Theme for AY 2020-2021: Race and Ethnicity in the United States

2020-08-27T11:00:00-04:00

Beginning with this academic year, the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts will conduct yearly grant competitions that focus on particular research themes of timely importance to society. We are pleased to announce that the inaugural theme for AY 2020-2021 is Race and Ethnicity in the United States. The purpose of these grants is to support student and faculty research and creative projects that focus on race and ethnicity in American history, culture, and/or contemporary society. The global COVID pandemic, disturbing instances of police violence, political polarization, and protests across the country and around the world have brought discussions of racism and racial/ethnic inequality into the national conversation in a way not seen since the civil rights era. Our hope is this grant competition will encourage and facilitate engagement with questions raised by these events and the longer histories that inform them in order to enable a deeper understanding of our society and how we can make it more just. For complete details, see: https://isla.nd.edu/annual-grant-competition-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-united-states/

Emergency Dissertation Support Grants

2020-04-22T12:00:00-04:00

The Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts invites applications for emergency dissertation support grants. The purpose of these grants is to enable students in advanced stages of their graduate careers to adapt and/or complete dissertation projects that have been adversely impacted by the global COVID-19 pandemic. https://isla.nd.edu/student-funding/graduate/emergency-dissertation-support-grants/…

Rita Moreno, legend of stage and screen, to discuss her career and issues facing Latinos in entertainment

2019-02-01T08:00:00-05:00

Rita Moreno will speak at 5 p.m. Feb. 21 in the Leighton Concert Hall at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. The is a free but ticketed event and is open to the public. Tickets can be reserved through the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center or by calling the ticket office at 574-631-2800.

Moreno — an American actress, dancer and singer of Puerto Rican descent — is the first and only Latina to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony (EGOT), and she will be the special guest of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies next month as part of its Transformative Latino Leadership Lecture Series.

Her career has spanned more than 70 years in Broadway shows, studio films, and multiple TV series with her best known being Anita in “West Side Story” — a performance that earned her the Academy Award for best supporting actress — and “The King and I,” as well as “The Electric Company” and “Oz.” Moreno currently stars in the Netflix series “One Day at a Time.” The critically acclaimed reimagination of the classic CBS sitcom features Moreno as the matriarch of a Cuban-American family, and episodes that frequently tackle major issues like mental illness, immigration, sexism, homophobia, and racism.

“Rita Moreno is among the best examples of the rich cultural contributions made by Latinas to many aspects of the arts and entertainment industries,” said ILS Director Luis R. Fraga, the Rev. Donald P. McNeill, C.S.C., Professor of Transformative Latino Leadership and the Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science. “We will all learn from her commitment, professionalism, and unquestioned success.”

The Transformative Latino Leadership Lecture Series brings prominent figures in law, entertainment, business, the Catholic Church and other fields to campus in order to impart their personal experiences and a vision of effective leadership. Past guests include Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor; former San Antonio mayor and U.S. secretary of health and human services Julián Castro; the Most Rev. Jose H. Gómez, archbishop of Los Angeles; and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta.

Jason Ruiz, associate professor and interim chair of the Department of American Studies and an ILS faculty fellow, has led the effort to bring Moreno here as part of his research and teaching on Latinx popular culture. He will moderate a conversation with Moreno in a fireside-chat format. They will discuss her life and career, with a focus on the cultural politics of representing Latinos.

“Our conversation will show that Ms. Moreno is not just a practitioner of the arts but also a leading thinker on Latino and Latina media, demonstrated by her propensity for speaking out against stereotyping, ‘brownface’ and other problems associated with Hollywood’s representations of Latinos,” Ruiz said. “This event is the result of my interest in Ms. Moreno’s career that started when I first saw West Side Story at age ten.”

In anticipation of her visit, ILS is co-sponsoring a screening of “West Side Story” at 3 p.m. Feb. 17 in the Browning Cinema at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. This is a free but ticketed event and is open to the public. Tickets can be reserved through the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center

Moreno’s rise to stardom was not easy. She traveled to New York City with her mother at age 5, leaving her brother behind with the hopes he would later join them, but he never did. Her career began at age 11 dubbing Spanish language versions of American films. After her Broadway debut at age 14, Moreno struggled with typecasting — being offered only “exotic” roles or those portraying a sexualized woman.

Over the next several decades, Moreno grew to know and respect herself as an artist and become the role model she did not have growing up in the entertainment industry. She has become an outspoken expert on Latino issues in film, television, and theatre and has worked for decades as an advocate for fairer representations of Latinos and Latinas on stage and screen.

A 2004 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor bestowed upon an American civilian, and a 2010 recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Moreno has also received the Here I Stand Award for activism in the arts.

The Institute for Latino Studies (ILS) advances understanding of the fastest-growing and youngest population in the United States and the U.S. Catholic Church. ILS strengthens Notre Dame’s mission to prepare transformative leaders in all sectors of society.

Co-sponsors of Moreno’s visit include the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, Multicultural Student Programs and Services, DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, Department of American Studies, Department of Film Television and Theatre, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and the José E. Fernández Hispanic Caribbean Initiative Fund.

Originally published at latinostudies.nd.edu.

