The American Studies Association has since 2006 funded Regional Chapter Grants to develop programming, in the form of conferences or other projects, that engages both American Studies practitioners and others interested in the field within a specific region in an original and creative manner.
Past Winning Projects
2017 Winning Grant
New England American Studies Association
Project Title: Annual Conference and Colloquium
Grant Amount: $1,000
NEASA will host two events, a colloquium to be held in Fall 2017 and a conference to be held in Spring 2018. The colloquium will be focused on professionalization concerns for graduate students, faculty, and alternative academics - with an emphasis this year on fear. The NEASA conference will be centered on the subject of immigration from a variety of perspectives.
2016 Winning Grants
Hawai’i American Studies Association
Project Title: Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawai’i Workshops and Creative Project
Grant Amount: $3,000
The project will host two full-day writing workshops for contributors who include academics, activists, artists, and practitioners. It will then host a public forum following the second workshop session. The editors of Detours are committed to allowing the project to unfold as contributors bring their expertise and ideas to it. The book and related materials will address specifically the ways in which communities of practice are working against the harmful effects of the tourism industry, while simultaneously turning the infrastructure of tourism and the genre of tourism writing on its head.
New England American Studies Association
Project Title: NEASA Professional Development Colloquium, Annual Conference, and Liaison Program (NLP)
Grant Amount: $3,000
The goal of the program is to increase participation in American Studies events and to create a mechanism that will allow NEASA to better represent its broad membership. The colloquium, to be held in fall 2016, will again focus on professionalization concerns for graduate students, faculty, and alternative academics. The next NEASA conference will be held in spring 2017. To support these efforts, NEASA will use the ASA funds to help supplement the costs of its upcoming annual programs and NLP, which seek to contribute to the local scholarly communities both inside and beyond the academy.
New York Metro American Studies Association
Project Title: Everything You Wanted to Know About Academic Professionalization—But Were Too Busy Updating Your CV to Ask
Grant Amount: $3,000
The colloquium will address careers outside academia for PhDs in American Studies and related fields, as well as offer workshops on skills and competencies central to academic professionalization. It will invite editors of major journals in American Studies as well as the editorial staff of university presses to speak about the environment for scholarly publishing today. The colloquium will include a session on grant-writing. It will also bring in speakers on careers outside of academia, as well as offering short “how-to” sessions on nuts-and-bolts skills like compiling a cv, writing fellowship applications, and composing conference proposals.
Southern American Studies Association
Project Title: Migrations and Circulations (2017 Biennial Conference of the Southern American Studies Association)
Grant Amount: $3,000
The grant will fund two initiatives that align with the mission of the conference and of the SASA. First, support for transportation and subsidized registration will enhance opportunities for educators and students to attend “Migrations and Circulations” and deepen the diversity of perspectives on conference themes. Additionally, funding for a plenary and discussion that engages all attendees in sustained exploration of interdisciplinary work by a prominent scholar will generate conversations about the past and future of our discipline. The conference expects 150-200 attendees, including from states outside the region and throughout the world.
ASA 2015 Regional Chapter Grants
New England American Studies Association
Project Title: NEASA Conference/Symposium, Community Outreach and K-16
Grant Amount: $3,000
NEASA proposes a three-step program consisting of professional development through our colloquium, scholarly inquiry and discourse through our annual conference, and community outreach through our liaison program. The colloquium, to be held in September 2015, will focus on professionalization concerns for graduate students, faculty, and alternative academics; this year’s emphasis will be digital and critical pedagogies. The next NEASA conference will be held in spring 2016 in central or western Massachusetts. The theme will center on political agency and discourse as it will be held during a contentious and critical election year. NEASA will augment these events with the NEASA Liaison Program (NLP) that will support NEASA members hosting gatherings with different constituents to share the current efforts of NEASA, to listen to constituents’ needs, and to encourage membership and participation in the organization. The goal of the program is to increase participation in NEASA’s annual events and to create a mechanism that will allow NEASA to better represent its broad membership. To support these efforts, NEASA seeks ASA funds to help supplement the costs of our upcoming annual programs and NLP, which seek to contribute to the local scholarly communities both inside and beyond the academy.
ASA 2014 Regional Chapter Grants
New England American Studies Association
Project Title: NEASA Conference/Symposium, Community Outreach and K-16 Initiative
Grant Amount: $2000
Continuing to meet the objectives encouraged by previous ASA Regional Chapter Grants while expanding our mission to address current concerns within the profession, NEASA proposes a three-pronged program consisting of conference support, spring colloquium, and community outreach. The 2014 NEASA conference, “Emancipations: Lineages, Legacies, and Limits,” will be held Oct 17th and 18th at Roger Williams University. The spring colloquium, to be held in May 2015, will focus on professionalization concerns for graduate students, adjunct faculty, and alternate academics. NEASA seeks ASA funds to help supplement the costs of what we seek to contribute to the local scholarly communities both inside and outside the academy at our upcoming conference and colloquium.
