Author: Diana Potter Page 1 of 4

2024-2025 Affiliated Faculty Professional Development Fund Recipients

The Office of Research and Creative Scholarship congratulates this year’s recipients of Affiliated Faculty Professional Development Fund grants. The Affiliated Faculty Professional Development Fund (AFDF) supports the scholarly and creative activities of the affiliated faculty members of Emerson College. Applications are reviewed by Affiliated Faculty Professional Development Fund (AFDF) Committee.

Alexander Danner, Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing: Exercises in Sound: an exploration of storytelling in audio format

Barry Marshall, Department of Visual and Media Arts: Dany Silva: From Cape Verde and the African Diaspora in Portugal to the World

Beatriz Gonzalez-Flecha, Marlboro Institute: Attendance at “Build a Community of More Just and Mindful Educators” Workshop

Daniel DeFraia, Department of Journalism: Research at the National Archives in Washington, DC for a forthcoming scholarly paper on the Vietnam Task Force Records

David Bendiksen, Department of Visual and Media Arts: Trichrome Cinematography: Bringing 19th Century Color Technology into the 21st Century

David Jiles, Jr, Department of Performing Arts: Freeing The Natural Voice: Linklater Teacher Designation

Ellie Beargeon, Marlboro Institute: ‘Diverse Warriors’: The Intersection of Queer and Military Identities 2011-2021

Holly Tarnower, Department of Performing Arts: Attending the 2024 Educational Theater Association Theater Education Conference

Jennifer Walker, Department of Visual and Media Arts: MicroMedia Learning Series: The Exposure Triangle

Jesse Epstein, Department of Visual and Media Arts: Ruderal Species: A short-form documentary film exploring human migration, culture and behavior

Jocelyn E. Marshall, Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing: Dissent Nearby: Diasporic Feminism & U.S. Imperialism

John Krivit, Department of Visual and Media Arts: Los Vinilos de Gaitán: A Transdisciplinary Research Project

Jordan Escobar, Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing: AWP 2025 Panel Presentation: Poetry and Prose of Farm Laborers

Luis Arnías, Department of Visual and Media Arts: Macondoless: A feature film exploring the aftermath of the Venezuelan exodus (2014-present)

Maria Servellon, Department of Visual and Media Arts: Phantasma: a short film post-production

Mark Micheli, Department of Journalism: Paloma Quintana Pioneer Surfer Documentary

Mina Cho, Department of Performing Arts: Ajaeng (Korean traditional bowed zither) Blues Project

Patrick Marshall, Department of Visual and Media Arts: A Tidal Island of the Mind: a narrative feature film

Peter Hanly, Marlboro Institute: Seminar Leader at the Collegium Phaenomenologicum in Citta di Castello, Italy, July 2024

Emerson awarded three grants from National Endowment for the Arts

Emerson College has been awarded three Grants for Arts Projects awards from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support Emerson Contemporary, ArtsEmerson and HowlRound Theatre Commons. 

Grants for Arts Projects provides funding opportunities to strengthen the nation’s arts and cultural ecosystem. It is the National Endowment for the Arts’ largest grants program for organizations, with grants ranging from $10,000 to $100,000. In July 2023, the NEA received 2,129 eligible applications. Emerson’s three projects are among the 1,135 projects across America totaling more than $37 million that were selected during this second round of Grants for Arts Projects fiscal year 2024 funding.

This is the first time the college has received three awards in the same funding round, and it is the first NEA grant received by Emerson Contemporary.

Leonie Bradbury
Distinguished Curator-in-Residence, Emerson Contemporary

Emerson Contemporary was awarded its grant in the Media Arts category, for the purpose of supporting an exhibition series showcasing underrepresented artists in new media and digital art, and related public programming. The exhibitions will feature both New England and national and international artists, and examine themes such as the climate crisis, loss, collective trauma, and rituals of mourning. Each exhibition will include robust public program activities, intentional educational outreach and community engagement initiatives for Greater Boston.

Ronee Penoi
Interim Executive Director of the Office of the Arts & ArtsEmerson Director of Artistic Programming

ArtsEmerson was awarded its grant in the Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works category for the purpose of supporting the presentation of multidisciplinary works and related activities at ArtsEmerson. It will support the presentation of works by Theater Mitu and Beth Morrison Projects, which disrupt the narrative of the racialized prison system and reimagine our shared future as communal radical action.

Jamie Gahlon
Associate Vice President, Office of the Arts & Director and Co-Founder of HowlRound Theatre Commons

HowlRound Theatre Commons was awarded its grant in the Theater category for the purpose of supporting HowlRound’s Latinx Theatre Commons Carnaval of New Latinx Musicals, which will evolve the canon by developing three to six new works of musical theater by, for, and about Latine communities. The Carnaval will invite Latine and allied decision-makers and scholars to witness, engage with, and become advocates for the featured artists and pieces.

For more information on the projects included in the National Endowment for the Arts grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.

Faculty Team Awarded NEH Humanities Connections Grant

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded Emerson College a NEH Humanities Connections Planning Grant to develop a new interdisciplinary undergraduate major in climate and sustainability communication.