Anthropologist’s exploration of migration, music, and poetics wins trio of book awards

2019-01-28T08:00:00-05:00

Notre Dame anthropologist Alex Chávez’s first book, Sounds of Crossing: Music, Migration, and the Aural Poetics of Huapango Arribeño, has certainly caught the eye of his peers.

The in-depth look at Mexican migrants’ cultural expression through music has earned three prestigious awards in the fields of anthropology and ethnomusicology.

Chávez’s work has earned the 2018 Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology Book Prize and 2018 Association for Latina and Latino Anthropologists Book Award, and now the Alan P. Merriam Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology. The latter is rarely awarded to a junior scholar, making it a pleasant surprise for Chávez, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology.

“That this type of scholarship is being recognized in a wide range of fields says something about the importance of academic work — in this case, anthropological work — focused on Latinos in the United States and, moreover, that it is being undertaken by Latino scholars,” he said. “That’s a bit of a watershed moment, especially with the Alan P. Merriam Prize. It’s a unique experience for me, given that it is my first book. To have it received in this way is both humbling and exciting.”

“That this type of scholarship is being recognized in a wide range of fields says something about the importance of academic work — in this case, anthropological work — focused on Latinos in the United States. That’s a bit of a watershed moment.”

While today’s headlines and political climate can cast Mexican migrants as people perpetually outside of American society, Chávez’s book traced the flows of a style of music — huapango arribeño — to show how Mexicans on either side of the border assign meaning to their migration and enact forms of belonging within this context.

“Within contemporary politics and discourse about migrants, we see and witness the construction of narratives concerning Mexican migrant illegality that attempt to render this community policable, racialized subjects,” he said. “Migrants are clearly aware of this. It’s the kind of language they experience in their daily lives.

“I wanted to explore the ways in which migrants speak about themselves. What are the vehicles for collective witness through which they manifest different narratives about who they are, how they belong, how the U.S. is home to them, and how multiple places can in fact be home. One way they do it — through music and poetics — tells us a particular story that reveals much about contemporary forms of social citizenship and the politics of race.”

Chávez, the son of Mexican migrants, grew up listening to huapango arribeño, a type of traditional music from north-central Mexico known for its poetic style. As a musician himself, Chávez was reintroduced to the style while earning his bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Texas at Austin.

“I came across musicians who played this music, and I was intrigued. I had a vivid cultural memory of this music such that when I encountered it in Austin, my mind latched onto it, wanting to find out more,” Chávez said. “A lot of things revealed themselves to me — particularly how performance was bound up with the politics of the migrant experience.”

A musician trained in classical and jazz, Chávez immersed himself in huapango arribeño throughout the course of his research, from informal family get-togethers to large festivals on both sides of the border. By learning to play the music and spending time with its practitioners, he decoded the nuanced aspects and meanings of performance that detail the complex emotions and experiences of people who are most impacted by the contemporary politics of immigration in the United States.

Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, of which Chávez is a faculty fellow, has supported his work.

“ILS has been a great community to be a part of throughout my tenure at Notre Dame. They have been supportive of my scholarship, teaching, and publicly engaged work,” Chávez said. “ILS has proven a vital part of intellectual life on campus and now counts itself among the top Latinx studies programs in the country. They advocate for and share in the accolades of their faculty, both of which are key in fomenting a vibrant scholarly community that enriches the lives of our students and campus as a whole.”

Going forward, Chávez will co-chair an advanced seminar at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, this spring focused on Latinx activism in the United States.

He is also now working on a new ethnographic project that integrates sound studies and urban anthropology to contextualize the sounds of contemporary Latinx Chicago.

Originally published by Brian Wallheimer at al.nd.edu on January 24, 2019.

Historian Paul Ocobock awarded American Historical Association prize for book on the role of age in Kenyan violence

2019-01-22T08:05:00-05:00

Kenya has been troubled by ethnic violence for many years, especially surrounding elections, and most histories of the country focus on the issue of ethnicity.

But there is another factor that is just as important, Paul Ocobock argues — age.

“East Africans are very age-conscious,” he said. “It matters a lot if you are young, old, or somewhere in between. And people experience life together bound by powerful cultural rituals like initiation during childhood or marriage later on.”

An Uncertain Age: The Politics of Manhood in Kenya

Ocobock, an associate professor in the Department of History, explores the centrality of age and masculinity in the lives of young men in Kenya in his book, An Uncertain Age: The Politics of Manhood in Kenya. The book has won the 2018 Morris D. Forkosch Prize from the American Historical Association, recognizing the best book in English in the field of British, British imperial, or British Commonwealth history since 1485.

“Winning this prize is really affirming,” he said. “I am excited that scholars outside my field, which is traditionally African history, found value in reading it and that the book has relevance to a much wider audience.

“Many of the books I use in class to teach about the British Empire were former Forkosch winners, and it’s exciting to think that An Uncertain Age might be used by other historians in the classroom.”

Ocobock’s research examines how the British colonial state, and later the Kenyan postcolonial state, realized that ideas about age and masculinity could control the behavior of young men.

“In a way, I’m arguing that historians and social scientists haven’t been looking at all the reasons why Kenyans turn to violence or the state uses violence against its citizens,” Ocobock said. “Ethnic conflict matters, but so, too, does gendered and generational violence. Ultimately, this is a story that a lot of historians of Africa and other areas could use to think about age and gender in their own work.”

