Mellon Foundation Higher Learning 2024 Internal Competition

call for concepts

The Center for the Humanities is coordinating an internal competition for submissions to the Mellon Foundation 2024 Higher Learning Call for Concepts in two areas:

  • Cultures of US Democracy
  • Social Justice and Disciplinary Knowledge

The foundation anticipates allocating up to $10 million for this call for concepts (with anticipated grant amounts ranging between $250,000 and $500,000). Mellon Higher Learning staff will review all submissions and invite a small number of the most promising ones to be developed into full proposals for potential grant funding.

Because Washington University may submit only a limited number of applications for this opportunity, the Center for the Humanities will coordinate an internal competition. Please note that WashU applicants will not apply directly to the Mellon Foundation.

Important dates & details

Timeline

Monday, November 20, 2023 - internal competition deadline
Thursday, November 30, 2023 - finalists registered with Mellon Foundation
Thursday, February 15, 2024 - revised application submitted to Mellon Foundation
By Summer 2024 - Mellon invites full proposals from a selected group
November 2024 - Mellon makes awards
December 1, 2024 - Mellon funding begins; projects may have durations of up to three years

Eligibility

All faculty in the humanities and humanistic social sciences may participate in the internal competition.  

Grantmaking Areas

Cultures of U.S. Democracy: Extending beyond a discrete set of governmental practices, democracy additionally encompasses the circumstantial conditions that enable those practices to flourish, including a generalized capacity for thoughtful deliberation; broad respect for, acceptance of, engagement with, and even fostering of difference; and a prevailing ethic of reciprocity. Humanities scholars are especially well equipped to consider how such conditions—which are specifically cultural functions rather than properly political matters—can best be achieved, nurtured, and sustained within the increasingly complex and fractured society that is the United States. Related projects might explore what a democratic ethos is and how it comes to be; trace the manifestation of that ethos in certain artistic and cultural (or countercultural) practices (e.g., collective jazz improvisation); review imaginative strategies for negotiating demographic pluralism (e.g., speculative fiction, in either literary or cinematic form); or consider methods for promoting habits of intensive individual or collective reflection (e.g., contemplative retreat), among numerous other possibilities. We welcome submissions from scholars working in all areas of the humanities, particularly those seemingly far removed from questions of political philosophy and democratic theory.

Social Justice and Disciplinary Knowledge: Scholarly fields and disciplines are never merely “academic,” in that they aim to illuminate aspects of the world at large, well beyond the academy itself. Inasmuch as that larger world has always been characterized by various forms of division and inequity, even the most seemingly hermetic fields of inquiry must inevitably confront considerations of social justice in their respective areas of focus, manifest not only in the objects, ideas, methods, and communities they engage but also in their sense of disciplinary mission and cultural norms. We seek ideas for projects that best exemplify how specific disciplinary or interdisciplinary fields of study are equipped to reckon with issues of social justice, given the particular investigative and analytical methods they deploy. While we welcome submissions from across the humanities, we are especially interested in applications grounded in long-standing fields such as art history, classics, history, languages and literatures, musicology, philosophy, and religious studies. Preference will be given to projects that reflect explicitly on the relevant discipline’s or inter-discipline’s particular capacity for social justice analysis as well as its limits in this regard, and that propose concrete pedagogical, research, and/or community engaged efforts that have transformative potential for the institution and the wider field.

Allowed expenditures

Grant awards may be used for purposes such as (but not limited to):

  • Course releases for participating faculty (alternatively, faculty stipends or salary supplements will be considered on a case-by-case basis)
  • Course development funds
  • Funds for the implementation of experimental projects
  • Funds to support costs associated with workshops and reading, discussion, and/or action groups
  • Postdoctoral fellowships
  • Travel and convening expenses, such as speaker honoraria, catering, and childcare and eldercare expenses
  • Undergraduate research fellowships/stipends

How to apply

The internal competition deadline is Monday, November 20, 2023.

Application materials include the following:

  • A project concept of approximately 500 words. The text should describe your ideas for a potential project, including the rationale and specific activities it might involve. The note should clearly state the necessity of the planned work, its goals, potential impact and the fitness of the institution and/or network to the proposed work.
  • Selected grantmaking area identified (Cultures of U.S. Democracy or Social Justice and Disciplinary Knowledge).
  • CV for Principal Investigator (PI). Each proposal must have a single, lead PI who would serve as the main organizer of the proposed project. However, Co-PIs may be identified if relevant.

Please send materials to cenhumapp@wustl.edu. 

NOTE: Selected applicants will be notified in late November. The Center for the Humanities will work with the selected applicants on their final applications, including a proposed budget, to the Mellon Foundation in advance of its institutional application deadline of Thursday, February 15, 2024. 

Questions about this opportunity should be directed to Laura Perry, assistant director for research and public engagement, Center for the Humanities.