In Fall 2019, the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities (now the Humanities Research Institute) was awarded a $2 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant supports Interseminars, an initiative designed to build communities of inquiry among graduate students and faculty at Illinois around emerging research directions in the interdisciplinary humanities and arts. The initiative will fund interdisciplinary and collaborative research groups, which will be chosen through a competitive process beginning in Fall 2021.
In the process, Interseminars will help to prepare graduate students to be adept at both navigating and actively shaping the kind of higher education landscapes and cultures they want to see in the 21st century.
The initiative will also support interdisciplinary approaches to research and teaching with a diverse graduate student population at the forefront.
The Humanities Research Institute (HRI) promotes interdisciplinary study in the humanities, arts and social sciences at Illinois through lectures, symposia and panel discussions on a wide variety of topics, and provides awards that recognize excellence in humanities research to faculty and students. Thanks to the continued generosity of the Mellon Foundation, HRI continues to support post-doctoral research.