He began research for the book on his first trip to Kenya as a master’s student at Oxford University. The majority of his work, however, was done over two long research trips to Kenya while he pursued a Ph.D. at Princeton.

Ocobock, who teaches a seminar on preparing history students for international research, worked in the Kenya National Archives and conducted more than 80 interviews with Kenyan men who had grown up during the colonial period.

“While I enjoy archival work, it was during my ethnographic research — listening to Kenyans tell me about the past and what mattered to them — that the project really took shape,” he said.

“It was during my ethnographic research — listening to Kenyans tell me about the past and what mattered to them — that the project really took shape.”

After completing his Ph.D., Ocobock joined the faculty of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters in 2011. He is also a fellow in the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.

“Thanks to an incredibly supportive, constructive environment in the Department of History and at the Kellogg Institute, I was able to rewrite my dissertation from scratch here,” he said. “An Uncertain Age took a long time to mature, but in the end, it became a much stronger book.”

Ocobock — who is already at work on his next book project, Imperial Blend, an economic history of the Kenyan coffee industry — was also named a finalist for the African Studies Association’s Bethwell A. Ogot Prize for best book on East African studies.

Originally published by Carrie Gates at al.nd.edu on January 21, 2019.

Three faculty awarded NEH fellowships, continuing record funding for humanities research

2018-12-14T08:00:00-05:00

Three University of Notre Dame faculty members — Rebecca Tinio McKenna, Sarah McKibben, and Vincent Phillip Muñoz — have been offered fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the 2018 award cycle.

With 65 total awards, scholars in Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters have received more NEH fellowships any other private university in the United States since 1999.

“We are incredibly proud of these three faculty members who continue Notre Dame’s remarkable success in earning NEH fellowships,” said Sarah A. Mustillo, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters. “These awards recognize the outstanding research that is happening here across a range of disciplines, the creativity and originality of our scholars, as well as the excellent support provided by the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts throughout the application process.”

Rebecca McKenna

During the 2019-20 academic year, Rebecca Tinio McKenna, assistant professor of history, will continue her research on the history of the piano.

McKenna’s project explores largely forgotten figures in the production of the instrument through the early 20th century. Among these figures are African-American musicians who gave life to the instrument in theaters and saloons, sounding notes that would sell sheet music and, in turn, the piano itself. McKenna’s research brings together historical fields often treated in isolation — music history with labor history, African-American history, business history and imperial histories.

“I am aiming to tell a history of the instrument’s manufacture in the United States together with a history of the sounds piano players produced and the stories they told across the ivory keys,” McKenna said. “In the process, I hope to show some of the connections shared by people in seemingly far-flung places — from the late 19th-century American, middle-class parlor to the ivory warehouses of Zanzibar; from a Connecticut River company town where ivory keys were made, to saloons and theaters in cities like New York, Chicago, Sedalia and New Orleans.”

Sarah Mckibben

Sarah McKibben, associate professor of Irish language and literature, will continue her research on bardic poetry in Ireland, for which she also won a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies in early 2018.

McKibben’s research focuses on Irish poets of the 16th and 17th centuries, who composed compelling artistic expressions of praise and warning — as well as satire — in the face of an antagonistic, expanding Tudor-Stuart state.

“Whether inveighing against ‘dlígheadh is fhiú aindligheadh’ (‘[English] law that is mere unlawfulness’), urging a patron to defend them ‘ar smacht ríogh’ (‘against the king’s oppression’), warning him not to be ‘meallta’ (‘wooed’) by English tricks, or comically threatening him with ‘sreath iolfháobhair raghlain rann’ (‘many bright blades of eulogistic quatrains’), bardic poets testify to the richness of the poetic tradition in confronting change,” McKibben said. “Their voices cry out to be heard, and this is why I wish to examine the native literary response to colonial transformation.”

McKibben added that she feels honored to have been selected for an NEH fellowship for her work in Irish/Celtic studies, which is a field rarely selected for national awards in the United States.

“The award will enable me to make a significant contribution to early modern Irish language studies, a field I enjoy teaching regularly here at Notre Dame,” McKibben said.

Vincent Phillip Muñoz

For Vincent Phillip Muñoz, Tocqueville Associate Professor of Political Science and concurrent associate professor of law, the NEH award will enable him to complete his forthcoming book, “Religious Freedom and the American Founding: The Natural Right of Religious Liberty, the Original Meanings of the Religion Clauses, and Our ‘First Freedom’ Today.”

Muñoz’s research examines the United States founders’ political and constitutional philosophy of religious liberty. His NEH book project will seek to recover the founders’ philosophy of governmental limits and to construct a natural-rights approach to the First Amendment’s religion clauses.

“Our founders deserve a hearing when we think about matters of religious freedom because they have something to teach us about the natural right of religious liberty,” Muñoz said. “The founders might not be able to provide answers to all of our contemporary church-state questions, but we ought to consult them and appropriate the wisdom they do have to offer.”

“The aim of my work is to help citizens and office holders better understand and respect the meaning of our God-given rights,” said Muñoz. “I’m thankful to the NEH and Notre Dame for their support, and will do my best to use this award to recover knowledge that will help serve the common good.”