On April 16, the NEH announced $26.2 million for 238 humanities projects nationwide. These awards will support the preservation of historical collections, humanities exhibitions and documentaries, scholarly research, and curriculum projects. Emerson’s grant fits into the last category. The Humanities Connections program seeks to expand the role of the humanities in undergraduate education by encouraging partnerships between humanities faculty and their counterparts in other areas of study. This year, the Humanities Connections program received 106 applications and made 18 awards totaling $1.7 million.

Emerson received $49,978 to further develop an interdisciplinary, dynamic, and experiential undergraduate major in climate and sustainability communication. Four Emerson faculty representing the Marlboro Institute, the School of Communications and the School of the Arts are overseeing this one-year project which will bring together faculty from across the college to work on curriculum development and experiential learning in relation to communication around climate and sustainability, as well as student focus groups that will convene this fall. The project will culminate in the submission of a new major proposal to the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee next spring.

The four faculty co-project directors are Nejem Raheem, Professor and Chair of the Marketing Communication department, Jon Honea, Associate Professor in the Marlboro Institute, Rituparna Mitra, Assistant Professor and postcolonial scholar in the Marlboro Institute, and Christine Casson, senior writer-in-residence in the department of Writing, Literature and Publishing.

Nejem Raheem
Professor and Chair, Marketing Communication

Jon Honea
Associate Professor, Marlboro Institute and Director of the Honors Program

Rituparna Mitra
Assistant Professor, Marlboro Institute

Christine Casson
Senior Writer-in-Residence, Writing, Literature and Publishing

This award is a significant recognition in the realm of the humanities. The National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency created in 1965, supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from across the U.S.

This is not the first time Emerson has received an NEH grant. However, it is the College’s first Humanities Connections grant in support of major curriculum development. This award recognizes the connectivity of the humanities and the liberal arts to Emerson’s historic strengths in communications and the arts.

Three Emerson faculty awarded Whiting Travel Fellowships

Three Emerson College faculty were awarded Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation fellowships, funding their travel for research that will contribute to their courses and teaching. The Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation provides travel fellowships to New England university and college professors to study abroad and improve and enhance the quality of their instruction. This year, the foundation received 104 applications and awarded 46 fellowships. Since 2013, the Whiting Foundation has awarded fellowships to 16 Emerson faculty. This year’s Emerson fellows received approximately $7,000 in travel funding each.

Nejem Raheem
Professor and Chair, Marketing Communication

Nejem Raheem is a professor in the department of Marketing Communication. The Whiting Fellowship will support his project “Bringing the Tribunal de las Aguas to New Mexico.” In Spain, he will visit the Tribunal de las Aguas, affiliated irrigation systems, and the Universitat Politecnica in Valencia. In New Mexico he will visit the University of New Mexico, the Taos Pueblo, and the New Mexico State University’s Sustainable Agriculture Center in Alcalde. This project will contribute to the first-year interdisciplinary seminar in Sustainability Communication.

Korbett Matthews
Associate Professor and BFA Program Director, Visual and Media Arts

Korbett Matthews is an Associate Professor and documentary filmmaker in the Department of Visual and Media Arts. As part of his project “A Baltic Poetic Documentary Study” professor Matthews will travel to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to conduct research and screenings at The Eye Filmmuseusm, The Estonian Film Institute, The Latvian Film Center, The Lithuanian Film Center, The Baltic Audiovisual Archival Council and the National Film School of the Latvian Academy of Culture in order to understand the current state of documentary in the region and gain in-depth expertise of the Baltic Poetic movement and how the language of that new wave has helped shaped a new generation of documentary storytellers and artists.

Catherine Nguyen
Assistant Professor, Writing, Literature and Publishing

Catherine Nguyen is an assistant professor in the department of Writing, Literature and Publishing. The Whiting Fellowship will support her project “New Sites of the Vietnamese Diaspora: The Vietnamese in Germany.” She will travel to Germany to explore and learn more about the Vietnamese diaspora in Germany, collect and gather research materials and connect with Vietnamese German cultural producers. This project is part of her new research work as well as part of a new course she is designing called “Creating the Vietnamese Diaspora: Literature, Film, and Art.”

Norman and Irma Mann Stearns Distinguished Faculty Award: 2024-25 Recipients

The Office of Research and Creative Scholarship is pleased to announce the recipients of this year’s Norman and Irma Mann Stearns Distinguished Faculty Award. Established by the late Dr. Norman Stearns and Emerson alumna Irma Mann Stearns ’67, this award honors a full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member in recognition of outstanding scholarly or creative achievement. A $3,000 award is presented annually to at least one applicant. Funding may be used to enhance an ongoing project or for the development of a new scholarly or creative endeavor. Travel is strongly encouraged to be a part of the project activity.