New York Metro American Studies Association
Project Title: The Digital City: NYMASA 2014 Summer Institute in Digital Humanities
Grant Amount: $2,000
The Digital City: NYMASA 2014 Summer Institute in Digital Humanities seeks to enhance innovative research, teaching, and scholarship in American Studies by creating a dynamic environment for learning about new digital technologies that are transforming teaching, research, scholarly communication, and preservation. The Institute will bring together K-12 educators, faculty and students from local community colleges and universities who are involved in a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields as well as independent scholars and practitioners from non-profit, industry, and public and government sectors. During a five-day period of intensive workshops, seminars and field trips, participants will share ideas and methods, and develop expertise in using advanced technologies. New York City offers a fertile ground for our intellectual exploration. We will provide community members and national and international scholars an opportunity to experience digital humanities in practice outside of the academy through hands-on project-based field trips to local institutions and organizations, including The New York Public Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The American Museum of Natural History, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and the Brooklyn Historical Society. Together, we will analyze how New York’s cultural institutions, artists, teachers, community advocates, and government initiatives are shaping the urban landscape by leveraging technology to increase civic engagement, spark innovation, enhance public service delivery and support local archive and museum communities.
Southern American Studies Association
Project Title: Reconstruction: 2015 – 1965 - 1865
Grant Amount: $2,000
The Southern American Studies Association, one of the largest regional chapters of the American Studies Association plans to have its biennial conference on the theme “Reconstruction” in February 2015 in Atlanta. We have confirmed that Robin D.G. Kelley will be a keynote speaker. Kennesaw State’s American Studies program is the host the conference, which will be held in downtown Atlanta in order to facilitate ease of transportation for conference attendees arriving by air. We expect that the conference will attract over two hundred attendants as the conference held in Atlanta in 2011 was one of the largest in recent years, and as 2013’s Charleston conference was also well attended. The conference attracts scholars from across the U.S. (and the world) who study the South. The 2013 conference in Charleston included such panelists as Thadious Davis from the University of Pennsylvania, Farah Jasmine Griffin of Columbia University, and featured a colloquy with CUNY professor, Chris Iannini about his recent work, Fatal Revolutions. SASA is an important space for American Studies scholars working in the U.S. South, nurturing interdisciplinary scholarly efforts and cross-disciplinary dialogue, and building a network that has already strengthened the growing number of American Studies programs in Southern regional and state universities.
ASA 2013 Regional Chapter Grants
New England American Studies Association
Project Title: NEASA Conference/Symposium, Community Outreach and K-16
Grant Amount: $3,000
Continuing to meet the objectives encouraged by previous ASA Regional Chapter Grants, NEASA proposes a three-pronged program consisting of conference support. community outreach and a K-16 initiative. The 2013 NEASA conference, "Repression, Rebellion, and Representation: Cultural Challenges in New England and Beyond," will be held Sept 27-28th at the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation. In order to enlarge the depth and range of its outreach and cooperation with local indigenous communities as well as scholars, artists, and students, the event will involve close collaboration with the Mashantucket population. NEASA seeks ASA funds to help supplement the costs of what we seek to contribute to the local scholarly and sovereign communities at our upcoming conference.
Pacific Northwest American Studies Association
Project Title: Native/American: Placing the Indigenous in American Studies
Grant Amount: $3,000
The Pacific Northwest American Studies Association (PNASA) in conjunction with the American Indian Studies program, the Center for Diversity and Social Justice, and the College of Arts and Humanities at Central Washington University (CWU) will host the annual PNASA conference, "Native/American: Placing the Indigenous in American Studies," in Ellensburg, WA, in April 2014. The location and theme of this conference is quite fitting in that the Ellensburg campus of Central Washington University sits on ceded lands of the Yakama Nation, and the University maintains a Memorandum of Understanding with the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. The title of the conference is meant to open up the exploration of indigenous traditions throughout the Americas, as well as the way in which indigenous and native identity has been constructed by both tribal and settler nations to assert legal, economic, political, cultural, and geographic claims to primacy and sovereignty. In order to advance the work of the conference, we are seeking support from the ASA Regional Chapter Grants for the following objectives: 1) to bring an international scholar from Canada to present the keynote address at the conference, 2) to host an indigenous craft fair that will introduce conference participants, university students, and local community members to Native crafts and tradition, and 3) to bring local 4th grade students from Kittitas County elementary schools to tour the craft fair as part of their Washington State social studies curriculum devoted to the study of regional American Indian cultures.