Originally published at news.nd.edu.

For musicologist studying the ‘middlebrow,’ interdisciplinary opportunities make PLS the perfect home

2018-12-05T08:00:00-05:00

Christopher Chowrimootoo

For Christopher Chowrimootoo, there’s nothing unusual about a musicologist teaching in the Great Books program.

That’s because, like his research, the Program of Liberal Studies is fundamentally interdisciplinary.

“My research is not just about music in a technical sense,” he said. “It’s about drawing connections between music, literature, and aesthetics.”

Chowrimootoo, an assistant professor who came to Notre Dame in 2013 after earning his Ph.D. at Harvard, primarily tries to bring music into wider conversations about the “middlebrow” in literature, film studies, and cultural history. This originally pejorative term implied cultural aspiration, using “highbrow” art to achieve a higher social and aesthetic status.

“It was associated with cultural institutions like the BBC and the Book of the Month Club, which made high culture available to a new mass audience by technology and marketing,” Chowrimootoo said. “It also referred to the aspirational audiences and readers to whom the institutions catered, not to mention the artworks created for them.”

Interdisciplinarity is also on display in the Fine Arts tutorial each PLS student takes, where Chowrimootoo ensures his students make the connections between art, philosophy, and music that give him his unique insight into music and culture.

“We read Kant’s Analytic of the Sublime and listen to Beethoven,” he said. “We read theories of impressionism alongside impressionist paintings and music, and try to propose connections between literature, philosophy, and music, while preserving the special aspects of music.”

Torn between styles

The idea of the middlebrow is useful to Chowrimootoo because he wants to challenge what music scholars have long perceived as a “great divide” between works by modernist composers like Arnold Schoenberg and the popular music and operas of the 20th century.

Chowrimootoo’s first book, Middlebrow Modernism: Britten’s Operas and the Great Divide, explores the relationship between English composer Benjamin Britten and the newspaper critics who policed 20th-century cultural boundaries. Britten, born in 1913, was one of the first composers to be influenced by mass media such as the BBC.

“He grew up listening to lots of different styles of music, including difficult atonal music” like Schoenberg’s, Chowrimootoo said. “When he came to compose, he was torn between these different styles of music.”

As a result, even though he claimed to reject the sentimentalism and lyricism of the previous century’s operas, Britten composed works like Peter Grimes and War Requiem, which drew on those exact qualities to appeal to mass audiences but also on the innovations of 20th century modernist composers.

“What struck me is this kind of eclectic flitting back and forth between high and low styles, using tropes from popular culture but drawing on the most elite of high art music,” Chowrimootoo said.

Critics, meanwhile, “highlighted only the most respectable aspects and explained away things like lyricism, spectacle, and sentimental plots,” Chowrimootoo said. “Clearly, they were as ambivalent as Britten.”

“By making a space for ambivalence and contradiction, you realize that no one’s free from these tensions. Once you start to think about the possibility of a middlebrow, it becomes clear that there’s no such thing as a pure highbrow or lowbrow.”

Blurring cultural boundaries

So what do composers like Britten say about the “great divide” between elite and mainstream music?

“By making a space for ambivalence and contradiction,” Chowrimootoo said, “you realize that no one’s free from these tensions. Once you start to think about the possibility of a middlebrow, it becomes clear that there’s no such thing as a pure highbrow or lowbrow. I’m aiming at nothing less than the complete destabilization of cultural hierarchies and boundaries.”

Chowrimootoo, who has a concurrent appointment in the Department of Music and Program of Sacred Music, brings the tensions between “high” and “low” art into his sacred music courses. In an upcoming course for the newly endowed Calvin M. Bower Doctor of Musical Arts program and his next book project, he’ll study composers like Igor Stravinsky, Olivier Messiaen, and Francis Poulenc, examining how they blurred the boundaries between sacred and secular.

“I’ll explore how they manage to evoke things like sublimity, uplift, and transcendence in supposedly secular spaces like the concert hall and opera house,” he said, “and how critics responded to these supposedly obsolete registers.”

Originally published by Emily McConville at al.nd.edu on December 04, 2018.

English professor Laura Dassow Walls wins 2018 Phi Beta Kappa Book Award

2018-10-05T09:00:00-04:00

Laura Dassow Walls, the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, has won the 2018 Christian Gauss Award from Phi Beta Kappa for her biography, Henry David Thoreau: A Life.

The prize, which recognizes outstanding books of literary scholarship, will be presented at a reception in Washington, D.C., in December.

“This is a magisterially sympathetic reading of Thoreau’s life as a writer,” said one member of the prize’s selection panel. “Walls’ clear, probing voice lives up to Thoreau’s.”

Established in 1776, the Phi Beta Kappa Society is the nation’s most exclusive and prestigious academic honor society. It has chapters at 286 colleges and universities in the U.S. and more than half a million members worldwide — including 17 U.S. presidents, 40 U.S. Supreme Court justices, and more than 140 Nobel Laureates.

“This award is particularly meaningful, as I have been a member of PBK since I graduated from college, from a proud family who could say the same,” Walls said. “For many years, I have admired and benefited from their high aspirations for the best humanistic scholarship across the arts and sciences.”

This is the latest in a series of honors for Wall’s critically acclaimed biography, which has seen tremendous success. Most recently, it won the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography.

