February 2008
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the School of Arts and Sciences and the University of Pennsylvania Press a grant of $750,000 over the next six years to support a publication program that advances humanistic scholarship in the area of Cross-Cultural Contacts.
Identified as one of five priority multidisciplinary initiatives in the School’s Strategic Plan, Cross-Cultural Contacts fosters the study of issues surrounding intercultural contact across boundaries of time, geography, language, and religious and cultural traditions. The Cross-Cultural Contacts Publication Program seeks to support the strategic initiatives of the School, Penn Press and the University by promoting integrated scholarship and teaching, and by enlarging and refining the Press’s editorial program to reflect and reinforce the University’s strengths in this area.
“Penn is exceptional among its peers in the strength and breadth of its research and teaching on cross-cultural issues, and the School of Arts and Sciences is committed to further investment in this area,” said SAS Dean Rebecca Bushnell. “The Cross-Cultural Contacts Publication Program will energize humanities scholarship on the complex challenges facing today’s global society.”
The program comprises four major components: the Cross-Cultural Contacts Distinguished Lecture Series, a human rights journal, books based on Cross-Cultural Contact courses, and a conference and publication fund. Scholars who participate in the lecture series will produce books based on their talks, and grant-funded University-wide conferences and seminars will also form the basis for a variety of publications.
“We're fortunate to benefit from a Mellon grant,” said Penn Press director Eric Halpern, “that will deepen connections between Penn Press and the University's academic core, that will make what we do even more relevant to Penn's scholarly community, and that will do so in a way that promises to be sustained beyond the life of the grant. We're grateful to the Mellon Foundation for giving us this welcome opportunity not only to serve scholarship in general but, especially, scholarship at Penn."
Previous initiatives the Foundation has supported at Penn include postdoctoral fellowships in the humanities, the Penn Program on Democracy, Citizenship and Constitutionalism and the Penn Humanities Forum.