ASA 2012 Regional Chapter Grants
New England American Studies Association
Project Title: NEASA Conference/Symposium, Community Outreach and K-16
Grant amount: $3,000
Continuing to meet the objectives encouraged by previous ASA Regional Chapter Grants, NEASA proposes a three-pronged program consisting of conference support, community outreach, and an education workshop. The 2012 NEASA conference, “Digitizing Revolutions: Interpreting and Historicizing American Culture,” will be held October 12-13 in Providence, Rhode Island. In order to enlarge the depth and range of its outreach and cooperation with local and regional public sector institutions, the event is housed at the University of Rhode Island and will partner with a number of local institutions. The schedule will feature two Friday afternoon education panels for area K-16 educators. NEASA seeks ASA funds to help supplement the costs of what we seek to contribute to the Providence community at our upcoming conference.
Southern American Studies Association
Project Title: We All Declare For Liberty
Grant amount: $ 3,000
Looking ahead to the sesquicentenary of the Emancipation Proclamation, SASA is pleased to welcome distinguished historian Eric Foner as keynote speaker for our conference in Charleston, South Carolina, January 31-February 2, 2013. We’ve borrowed our broad theme from an observation Abraham Lincoln made less than a year before his assassination: “We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.” As conference co-chairs, we welcome a range of panel proposals and individual paper proposals that zero in on one or more of these intertwined and still contested terms— “emancipation,” “liberty,” and “freedom” — placing them in a range of contexts reflecting the richness of American Studies. As ever, we also welcome proposals on other topics that reflect that richness. Given how well these two sentences work within the national ASA’s “Getting on the ASA Meeting Program: A Practical Guide,” we’ve made them an integral part of our CFP as well: “The paper you propose must be new and original. You should never plan to give the same paper at two different conferences, and you should never submit proposals for the same panel to two different conferences as the same time.” In that spirit, we’ll construct sets of concurrent sessions (90 minutes each, punctuated by 15-or 30-minute breaks and ample caffeine), along with a reception or two and several tantalizing opportunities for getting outside the conference site, Charleston’s historic Francis Marion Hotel. As ever, we’ll award our Critoph Prize to the conference’s best paper by a graduate student, and our 2013 biennial will be our third consecutive one to include an interdisciplinary roundtable with the author of an especially impressive book: Prof. Foner has graciously agreed to participate in a colloquy, at this Charleston conference, and his Pulitzer Prize- and Bancroft Prize-winning, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.
ASA 2011 Regional Chapter Grants
New England American Studies Association
Project Title: NEASA New England Community Outreach and K-16 Initiative
Grant amount: $ 3,000
Continuing to meet the objectives encouraged by previous ASA Regional Chapter Grants, NEASA proposes a three-pronged program consisting of conference support, community outreach, and an education workshop. The 2011 NEASA conference, “American Mythologies: Creating, Recreating, and Resisting National Narratives,” will be held November 4-6 in Plymouth, MA. In order to enlarge the depth and range of its outreach and cooperation with local and regional public sector institutions, the event is organized around a dynamic and mutually beneficial partnership between NEASA and local organizations, such as Plimoth Plantation, Plymouth’s Pilgrim Hall, and Wampanoag tribal members. The schedule will feature two Friday afternoon education panels for area K-16 educators. NEASA seeks ASA funds to help supplement the costs of what we seek to contribute to the Plymouth community at our upcoming conference.
Pacific Northwest American Studies Association
Project Title: Outside In/Inside Out: (Im)Migrant Communities of the Pacific Northwest
Grant Amount: $ 3,000
The Pacific Northwest American Studies Association in conjunction with the Center for Latino & Latin American Studies at Central Washington University will host the annual PNASA conference, “Outside In/Side Out: (Im)Migrant Communities of the Pacific Northwest,” in Ellensburg, WA., on April 12-14, 2012. The location and theme of this conference is quite fitting in light of recent action on January 20, 2011, in Ellensburg by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that targeted undocumented Latino migrant workers. The title of the conference is meant to be inclusive of ethnic communities who have immigrated and settled in the Pacific Northwest, as well as those communities of migrants who have traveled through the region, often along agricultural circuits of labor. In addition, it is meant to reveal the ways that outsiders to the region and nation-state may become insiders through immigration, settlement, acculturation, and naturalization, as well as the way insiders (even those with legal claims to citizenship) may be marked as outsiders, detained, and deported. In order to advance the work of the conference, we are seeking support from the ASA Regional Chapter Grant for the following objectives: 1) to bring an acclaimed Latino writer from the Pacific Northwest to present the keynote address at the conference, 2) to bring an international scholar from Michoacán, Mexico, to present at the conference, and 3) to bring local high school students to attend the conference as audience members and panel participants.
ASA 2010 Regional Chapter Grants
Middle Atlantic American Studies Association
Project Title: Folk Artists and Public Heritage Programming in the Middle Atlantic Region
Grant Award: $2,000
At the annual conference, presentation of and discussion with regional folk artists who have participated in public heritage programs in the Middle Atlantic region as well as panel discussions with representatives of agencies working with artists to promote cultural awareness in the region.