Thoreau: A Life was published on July 12, 2017, to coincide with Thoreau’s 200th birthday — and sold out even before its official publication date. The first comprehensive biography of Thoreau since 1965, it has been praised in reviews by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, among others, for its nuanced portrayal of its subject and its compelling narrative.

“I’m fascinated by the interface between the factual world and the way our imaginations take up that world and create a meaningful narrative,” Walls said. “I’ve always worked on the boundary between literature and science, and I find that boundary becomes even more exciting if you walk that line as an act of artistic creation.

“Writing this book, I’m sure, has changed me forever.”

Walls, a scholar of American transcendentalism, environmental literature, and the intersection of science and literature, received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2010 to begin work on the book. She was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2015 to complete the project.

For an extended interview with Walls, listen to the With a Side of Knowledge podcast produced by the Office of the Provost.

Originally published by Carrie Gates at al.nd.edu on October 04, 2018.

A legacy shared: Maria Irene Fornés, mother of Latinx theatre

2018-08-16T08:00:00-04:00

Honoring the legacy of Maria Irene Fornés, mother of Latinx theatre, the annual Fornés Playwriting Workshop aims to pass Fornés’ unique writing style on to a new generation of Latinx theatre artists.

Conceived by Anne García-Romero, an associate professor in Notre Dame’s Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, this weeklong workshop in Chicago brings together 14 writers from across the country to work intensely with award-winning playwright and Fornés protégé Migdalia Cruz. Cruz guides writers through four days of workshops in Fornés’ method writing.

“It’s designed to interrupt what’s comfortable for you as a writer,” said Lucas Garcia ’14, former Fornés Playwriting Workshop attendee and current workshop assistant. “It’s about getting off track, it’s about getting out of the groove that you’ve carved for yourself, about becoming uncomfortable with your own work again and opening yourself up to the possibility of randomness and bolts of lightning.”

The week’s workshops and writing exercises culminate in the writing of five-minute scenes inspired from participants’ workshop experiences. A director, actors, and a producer are hired to present a reading of each scene at the end of the week to an audience.

Studying with Cruz is “really emotional and very spiritual. She’s so finely attuned to everyone in the room and writing with her is extremely special,” Garcia said. “We’re receiving firsthand training that an entire generation of U.S. playwrights received and it’s incredible — at the same time that we are receiving these skills and receiving strategies and going through this process we are unearthing and affirming Fornés’ legacy as an educator, as an artist, and as an immigrant person.”

In 2013, García-Romero, founding member of Latinx Theatre Commons, met with other Latinx Theatre artists to discuss how this national advocacy group could change the narrative of Latinx theatre in the U.S. and pick up where many 20th-century initiatives to support Latinx theatre artists left off.

“We all know it’s a very complex community, the Latinx community in the U.S. U.S. Latinx Theatre artists are vastly diverse culturally, aesthetically, so we felt like that was not known in the wider American theatre and so we wanted to help change the narrative so that people could understand in the 21st century how complex and rich and diverse the Latinx theatre community is and what we have to offer,” Garcia-Romero said.

For García-Romero, the sharing of Fornés’ legacy and pedagogy through the creation of the Fornés Playwriting Workshop was a logical place to start. In addition to the creation of the workshop, García-Romero has also recently published a book on Fornés, The Fornés Frame.

“Fornés’ legacy is that she is a playwright, a director, and a teacher. She transformed, specifically, Latinx theatre because she trained a generation of Latinx theatre makers including Lito Cruz, Pulitzer Prize winner for drama; Luis Alfaro, one of the most produced Latinx playwrights in the country; and Eduardo Machado, an influential playwriting teacher in New York,” García-Romero said. “Her legacy is her students, her legacy is her incredible method of writing plays that is really innovative and groundbreaking – I don’t believe this method is taught anywhere else in the country or maybe even the world.”

The Institute for Latino Studies is honored to continue to be the key sponsor for this annual workshop as it works to continue the tradition of Fornés and promotes Latinx leaders in the theatre community.

“ILS is pleased to support the Fornés Workshop for the third consecutive year under the leadership of Anne García-Romero, the nation’s foremost scholar of this unique Latinx style of play writing and theatrical production,” said ILS Director Luis Fraga. “There is no doubt in my mind that it is through the creative arts that the energy, hopes, aspirations, and power of Latinx communities will be celebrated and preserved for present and future generations.”

The powerful impact of this workshop has already been demonstrated through the work of Lucas Garcia, who currently works in Chicago as a writer, dramator, playwright, and poet. Garcia also volunteers at the Alliance of Latinx Theatre Artists (ALTA) an organization that seeks to provide professional development, community, and advocacy through volunteering and providing member services to theatre artists Latinx Theatre Artists, specifically in the Chicagoland area.

“The workshop is very affecting on a personal level and on an artistic level,” Garcia said. “On an artistic level certainly, but on a personal level as well because it’s a sort of fearlessness and that fearlessness is very generative as an artist but it’s also very important as a person and for me. That is why this workshop is so special because Fornés’ legacy is, in my perspective, a way of living as an artist and not just making art.”

Originally published at latinostudies.nd.edu.