Adam Franklin-Lyons
Associate Professor, Marlboro Institute

Adam-Franklin Lyons is an Associate Professor in the Marlboro Institute. A former member of the Marlboro College faculty, Dr. Franklin-Lyons is interested in almost anything Medieval. He will use the Mann Stearns award to travel to Spain to gather a collection of 360-degree photos from strategic lookouts used during the medieval period, as part of his project entitled “Visualizing Networks of Medieval Communication: Photographs and Maps of Medieval Lookout Points.” The result will be an interactive map demonstrating the connections and limits of urban communication in the fourteenth-century Crown of Aragon.

Malic Amalya
Assistant Professor, Visual and Media Arts

Malic Amalya is an Assistant Professor in the department of Visual and Media Arts whose films attend to the emotional impact of attachment and estrangement, and the corresponding political repercussions of alliances and enmities. Professor Amalya will use the Mann Stearns award to support the production of a new film, “New Earth: a 16mm Experimental Documentary Film about the Mythos of Flight” Currently in development, “New Earth” critically examines cultural metaphors, values, doctrines, and practices connected to colonialism and flight. The Mann Stearns award will support travel to Florida to film the Kennedy Space Center, including a SpaceX rocket launching.

External Funding Opportunities: Spring 2024

The Office of Research & Creative Scholarship would like to share several popular funding sources accepting applications this spring. If you are interested in any of these opportunities, please reach out to the ORCS office.

Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts
Applications due February 25, 2024
The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts fosters the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. The Graham realizes this vision through making project-based grants to individuals and organizations and producing exhibitions, events, and publications.

NEA Creative Writing Fellowships
Applications due March 13, 2024
The National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowships program offers $25,000 grants in prose (fiction and creative nonfiction) and poetry to published creative writers that enable recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement. Applications are reviewed for artistic excellence and artistic merit of the submitted manuscript. In 2024, the program is accepting applications for fellowships in poetry. Fellowships in prose will be accepted in March, 2025.

Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship Program
Applications due early April, 2024
The Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship Program is nurturing a new generation of serious and enterprising journalists. This year-long program allows writers early in their careers to pursue projects they otherwise would be unable to research and report. Applicants should have less than 10 years’ experience as professional journalists and must be U.S. citizens. There are three tiers to the program: Fellowships provide up to $35,000 in grant money and expense assistance. Full Fellowships, which require that recipients devote their full-time efforts to their project, provide up to $75,000. Alumni Fund Fellowships provide support for recipients to write one in-depth, major essay on their topic.

Creative Capital
Applications due April 4, 2024
The Creative Capital Foundation welcomes innovative and original new project proposals in visual arts, performing arts, film/moving image, technology, literature, multidisciplinary, and socially engaged forms for its 2024 grant cycle. Creative Capital is one of the only non-profit organizations to offer awards to individual artists through an open application process; therefore, it is very competitive, with less than 1% of applicants receiving awards. Creative Capital provides each funded project with up to $50,000 in direct funding, and career development services valued at $45,000. In recent years, more than 75% of awardees have been artists of color—including Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous artists—of all ages, abilities, and regions across the United States.

National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowships
Applications due April 10, 2024
NEH Fellowships support individuals pursuing advanced research that is of value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both. Recipients usually produce articles, monographs, books, digital materials, archaeological site reports, translations, editions, or other scholarly resources in the humanities. Award amount ranges from $30,000 to $60,000 for a 6-12 month project period. Faculty may not teach during the grant period.

Boston Athenaeum Fellowship
Applications due April 15, 2024
The Boston Athenaeum (next to campus at 10-1/2 Beacon St) offers short-term fellowships to support the use of Athenaeum collections for research, publication, curriculum and program development, or other creative projects. Each fellowship pays a stipend for a four-week residency and includes a year’s membership to the Boston Athenaeum. Scholars, graduate students, independent scholars, teaching faculty, and professionals in the humanities as well as teachers and librarians in secondary public, private, and parochial schools are eligible to apply.

NEH Humanities Initiative at Colleges and Universities
Applications due May 7, 2024
The NEH Humanities Initiative at Colleges & Universities strengthens the teaching and study of the humanities at institutions of higher education by developing new humanities programs, resources (including those in digital format), or courses, or by enhancing existing ones. Projects must be organized around a core topic or set of themes drawn from such areas of study in the humanities as history, philosophy, religion, literature, and composition and writing skills. The project period can be between 1-3 years and the total award is up to $150,000.

Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program
Applications due May 15, 2024
The Arts Writers grant supports writers who are writing about contemporary visual art. Ranging from $15,000 to $50,000 in three categories—articles, books, and short-form writing—these grants support projects addressing both general and specialized art audiences, from short reviews for magazines and newspapers to in-depth scholarly studies. The foundation also supports art writing that engages criticism through interdisciplinary methods or experiments with literary styles. As long as a writer meets the eligibility and publishing requirements, they can apply.

Institute for Humane Studies Grants for Course Buyouts
Rolling Deadline; due at least 6 months before the start of the requested semester.
The Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University provides funding to full-time faculty members from various disciplines at research and teaching institutions for course buyouts and salary support in order to work on their research projects and prepare them for publication.

Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation
Rolling Deadline
The Delmas foundation intends to further the humanities along a broad front, supporting projects which address the concerns of the historical studia humanitatis: a humanistic education rooted in the great traditions of the past; the formation of human beings according to cultural, moral, and aesthetic ideals derived from that past; and the ongoing debate over how these ideals may best be conceived and realized. Programs in the following areas are eligible: history; archaeology; literature; languages, both classical and modern; philosophy; ethics; comparative religion; the history, criticism, and theory of the arts; and those aspects of the social sciences which share the content and methods of humanistic disciplines. The Foundation welcomes projects that cross the boundaries between humanistic disciplines and explore the connection between the humanities and other areas of scholarship.

Faculty Spotlight: 2023–2024

Mneesha Gellman, Associate Professor, Marlboro Institute and Director of the Emerson Prison Initiative was awarded a grant from the New World Foundation to support the Emerson Prison Initiative and its newly-launched Reentry and College Outside Program (RECOUP) to support returning citizens. The New World Foundation supports leaders and organizations that advance democracy, protect community and build a humane social vision.

Assistant Professor in the department of Communication Studies Deion Hawkins authored an article “Lack of access to health care is partly to blame for skyrocketing HIV rates among gay Black men,” published in The Conversation. The article explores the disproportionately high rates of HIV among Black gay and bisexual men in the United States and concludes that structural barriers, such as lack of access to healthcare, affordability issues, and social stigma and discrimination, are the primary drivers of the HIV disparities faced by the Black queer community, and addressing these inequities is crucial to improving health outcomes.

Professor of civic media and the director of the Engagement Lab Eric Gordon co-authored a case study article published in the journal CoDesign. The article explores the Emerson College based storytelling initiative “Transforming Narratives of Gun Violence (TNGV)”, which seeks to transform dominant narratives of gun violence that are harmful and dehumanizing by centering the perspectives of those most impacted, highlighting the potential of collaborative critical making, a practice that unites critical thinking and hands-on experiments to encourage learning by doing to transform harmful narratives and promote social change.

Communication Sciences & Disorders Professor Ruth Grossman was interviewed by Emerson Today about her research on the intersection of autism and gender. Grossman’s goal is to raise awareness and understanding of autism across neurotypes, examining how first impressions and assumptions influence interactions between autistic and neurotypical individuals. Professor Grossman is currently on leave as a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University.On April 10, she presented some of her findings in an online talk hosted by the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. 

Wyatt Oswald, a professor in the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts & Interdisciplinary Studies, co-authored a preprint article currently under review for the international scientific journal  Climate of the Past. The article discusses vegetation-atmosphere interactions as a possible explanation for the Holocene Conundrum, a widely studied mismatch between simulated and reconstructed temperatures. Using sedimentary pollen records, the research team aims to determine the pattern and magnitude of North American land cover changes at continental to regional scales.

Malic Amalya, Assistant Professor of Experimental Media and 16mm Film Production, organized a film  showcase on March 29th, in collaboration with two Emerson graduate students as part of a year-long 100th birthday celebration of 16mm film. The event was organized in collaboration with AgX, an artist-run film lab and collective, and featured work of AgX members, including Visual and Media Arts Professor Kathryn Ramey.

Kathryn Ramey, Professor and Associate chair of the department of visual and media arts will be screening her film “El Signo Vacío” (the empty sign) on Sunday, May 5 at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge as part of the International Film Festival Boston. Professor Ramey’s film, about the ongoing U.S. occupation of Puerto Rico, was initially supported by an Emerson College Faculty Advancement Fund Grant (FAFG) in 2018.

Marketing Communication associate professor Naa Amoponsah Dodoo co-authored a research article published in March 2024 in the Journal of Advertising. Her research paper “Disclosing AI’s Involvement in Advertising to Consumers: A Task-Dependent Perspective” examines how the disclosure of AI affects consumers’ word-of-mouth (WOM) intent in relation to ads through experimental studies.

Associate professor and director of the Emerson Prison Initiative Mneesha Gellman has a new book “Misrepresentation and Silence in United States History Textbooks: The Politics of Historical Oblivion,” published Open Access by Palgrave Macmillan. The free publication was made possible by the Leibnitz Institute for Educational Media at the Georg Eckert Institute in Germany, where Gellman was awarded a fellowship in 2022. Read more in Emerson Today.

Communication Studies associate professor and Chair J. Gregory Payne co-authored a book chapter “Studying FC Barcelona as a Corporate Body” published in the 2024 Routledge book FC Barcelona: History, Politics and Identity. The chapter analyzes the Barcelona Football Club as a global corporate entity and proposes brand territories in which the football (soccer) club can achieve a competitive advantage over its rivals.

Affiliated faculty in Writing, Literature & Publishing and Visual & Media Arts, Jocelyn Marshall was awarded a Yellow Door Fellowship from the Prospect Street Writers House, which will support her hybrid memoir project. She has also been invited to the Editorial Board of Art Journal, a service which aligns with her commitment to ensuring marginalized histories are widely published and discussed, especially in regard to research related to women, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC artists.