New England American Studies Association
Project Title: NEASA New England Community Outreach and K-16 Initiative
Grant Amount: $2,000
In conjunction with the annual conference, “The Arts and the Public,” which is open to the general public, a plenary session, involving community-based scholars, activists, and officials, a new panel of prize winning graduate student papers, the regional fellows travel grants program, and teacher workshops.
Southern American Studies Association
Project Title: Peoples, Publics, and Places of the Three Souths
Grant Amount: $2,000
At the annual conference, presentations by and discussions with international and regional American Studies scholars on the U.S., Hemispheric, and Global Souths, as well as programming to connect Atlanta community members and organizations with the academic community and cultural institutions.
ASA 2009 Regional Chapter Grants
Hawaii American Studies Association
Project Title: Locating Hawai’i in American Studies
Grant Amount: $1,300
The grant will help fund a two-day symposium that will explore Hawai'i in the context of American Studies. Timed to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Hawaiian statehood and citizenship (in partnership with the larger ASA conference themes for this year). Hawai'i's location in the middle of the Asia/Pacific has lent itself to geopolitical intrigue, colonialism, migration, militarism, the formation of Native Hawaiian sovereignty movements and other social movements based on the ethnic and class politics of it's inhabitants. The symposium hopes to create productive conversations among scholars, activists and artists invested in the politics of Hawai'i.
New York Metropolitan American Studies Association
Project Title: Revisiting the Lower East Side: A NYMASA Summer Institute
Grant Amount: $2,000
This one-week seminar for educators will allow participants to visit and re-visit New York’s Lower East Side (LES). It will focus on the history of the LES as a site of immigration, urban development, architecture, commerce, and art as well as a site of fantasy and cultural tourism. Almost as long as immigrants and internal migrants have flooded into the LES to settle, survive, and create communities, readers and tourists have been curious enough about the LES to allow culture of real and virtual cultural tourism to be sustained. The LES has been commercial as a neighborhood and has been commercialized for those not living there. The seminar will explore both aspects of LES history. The seminar will be interdisciplinary in nature, hoping to draw participants from immigration studies, urban studies, American Studies, sociology, history, literature, theater, women studies, and other fields.
New England American Studies Association
Project Title: NEASA New England Community Outreach and K-16 Initiative
Grant Amount: $2,500
Continuing to meet the objectives encouraged by previous ASA Regional Chapter Grants, NEASA proposes a three-pronged program consisting of conference support, community outreach, and an education workshop. The 2009 NEASA conference, “The Post-American City,” will be held October 16-18 in Lowell, MA., in order to enlarge the depth and range of its outreach and cooperation with local and regional public sector institutions, including area schools. The 2009 conference is organized around a creative and mutually beneficial partnership between NEASA and local organization, such as Lowell National Historical Park, Tsongas Industrial History Center and the Revolving Museum, and will feature an afternoon education workshop for area K-16 educators. NEASA seeks ASA funds to help supplement the costs of what we seek to contribute to the Lowell community at our upcoming conference.
ASA 2008 Regional Chapter Grants
No applications.
ASA 2007 Regional Chapter Grants
New England American Studies Association
Grant Amount: $3,000
To improve NEASA’s role as a resource for American Studies teachers and programs in New England through three elements - information gathering, outreach, and speaker grants.
ASA 2006 Regional Chapter Grants
California American Studies Association
Project Title: Intertribal Friendship House: Oral History as Transnational Indigenous Activism—A special session of the 2006 American Studies Association Annual Meeting
Grant Amount: $3,000
To assist in developing a relationship with the Intertribal Friendship House, a community organization serving the diverse interests of Native American nations/tribes that arrived in the Bay Area after an internal Diaspora. The project will bring Native community members and academics together at the Intertribal Friendship House during the ASA Annual Meeting.
New England American Studies Association
Project Title: NEASA New England K-16 Initiative
Grant Amount: $3,000
To improve NEASA’s role as a resource for American Studies teachers in New England through three elements – research into the changing needs of American Studies high school teachers; improved outreach – the ability to award Regional Fellowships at our Annual Meeting to a wider range of candidates; and support for non-academic speakers – specifically tribal leaders – at our 2006 Annual Meeting.
Southern American Studies Association
Project Title: Blues Tunes/Blues Texts: Music, Culture, and Literature in the Global South
Grant Amount: $3,000
To support Blues Tunes/Blues Texts, a conference that is hoped will reach across academic lines and appeal to a local culture and popular audience as well as American studies professionals. It will feature film screenings, photography, blues performances, a live radio show and tour as well as standard paper panels and two keynote speakers – Trudier Harris of UNC-Chapel Hill and Craig Werner of the University of Wisconsin.