English professor Laura Dassow Walls wins Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Thoreau biography

2018-05-10T15:00:00-04:00

Laura Dassow Walls, the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, has won the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography for her latest work, Henry David Thoreau: A Life.

The prize was announced on April 20, in a ceremony at the University of Southern California. Now a program of the Los Angeles Times Foundation, the prizes are dedicated to honoring literary luminaries, championing new voices and celebrating the highest quality of writing from authors at all stages of their careers.

Past recipients include a who’s who of contemporary literature, such as Margaret Atwood, Joan Didion, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Allen Ginsberg, Laura Hillenbrand, and Claudia Rankine.

“This tremendous honor means all the more coming from the Los Angeles Times, one of our nation’s most stalwart defenders of the free press and most rigorous sources of news about our world,” Walls said. “Thoreau immersed himself in the life of Walden Pond in order to heal the radical separation that, even in his day, was dividing a world of words feeding only on other words, from what Thoreau called ‘the solid earth! the actual world!’ — the natural and social environment in which we must all be grounded, if we are to connect with each other and share a sense of the real.

“Thoreau may have come down to us as the apostle of solitude, but as a writer he gave himself to the act of creating community — a community that this award recognizes and affirms, from coast to coast. For that, I am profoundly grateful.”

This is the latest honor for Wall’s critically acclaimed biography, which has seen tremendous success.

The first edition sold out even before its official publication date of July 12, 2017, Thoreau’s 200th birthday. And the book — the first comprehensive biography of Thoreau since 1965 — has been praised in reviews by the The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

“Laura’s book is quite remarkable, and it’s been exciting to see it getting such a wonderful reception,” said John T. McGreevy, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters. “It’s certainly gotten more attention than any book of ours in recent memory.”

Originally published at news.nd.edu.

Professor uses cutting-edge technology to conduct ‘engaged anthropology’ at prehistoric Illinois site

2018-05-05T15:35:00-04:00

Mark Schurr is committed to conducting engaged anthropology.

For Schurr, professor and acting chair of Notre Dame’s Department of Anthropology, that means he and his colleagues are dedicated to research that doesn’t just serve academic ends, but can also do good for the world.

At his latest research site — the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie near Joliet, Illinois — Schurr leads by example. Along with postdoctoral research associate Madeleine McLeester, he is pursuing the answers to two critical questions.

Schurr (top right) takes a measurement during a dig at the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.

First, they are exploring what life was like for the Native Americans who inhabited the area right before French settlers arrived and began recording history around 1673. And second, Schurr and his team are working to determine how to best restore their research site, a former World War II arsenal, to a natural environment that allows visitors to enjoy and learn from the land.

The former is a standard anthropology research question. The latter aligns the Kankakee Protohistory Project with Schurr’s mission to do engaged anthropology. He hopes that whatever answer he and his team come up with will become a model for environmental reconstruction of natural sites.

“If we can help the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie make this a natural area that will enrich everyone’s life in our region, that would really be our biggest accomplishment,” Schurr said. “I think that’s perfectly in line with Pope Francis’ ‘Laudato Si,’ the idea of how we should care for the earth.”

In their hunt for answers, Schurr and his team are employing methodologies ranging from the traditional, like monthlong summer digs, to cutting-edge, such as thermal imaging cameras attached to drones that can survey huge sites in mere minutes.

Pristine artifacts

Schurr’s current project grew out of his research at the Collier Lodge site in Northwest Indiana, where he led a public archaeology project for more than 10 years.

An archaeology trowel with a variety of artifacts from Schurr’s dig, including small pieces of stone, pottery, bone, and shell that help tell the story of what happened at Middle Grant Creek in the prairie.

About three years ago, he and McLeester began looking for a new site that dated to the late 17th century, and found the Middle Grant Creek site at the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.

“Really, we felt like there’s this period in time right before history that was not only absent from written records, but archaeologically, is really poorly understood,” Schurr said.

So far, Schurr and his more than 100 collaborators — including graduate and undergraduate students, researchers from other institutions, and volunteers with the National Forest Service — have found pristine artifacts.

“The preservation is just excellent,” Schurr said. “We even get things like individual fish scales that are still preserved, which you hardly ever see in an archaeological site in the Midwest, because our climate just destroys everything.”

The dark soil is the outline of a storage pit Native Americans used to hold corn, then trash. A deer antler and beaver pelvis are pictured.

During their excavations, the team has found large circular storage pits that likely stored corn before Native Americans threw their trash in the holes.

Within these pits, Schurr said his team has unearthed pottery, stone tools, shells, carbonized plant remains, and the remains of animals including turtles, beavers, muskrats, and all kinds of fish.

Together, the findings paint a vivid and fascinating picture of life on the site 400 or more years ago.

Innovative techniques

Schurr and a team of Midewin volunteers prepare to conduct a ground-penetrating radar survey, which will give an image of what is buried underground prior to a dig.

These discoveries have come as a result of conventional anthropology research methods, namely magnetic surveys and hand excavations of the site. The employment of new technologies, though, sets Schurr’s latest project apart.

Through a collaboration with Dartmouth College anthropologist Jesse Casana, Schurr’s team has used drones equipped with thermal imaging technology to survey the site faster and more broadly than ever before.