Professor of civic media and journalism Paul Mihailidis co-authored a research article “Researching Social Media and Activism With Children and Youth: A Scoping Review,” published in the International Journal of Communication. The article explores  current research on social media and activism involving children and youth and concludes that current research has limited inclusion of diverse participants and future research should prioritize inclusivity.

Associate professor of Communication Sciences & Disorders, Rhiannon Luyster, co-authored a research paper “Do focused interests support word learning? A study with autistic and nonautistic children,” published in March 2024 in Autism Research, the official journal of The International Society for Autism Research. The article examines if autistic and non-autistic children who have focused interests have advantages in word learning.

Marketing Communications professor Thomas Vogel co-authored an article “How does generative artificial intelligence impact student creativity?” published in the April, 2024 issue of the Journal of Creativity, the official journal of the Academy of Creativity. The article explores the role of AI on student creative thinking.

Marketing Communication associate professor Roxana Maiorescu-Murphy has a new research article published in Business and Professional Communication Quarterly. “An Analysis of Online Perceptions in Response to Microsoft’s and Google’s Sexual Harassment Scandals” explores corporate diversity and crisis management through the analyzation of Google’s and Microsoft’s sexual harassment scandals. The findings provide implications for the practice of communication management with respect to scandals.

Associate professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders Robin Danzak co-authored an article, “Family is About Who Loves You: Exploring the Adoption Journey With Photos and Stories” published in the January, 2024 issue of the The International Journal of Reminiscence and Life Review. Her research takes a novel approach in using images, photovoice and focus group methods to research the adoption phenomenon experienced by both adoptees and their families.

Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies professor Tulasi Srinivas will be speaking at Boston University this spring on her latest research on the climate crisis and water in Bangalore, India that she developed with support from Emerson’s Office of Research and Creative Scholarship as well as Harvard Divinity School and the Henry Luce Foundation.

Performing Arts professor Magda Romanska has a research article, “The Bionic Body: Disability, Technology and Posthumanism” published in the 2024 issue of the Journal of Body, Space & Technology, a journal of contemporary artistic practice and research published by the Open Library of Humanities (OLH). Her article explores the new field of critical posthuman disability studies and its engagement with modern technologies.

Visual and Media Arts professor John Gianvito received a 2023 Ford Foundation JustFilms grant through the non-profit Documentary Educational Resources for the production of “Her Socialist Smile,” a documentary film which explores Helen Keller’s advocacy for social justice.

Marketing Communication professor Seounmi Han (Katie) Youn co-authored an article, “Social Presence and Imagery Processing as Predictors of Chatbot Continuance Intention in Human-AI-Interaction,” which was published in a 2023 Special issue on AI in Human-Computer Interaction in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction. The article explores what factors drive consumers to use artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots.

Communication Sciences & Disorders Scholar-In-Residence Maryam Salehomoum co-authored “Assessment in Farsi–English Emerging Bilingual Children: A Tutorial” published in the December, 2023 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Special Interest Group publication on Cultural and Linguistic Diversity. The tutorial highlights the need for culturally sensitive assessments of bilingual children with regard to their language learning histories.

Journalism professor Paul Mihailidis co-authored a research article “Designing equitable media literacy interventions for critical youth agency” published in January, 2024 in the peer-reviewed SAGE Journal Global Studies of Childhood. The article detailed findings from a national study of impactful media literacy that Professor Mihaildis co-conducted with collaborators at the University of Iowa and Syracuse University among others, and shares the process for creating a Field Guide for Equitable Media Literacy Practices.

Affiliated faculty in Writing, Literature & Publishing and Visual & Media Arts, Jocelyn Marshall received a professional development grant from the Modern Language Association. She also received Honorable Mention for the College Art Association’s Professional Development Fellowship in Art History. The exhibition catalog she co-edited for a 2023 Mellon Foundation-funded exhibition she co-curated in partnership with SUNY University at Buffalo has been released digitally with support from SUNY Press.

Part-time faculty and cultural strategist and co-founder of HowlRound Vijay Mathew will be leading a subject matter expert webinar for the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP) in May, 2024. His presentation will be the first time faculty/staff from Emerson is represented at IAAP as an expert contributing to the body of knowledge and practice in the accessibility space.

Comedic Arts assistant professor Ken Feil contributed to a new book, Rolling: Blackness and Mediated Comedy which will be released in April, 2024 by Indiana University Press. This edited volume covers a range of cases representing African American humor across film, television, digital media, and stand-up comedy.

Communication Sciences and Disorders assistant professor Lindsay Griffin recently co-authored a research article, Lingual Pressure Generation Measures Using Two Devices, in the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. The research was conducted at Emerson in 2021–2022 and at Samford University, Case Western Reserve University, James Madison University and Texas Christian University.

Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies professor Tulasi Srinivas was featured on a January 2024 New Books Network podcast in which she discussed her 2023 book Wonder in South Asia, published by SUNY Press.

