Three CAORC Member Centers Awarded NEH Grants

April 25, 2012

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Dr. Mary Ellen Lane, Executive Director, Council of American Overseas Research Centers; 202-633-1599; lane.maryellen@caorc.org   

 

Three CAORC Member Centers Awarded NEH Grants

 

The Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) is pleased to announce that three American Overseas Research Centers received grants in the 2012-2013 competition for Fellowship Programs at Independent Research Institutions (FPIRI) from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

NEH grants for Fellowship Programs at Independent Research Institutions support fellowships at institutions devoted to advanced study and research in the humanities, such as American Overseas Research Centers. These NEH fellowships provide scholars with research time and access to resources that might not be available at their home institutions.

 

• Since 1991, the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT) NEH Fellowship program has provided fellowships for advanced scholars who wish to carry out long-term research in Turkey in affiliation with an ARIT center in Istanbul and/or Ankara.  Fellowship tenures range from four months to one year.  The fields of study cover all periods of history in the general range of the humanities, and include humanistically oriented aspects of the social sciences, prehistory, history, art, archaeology, literature, and linguistics, as well as interdisciplinary aspects of cultural history.  Funded fellows will make use of the extensive and diverse archival and cultural resources that are accessible to researchers in Turkey.  The ARIT program will support from one to three fellows each year for three years, beginning in 2013.

• Since 1993, the NEH Fellowship program at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens(ASCSA) has given U.S. scholars the opportunity to conduct research in Greece and utilize the many excellent resources available at the ASCSA. As the ASCSA’s most prestigious fellowship earmarked exclusively for post-doctoral scholars to carry out research in the humanities, the NEH fellowships are an important part of the School’s overall fellowship program, providing over 50 fellowships annually to students, teachers, and scholars.  Each fellowship, through its selection criteria, contributes to the diverse academic community at the ASCSA.  For 16 years, the NEH fellowship program has been a major factor in establishing the School’s reputation as the premier overseas research center for the study of the Greek world.  Research by NEH fellows on humanities topics results in publications, lectures, and conferences that reach a broad audience of scholars, students, and the general public in the U.S. and abroad.

• The Palestinian American Research Center (PARC) NEH FPIRI Fellowship program will give PARC an opportunity to focus attention on post-doctoral humanities research on Palestine.  Beginning in 2013 PARC will award one to two fellowships each year for three years, with fellows receiving from four to eight months of support.  The NEH grant will assist PARC in expanding the pool of scholars specializing in Palestinian studies and building the body of scholarship on Palestine.  Since 1998, PARC has awarded almost 180 fellowships to American and Palestinian doctoral and post-doctoral scholars in diverse fields ranging from medicine to cultural anthropology.  In addition to a small but rich library of scholarship on Jerusalem, PARC cosponsors conferences and seminars in Palestine and the United States and offers a panel at the Middle East Studies Association each year.  

Other NEH fellowships and research grants supporting international research are also available through the following American overseas centers:

• Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (Jerusalem)
• American Academy in Rome
• American Center of Oriental Research (Amman)
• American Institute of Indian Studies (New Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai, and Pune)
• American Research Center in Egypt (Cairo)

 

Please go to http://caorc.org/ for further information on these fellowships and grants.

 

CAORC and American Overseas Research Centers

Founded in 1981 and located in the Smithsonian Institution, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) advances higher learning and international scholarly research, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, by U.S. scholars and academic institutions by promoting communication and cooperation among U.S. overseas research centers; providing general and continuing publicity about the centers’ importance and contributions; providing the centers with programmatic, administrative, financial, legal, and policy guidance; exchanging scholarly and research information among the centers; facilitating the creation of new centers; and encouraging, sponsoring, and coordinating multi-center, multinational, and regional research and collaborative projects.

 

CAORC is a not-for-profit federation of 22 independent American overseas research centers that promote advanced scholarly research, particularly in the Humanities and Social Sciences, with focus on the conservation and recording of cultural heritage and the understanding and interpretation of modern societies. The centers are a key part of the circulatory system of U.S. higher education for communication with the regions and for independent, top-caliber scholarly research and highest level exchange that pushes the frontiers of knowledge.

 

Since the decades following World War II – and in some cases since the late 1800s – American overseas research centers have been the main face of U.S. academia in many countries. The centers are the primary vehicle through which American scholars and students carry out research vital to our understanding of and interaction with other cultures. The centers foster international education andscholarly exchange overseas by facilitating the work of individual U.S. scholars and students who are conducting research; sponsoring fellowship programs for pre-doctoral and senior scholars; providing intensive foreign language study for individuals and groups; implementing cultural preservation initiatives that often serve as training venues for young American and host-country scholars; convening conferences and seminars; and collaborating on research, publication, library, and outreach projects. One of the most important functions CAORC and the centers provide is an institutional network to connect U.S. academics to local scholars and resources in regions of the world where facilitation and access to research resources are difficult to obtain.

 

Each year CAORC and the centers grant hundreds of fellowships for overseas research to students and faculty at American institutions. Additionally, each year the centers host and facilitate research for thousands of students, teachers, and scholars supported by the Fulbright programs, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, as well as hundreds of independent U.S. scholars and study groups.

 

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