Because different materials cool at different rates, these drones can identify buried structures and artifacts, especially at night. At the Middle Grant Creek site, this thermal imaging technology has revealed a large circular structure, which Schurr and McLeester believe is some sort of prehistoric ceremonial enclosure that they plans to research further.

“Every time you use new technology, you can see things in a different way,” he said. “This technology acts as an intermediary between surface-level testing and aerial or satellite surveys.”

Along with a cost-share agreement with the Forest Service, Schurr recently won a Notre Dame Research grant that will fund the Middle Grant Creek project for at least two more years.

He hopes to develop a more complete understanding of the site through continued research, including more undergraduate involvement, all of which will ultimately help with his goal of reconstructing the prairie’s natural environment.

“This was an area that was dedicated to making war,” Schurr said. “And now, we’re trying to convert it to a natural area where people from the Chicago region and the surrounding area will be able to come and enjoy nature, learn about nature, and be refreshed by it.”

Originally published by Jack Rooney at al.nd.edu on April 17, 2018.

Lilly Endowment awards $1.6 million grant for Sacred Music at Notre Dame program

2017-07-26T14:00:00-04:00

The University of Notre Dame has received a $1.6 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to support the Sacred Music at Notre Dame (SMND) program and its transformative work with graduate students and the community.

This is the program’s second grant from the Lilly Endowment — a private, philanthropic foundation that supports the causes of religion, education, and community development — following a $1.9 million grant in 2012 that helped launch SMND. Since then, graduate students in the Master of Sacred Music and Doctor of Musical Arts programs working through SMND have expanded outreach efforts to churches across northern Indiana, including through the Notre Dame Children’s Choir.

Margot Fassler

“The work we have been able to do through our initial grant from the Lilly Endowment has been nothing short of astounding,” said Margot Fassler, director of SMND and Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Music History and Liturgy. “It has surpassed our greatest hopes and dreams for our students and for building the lives of the churches in our communities, in Indiana, and throughout the United States.”

In 2013, SMND founded its doctoral program and began partnering with local churches to offer internships for its graduate students. Four years later, the program is preparing to move into its new, state-of-the-art facilities in O’Neill Hall, and Notre Dame students are involved in strengthening music programs and establishing children’s choirs at more than a dozen area churches.

Upon graduation, alumni from the program have had a 100 percent placement record, Fassler said, securing positions at schools and churches across the U.S.

“Every church or community that has one of our alumni will be transformed,” she said. “It will be a different place within a few years because that person is there working. Our students are incredibly skilled musically, of course, but they’re also able to build community and help empower others to learn and grow spiritually and intellectually as well as musically.”

Mark Doerries

With the first Lilly Endowment grant, the program also launched the Notre Dame Children’s Choir. Since that time, the initiative — now called the Sacred Music Academy — has grown from 20 children to more than 300 in multiple choirs, some of which tour and record their music. An album commissioned by the Notre Dame Children’s Choir debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s traditional classical albums chart in 2016.

“We have grown steadily, and I think it represents a real need in the community,” said Mark Doerries, artistic director of the Notre Dame Children’s Choir and associate director of community outreach at SMND. “We have lit a spark with families and churches as well as music educators.”

The new funding will enable the Sacred Music Academy to reach more children as it begins a new partnership with the South Bend Community School Corp. to form a gospel choir on the city’s west side.

The academy offers a unique opportunity not only for the children who participate, but for the graduate students who help lead the choirs, Doerries said.

“What we hope to convey to our graduate students is that it is the best musicians who should be working with children,” he said. “Each of our graduate students had a music teacher in their past who made a difference in their lives, who pointed them in this direction. And we want them to see that they can do that for young people.”

O’Neill Hall, on the south side of Notre Dame Stadium, will be the new home for Sacred Music at Notre Dame.

Beginning in January, Sacred Music at Notre Dame will be housed in O’Neill Hall — a prominent, central location on campus with new recital halls and rehearsal spaces, classrooms, a large music library, and close proximity to other arts facilities on campus.

That sets up tremendous possibilities, Doerries said.

“We are grateful for both the University’s and Lilly Endowment’s continued investment in us and their faith in the work that we do,” he said. “And we only see a bright future ahead.”

“Every church or community that has one of our alumni will be transformed. Our students are incredibly skilled musically, of course, but they’re also able to build community and help empower others to learn and grow spiritually and intellectually as well as musically.”

Originally published by Carrie Gates at al.nd.edu on July 25, 2017.

Notre Dame research funding reaches record-breaking levels

2017-07-18T14:00:00-04:00

Awards nearly double from just over 10 years ago

The University of Notre Dame has received $138.1 million in research funding for fiscal year 2017, surpassing the previous record of $133.7 million set in fiscal year 2015. Additionally, the University also broke its all-time monthly record, receiving $27.6 million in June alone.

“Our scholarly, robust faculty can take pride in this milestone,” said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., the University’s president. “It advances Notre Dame’s reputation as a national research university, and it represents a welcome infusion of spending in South Bend. Congratulations to Robert Bernhard, our vice president for research, and most of all to our talented and hardworking faculty for an achievement that is all the more remarkable in a time of government retrenchment.”

Approximately 57.8 percent of the research awards came from federal funding, while 26.9 percent came from foundations or other sponsors, and 15.3 percent came from industry.