Communication Studies assistant professor Lauren C. Anderson has a new research article published in December, 2023 in the academic journal Communication & Sport. Revisiting the Relationship Between Sports Fandom and the Black Criminal Stereotype examines whether sports fans’ perceptions of “the Black criminal stereotype” in athletes have changed over the past several years, especially in light of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Writing, Literature & Publishing assistant professor John Rodzvilla has a book review published in the December, 2023 issue of The Journal of Web Librarianship. His piece, Open Access Literature in Libraries (book review) reviews the authors’ assertion that Open Access has evolved into the most complex challenge of the scholarly publishing, and best practices are needed for librarians to confidently engage with Open Access.

Marketing Communication assistant professor Eric Hogue has a new research article published in December, 2023 in the academic journal Applied Economics. “The complementary relationship between live performances and post-concert streaming for top-performing artists” examines the complementary effects of live concerts on incremental post-concert music streams in 29 US cities, with the aim to gain insight into the influence of live performance on post-concert streaming of artists’ recorded music.

Marlboro Institute associate professor Adam Franklin-Lyons has a book review published in the Fall 2023 issue of The Catholic Historical Review. His piece, The Keys to Bread and Wine: Faith, Nature, and Infrastructure in Late Medieval Valencia by Abigail Agresta (review) reviews the author’s assertion of the coexistence of both religious and technological responses to environmental crises in medieval Spain.

Journalism Assistant Professor Zhao Peng has a new research article published in the academic journal Information, Communication & Society. “A privacy calculus model perspective that explains why parents sharent” investigates what factors explain parents’ sharenting behaviors. Sharenting refers to the practice of parents, caregivers or relatives sharing information about their children online.

Marlboro Institute Assistant Professor Ian McManus recently published an article “Workforce automation risks across race and gender in the United States” in the American Journal of Economics and Society. The article examines different effects of workforce automation across race and gender in the US.

Marlboro Institute Associate Professor Lindsay Beck co-authored a paper “Increases in Intellectual Humility from Guided Conversations are Greater When People Perceive Affiliation with Conversation Partners” published on the education platform The Constructive Dialogue Institute. The paper examines factors that support long-term changes in intellectual humility, including affiliative interactions with new conversation partners.

Professor and Director of the Engagement Lab, Eric Gordon, co-authored a recent article, “Applied visual art for codesign: three case studies of emergent practices,” published in CoDesign: International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts. Codesign is a set of practices that facilitate collaboration in the design process, leading to shared investment in outcomes. The article reviews three case studies and concludes that applied visual art has great potential to support codesign.

Associate professor and director of the Emerson Prison Initiative Mneesha Gellman was featured on the New Books Network podcast, discussing the book Education Behind the Wall: Why and How We Teach College in Prison. Gellman edited the book, which examines different aspects of teaching in prison. Read more in Emerson Today.

Journalism Assistant Professor Gino Canella‘s research article “Cinematic journalism: the political economy and ‘emotional truth’ of documentary film” was recently published in the academic journal Studies in Documentary Film. Professor Canella’s research examines documentary’s surging popularity among news outlets and its effects on journalistic norms.

Journalism Associate Professor of American Studies, Roger House, wrote an opinion piece for The Messenger about how President Joe Biden can stop his slipping support from Black male voters. Read more in Emerson Today.

Journalism Associate Professor Azeta Hatef wrote an article for the Los Angeles Review of Books about Hulu’s new reality television show Secrets & Sisterhood: The Sozahdahs. The show provides a complicated perspective about growing up Afghan in the United States. Read more in Emerson Today.

Marlboro Institute Associate Professor Mneesha Gellman was interviewed by Bill Ayers on his Under the Tree Podcast on Indigenous Peoples’ Day about her research on the benefits of indigenous languages in the public school classroom and the opposition it faces. Professor Gellman is the author of Indigenous Language Politics in the Schoolroom: Cultural Survival in Mexico and the United States. Read more in Emerson Today.

Communication Sciences and Disorders Assistant Professor Lindsay Griffin co-authored a research article, “Dysphonia Outperforms Voice Change as a Clinical Predictor of Dysphagia,” in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. The study investigated if voice change or disorders of the voice after swallowing are valid predictors of dysphagia (swallowing difficulties).

Marlboro Institute Assistant Professor Ioana Jucan recently released a new book, Malicious Deceivers: Thinking Machines and Performative Objects published in August, 2023 by Stanford University Press. The book unpacks the notion of fakeness through the related logics of dissimulation (deception) and simulation (performativity) as seen with software/AI, television, plastics, and the internet. Read more in Emerson Today.

Communication Sciences and Disorders Professor Ruth Grossman is one of five investigators receiving a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the project “Ready to CONNECT: Conversation and Language in Autistic Teens,” funded by the NIH’s National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders. Read more in Emerson Today. Read more in Emerson Today.

Communication Studies Professor Richard West has been named the winner of the National Communication Association’s (NCA) 2023 Samuel L. Becker Distinguished Service Award in recognition of a lifetime of contributions to the field of communication. Read more in Emerson Today.

