Current Themes and Calls for Research Proposals

The American Communities Program, 2024-26
Call for Fellowship Proposals


RE/CONSTRUCTIONS

The ACP theme will be in effect for two consecutive years, from 2024-26, which will enable faculty to plan ahead for fellowship applications as well as collaborate with the ACP on programming and curricular initiatives. The deadline for fellowship applications for 2024-25 is Friday, April 26, 2024 @ 5pm.

Submission guidelines are at the end of the announcement.

Through our theme, we offer an opportunity to analyze, question, and reimagine historical, current, and possible re/constructions both material and immaterial (of the built environment, language, ideologies, aesthetics and genre, systems and structures, to name just a few). We seek original research proposals that analyze, in some way, issues of re/constructions and the unique ways in which they occur and are represented in humanities-based inquiry. We especially encourage submissions that interrogate and theorize the theme and do not take it as a face-value starting point; we invite faculty to interpret the theme broadly.


Questions we may ask include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • How do we theorize the idea of re/constructions?
  • What are the utopic dimensions of re/construction?
  • How have our local, surrounding communities been re/constructed, or how should they be?
  • Including but not limited to the period of Reconstruction in US history, how have specific spaces or systems been re/constructed in various historical moments to include or exclude specific bodies or flows?
  • How can we nuance and complicate our understanding of the connections between re/constructions and metaphors of time, progress, and development? What relationships between destruction and re/construction obtain, and what are their implications?
  • How are issue of re/construction represented aesthetically and formally, including in terms of narrative structure, genre, and medium?
  • How and to what effects have language and rhetoric been manipulated or undergone re/constructions for liberatory and/or oppressive functions?
  • How can disciplines such as history and political science illuminate the phenomenon of re/constructing history as political strategy?
  • How might specific re/constructions enable and/or foreclose particular solidarities, collectivities, or dissent?
  • What material and imaginative conditions are required to manifest particular re/constructions?

Tenured and tenure-track faculty at Cal State LA are invited to submit proposals for two different fellowship programs: 1) ACP Working Group Fellowships (working groups may include graduate and advanced undergraduate students) and 2) ACP Individual Fellowships.

Interdisciplinary Working Group Fellowships

The ACP seeks to strengthen the humanities by bringing together colleagues and students from across campus for discussion and critical analyses of important issues in public and intellectual life. These fellowships seek to nurture and inspire our scholarly/pedagogical/creative/civic engagement activities in the humanities through the exploration of shared interests, themes, methodologies, and/or projects. To this end, the ACP continues the IWG fellowships, which award up to $500 to fund informal, interdisciplinary working groups in the humanities. A tenured or tenure-track faculty member must be the primary organizer, but working groups may include graduate and advanced undergraduate students. Money may be used to support a reading/writing group; to fund working lunches, workshops, meetings, or off-campus fieldtrips; or to pay for other relevant expenses. If your working group is especially fruitful and leads to further plans and projects, additional funding may be available.

To apply: Send a letter of interest explaining 1) the theme of your working group and a description of the issues and questions involved, 2) the name of the primary organizer of the group and a list of members and their affiliations, and 3) a description of the kinds of activities you expect your group to undertake with a list of itemized, anticipated costs.

Working Group Requirements:

  • Groups must meet at least three times during the academic year.
  • Funds must be spent on joint activities. This program is meant to support collegial activities of faculty members and students engaged in advanced work.
  • Funds must be spent and receipts submitted by May 1 of the academic year awarded.
  • The working group organizer is responsible for the management of these funds.
  • By May 10 of the year awarded, the organizer will submit a report of the group’s activities to the director of the ACP. 

Individual Fellowships

Preference will be given to proposals that best demonstrate a nuanced engagement with and interrogation of the theme in innovative and meaningful ways. One of the fellowships, the Bailey Fellowship, may be awarded to an original project that applies this year's research theme to African American communities and/or individuals and preferably involves archival materials.

The program welcomes proposals from the arts that can be presented in a lecture/recital. All proposals, however, must include a research or analytical component based in the humanities. The fellowship awards 3 units of reassigned time and may include a $500 stipend for a student assistant or other project-related expenses.

Application materials consist of a two-page curriculum vitae, a 500-word research proposal, and a projected budget for research-related expenditures (up to $500 may be awarded). Proposals should explain the relevance of the proposed project to this year's research theme and the originality and significance of the research. Fellows must present their research at the ACP's Spring 2025 symposium.

Application Materials

Please submit an electronic copy of your application with ACP FELLOWSHIP
APPLICATION in the subject line to

Dr. Maria Karafilis
mkarafi@calstatela.edu
Joseph A. Bailey II, M.D. Endowed Chair of American Communities
Director, CAL STATE LA/NEH American Communities Program

The submission deadline for 2024-25 fellowship applications is Friday, April 26, 2024 @ 5pm.