Notre Dame’s continued commitment to growing and expanding its research programs is paying off locally as well, with approximately 75 percent of external research funds expended in the local community. For example, the Notre Dame Turbomachinery Laboratory (NDTL), which opened in downtown South Bend’s Ignition Park in 2016, continues to grow and bring benefits to the area. In FY 2017, NDTL brought in nearly $7 million in research awards. Further, it has hired over 40 employees — recruiting technical experts from both the Michiana region as well as internationally — and has plans to continue to grow its staffing levels.

The community theme continues in a number of other large research grants to the University, including a $1.6 million award from the Lilly Endowment to the Department of Theology to study sacred music in the revival of the community and the church, as well as nearly $1 million to the Department of Physics to continue its Quarknet program.

“This year’s success is tied directly to the dedication of our faculty who worked harder than ever in this difficult funding environment to compete for grants," Bernhard said. "In fact, Notre Dame researchers submitted over 1,200 proposals this year, representing a 30 percent increase in proposal value since last year. I look forward to seeing many of these proposals — especially those that continue our important collaborative relationship with the city of South Bend, such as the Wireless Institute’s proposal for a city-scale platform for advanced wireless research — become actively funded research projects.”

Among some of the largest awards to each College and School:

A $6.7 million grant from the Microelectronics Advanced Research Corporation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to the College of Engineering for continued support of the Center for Low Energy Systems Technology.

A $2.5 million award to the College of Science from the National Institutes of Health for continued support of VectorBase, a bioinformatics resource for invertebrate vectors of human pathogens.

A $1.6 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to the College of Arts and Letters for training Catholic thought leaders to engage in dialogue between science and religion.

More than $1 million from the U.S. Department of State to the Keough School of Global Affairs for the Peace Accords Matrix.

Faculty from the University’s other Colleges and Schools, as well as Centers and Institutes, contributed to the record-breaking total, which grew from $71 million in 2006.

Originally published at news.nd.edu.

With NEH fellowship, Notre Dame philosopher breaks new ground on Aristotle’s concept of objectivity

2017-07-12T14:00:00-04:00

Sean Kelsey

Can humans truly attain an accurate, objective view of reality? Or is our perspective inescapably colored by who we are and what we’ve experienced?

Philosopher Sean Kelsey asserts that this problem is central to Aristotle’s text De Anima — and that Aristotle argued we can, a point his predecessors had tried and failed to make.

“Aristotle thinks that living things — both humans and other animals — can correctly measure reality,” Kelsey said. “That’s how it has to be if we are able to attain genuine insight into how things are. And for him, the starting point is that we manifestly do.

“How do we get things right? That’s what he wants to understand and explain.”

Kelsey, an associate professor in Notre Dame’s Department of Philosophy, was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to explore the issue in his book project Life, Perception, and Insight: An Essay on Aristotle’s De Anima.

While other 20th- and 21st-century researchers have primarily examined issues of intentionality or consciousness in the work, Kelsey’s focus is on “objectivity” — an idea he said came from using Aristotle in the classroom.

“The De Anima is a difficult text, but it’s an important part of the canon we offer our philosophy students,” he said. “As I’ve taught it, I’ve tried to focus on the big picture of what Aristotle sees as the main problems in the way of a proper understanding of life. What I’ve come to think is that for him, it is the phenomenon of objectivity.”

Aristotle devotes a significant portion of the De Anima to addressing earlier philosophers’ explanations of what life is — and this serves as an essential point of reference for Kelsey.

“Although Aristotle’s discussion of their views is sharply critical, he does not feel the same about their questions,” he said. “On the contrary, he regards the absurdity of their views as an index of the difficulties in this area and thinks that we cannot make progress without first getting clear of the problems that stymied his predecessors.”

Kelsey’s research breaks new ground by using another Aristotelian text, Metaphysics Book IV, as a kind of frame for his analysis of the De Anima.

“It turns out that there’s a nice section in Metaphysics which collects the all the principles and figures from the De Anima, and in that context, it’s very clear that he’s talking about objectivity,” he said.

“I encourage my students to pursue their own questions — not because someone has assigned them, but because they want to explore them — and to pursue them to their own satisfaction. That’s the essence of philosophy. And I am grateful for the opportunity to do that as well.”

For Kelsey, the NEH fellowship is not only an opportunity to take the time to delve deeply into his research, but it is also a chance to model the behavior he hopes to instill in his philosophy students.

“I encourage my students to pursue their own questions — not because someone has assigned them, but because they want to explore them — and to pursue them to their own satisfaction. That’s the essence of philosophy,” he said. “And I am grateful for the opportunity to do that as well.”

Kelsey, who has authored and edited more than a dozen articles and book chapters on ancient philosophy, received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1997. He taught at UCLA for more than 10 years before joining Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters in 2009.

He appreciates the University’s strength and diversity in the departments of philosophy and theology, he said.

“There is a lot of serendipity in philosophy,” Kelsey said. “You talk with a colleague about their work and you find that it resonates with something you’re doing. And because of the number of faculty we have, the opportunities are higher for that here.

“This is a place where I can talk with colleagues about the connections I see and try out ideas I have, and that has been very stimulating for me.”

Originally published by Carrie Gates at al.nd.edu on July 11, 2017.