Visual & Media Arts Assistant Professor Ougie Pak was selected to participate in the 2023 TIFF Filmmaker Lab, a talent development program which provides directors with an exceptional professional development experience at the Toronto International Film Festival and an introduction to the global community of filmmaking.

Visual & Media Arts affiliated faculty Heather Cassano is the recipient of a 2023 LEF/CIFF Fellowship, the LEF Foundation’s partnership with Points North Institute to support five New England-based filmmaker teams to attend the Camden International Film Festival and connect with other filmmakers and industry leaders.

Writing, Literature & Publishing Associate Professor Benoit Denizet-Lewis received a Public Scholars award from the National Endowment for the Humanities for his upcoming book, We Don’t Know You Anymore: Identity Change in America. The NEH Public Scholars program offers grants to individual authors for research, writing, travel, and other activities leading to the publication of well-researched nonfiction books in the humanities.

Assistant professor Novuyo Tshuma‘s new novel ‘Digging Stars’ debuted on September 12, 2023, and was reviewed by the New York Times. Blending drama and satire while examining the complexities of colonialism, racism, and being American, ‘Digging Stars’ probes the universes of love, friendship, family and nationhood.

Associate Professor Vincent Raynauld and his co-author Mireille Lalance at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières won a 2023 Best Paper Award from The Northeastern Political Science Association. “The Hyper-Masculine Campaign: Party Leader Brand Image, Heteronormativity, and the 2021 Canadian Federal Election,” won in the Identity Issues Best Paper category.

Film & Media Funding: AY23–24

Many Emerson School of the Arts and VMA faculty have expressed interest in finding funding for narrative and documentary film, and media projects. ORCS has prepared a list of film and media funders to get you started.

Some of these funders make awards to individual artists; some may require a fiscal sponsor. Emerson can serve as a fiscal sponsor many of those cases. Please contact us at orcs@emerson.edu for more details.

Funder Name

Film Type/Topic

Next Deadline

narrative fiction feature film related to science, technology or economics in distribution phase

Application open: rolling deadline

documentary film, new works by New England filmmakers: all stages of production

August 31, 2023: Development/Pre-Production
January, 2024 (expected): Production/Post-production

public media film & television projects representing culture & experience of Native Americans

September 30, 2023
December 31, 2023
March 31, 2024
June 30, 2024

documentaries for public television about Asian Americans: production or post-production

October, 2023 (expected)

documentary; short film; feature film

October 31, 2023
March 31, 2024
June 30, 2024

documentary films related to California: Research & Development, Production

November 1, 2023

social issue documentary films highlighting Asian American narratives: research & development and early production

November, 2023 (expected)

feature-length documentaries addressing social issues: advanced development, production & post-production

November 15, 2023
May 15, 2024

small grants to individuals for independent film/media projects focused on environment or climate crisis

December, 2023 (expected)

short films, feature films, new media projects: development, production, post-production

January 1, 2024
June 1, 2024
August 1, 2024

documentary films, radio programs, podcasts that engage with humanities: development, production & distribution

January 10, 2024

non-fiction projects, priority to raising underrepresented voices

Early 2024

long form, shorts or episodic documentaries, podcasts, radio documentaries engaging in climate conversation

February, 2024 (expected)

narrative feature films that address social justice issues: screenwriting, development, or post-production

March, 2024 (expected)

documentaries & limited series on the Latino experience: production & post-production, limited research & development funds

June, 2024 (expected)

documentary producers with deep roots in southern states: AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV. Projects in production only.

August, 2024 (expected)

Applicants of color working on standard-length non-fiction projects that have not begun production

August, 2024 (expected)

Summary of Emerson’s Internal Grant Programs: AY23–24

Emerson has a number of internal grant programs with deadlines in the Fall and Spring semesters. Here is a summary of what grant programs are offered this fall, and which ones to look for in the spring.

Graduate Student Research Assistant Program (GRA)
due annually in October; limited spring funding may be available
2023 Deadline: October 20, 2023
2024 Limited Spring Deadline: February 2, 2024

Formed from a partnership between the Graduate Student Association, the Office of Graduate Studies, and the Office of Research and Creative Scholarship, the Graduate Research Assistantship (GRA) grant intends to extend students’ classroom learning, expose them to current challenges in their discipline, build analytical skills, and provide a meaningful work experience that will also benefit faculty in the development of their research and scholarship agenda. Through this program, we also hope to encourage external grant applications that include graduate research assistants.

Faculty Advancement Fund Grant (FAFG)
due annually in December; Pre-Approval forms due annually in November.
2023 Pre-Approval Deadline: November 1, 2023
2023 Application Deadline: December 1, 2023

The Faculty Advancement Fund Grant (FAFG) supports the scholarly and creative activities of the full‐time tenured and tenure-track faculty members. The Fund was established to enable the professional work of Emerson’s faculty in its efforts to sustain academic excellence in teaching, research/creative activity, and service. The Faculty Advancement Fund Grant supports proposals deemed likely to substantially improve the quality of research, publication, creative activities, teaching, and service that advance the mission of the College and the careers of its faculty.

Affiliated Faculty Development Fund (AFDF)
2024 Deadline: March 15, 2024

The Affiliated Faculty Professional Development Fund (AFDF) supports the scholarly and creative activities of the affiliated faculty members of Emerson College. The AFDF will provide support for approved projects up to $1,500 each. Types of activities include travel and expenses leading to the production of scholarly, creative and artistic works, conference attendance, faculty development seminars, etc.

Presidential Fund for Curricular Innovation (PFCI)
2024 Application Deadline: April 8, 2024

Internationalization, diversity, equity, and inclusion are strategic priorities for Emerson. Inclusive approaches to curriculum development and equitable pedagogical practices help ensure that learning experiences at Emerson are designed to foster student success in a culturally diverse and global society. The aim is to offer curricula that assists students in developing the required critical consciousness, values, awareness, skills and knowledge of differences to thrive as culturally competent, global citizens.

In 2024, the PFCI will support faculty participation in a Faculty Development Seminar in Ghana. The purpose of this seminar is to provide an intensive short-term faculty development experience that builds on Emerson’s capacity for international education and the internationalization of the curriculum. Faculty selected for the Seminar will receive airfare, lodging and meals for 10 days in Ghana in July, 2024.

Diversity Fellows Program
due annually in Spring; check back for more information on 2024 cycle.

The Diversity Fellows Program (formerly known as the Inclusive Excellence Fellows Program) is an annual, cohort-based program. This program invites full-time and affiliated faculty participants to critically reflect upon the relationship between social realities, social futures, and their pedagogical practices. Each Fellow will develop goals unique to one of the courses they teach and a pedagogical action plan based on intertwining sociocultural knowledge, content and industry-based knowledge, and empowering pedagogical practices. Fellows will be compensated $1,000.

Norman & Irma Mann Stearns Distinguished Faculty Award
due annually in April; Pre-Approval forms due annually in March
2024 Pre-Approval Deadline: March 18, 2o24
2024 Application Deadline: April 8, 2024

Several years ago, the late Dr. Norman Stearns and Irma Mann Stearns, class of 1967, established a distinguished faculty award to honor a full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member in recognition of outstanding scholarly or creative achievement. A $3,000 award is presented annually to one applicant. This funding may be used to enhance an ongoing project or for the development of a new scholarly or creative endeavor. Travel is strongly encouraged to be a part of the project activity.

Kasteel Well Faculty Development Fund (KFDF)
2024 Application Deadline: May 20, 2024

The Kasteel Well Faculty Development Fund (KFDF) supports the scholarly and creative activities of the affiliated faculty members of the Emerson College Kasteel Well Program in the Netherlands. Castle administrative staff manage the fund with assistance from the Office of Research and Creative Scholarship (ORCS). Small grants of up to $500 are offered from a total available funding pool of $1,500.

Greenhawt Family Fund
no fixed deadline

Jeffrey Greenhawt ’68 and Jan Jacobs Greenhawt ’69 have generously provided a gift to Emerson College for the expressed purpose of enabling Emerson faculty to procure resources that might assist them in obtaining external project support. The aim is to assist faculty who desire to pursue external funding for their research and scholarly endeavors, but lack experience in writing successful proposals, or the mentoring connections in grantsmanship that are common at larger institutions.

Funds can be used for activities such as travel to meet with a faculty mentor at another institution for the purpose of assisting in writing a proposal; fees to attend a workshop or seminar on proposal writing and grantsmanship; or consulting services in proposal writing or proposal review. A limited number of grants between $500 and $2,000 will be awarded each year.

Faculty Fellowship Opportunities: Fall 2023

As the summer comes to a close, it’s a good time to start thinking ahead to the fall, when a lot of fellowship applications are due. Fellowships have deadlines all year, but a large majority are due in the fall (September through December) for the following academic year.

This post provides examples of some fellowships of interest to Emerson faculty that are due this fall.

For more information about fellowships, how they can supplement a pre-tenure or sabbatical leave, or when to apply for one, please contact us at orcs@emerson.edu.

Fellowship Name

Discipline/Topic

Deadline

Arts, humanities, sciences & social sciences

September 14, 2023

Research abroad, many countries

September 15, 2023

scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts

September 16, 2023

Humanities, theme-based. The 2024-25 theme is “Silence” (what is missing)

September 20, 2023

all disciplines of the humanities and related social sciences

September 28, 2023

residential fellowship at Stanford Humanities Center

October 1, 2023

science, engineering, and mathematics

October 5, 2023

all fields of the humanities, natural and social sciences, and the arts; residential fellowship

October 5, 2023

Historical studies, social sciences, sciences, math; residential fellowship

October 15, 2023

minority faculty; commitment to racial justice

October 20, 2023

American history; theme-based. Check back for 2024 theme

November 28, 2023

Book for general public

November 29, 2023

junior faculty; funds projects that will make field/campus more inclusive

December 1, 2023

Page 1 of 4

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén