A Scholar with glasses reads an ancient manuscript

Research & Funding

The Society for the Humanities conducts several grant competitions for research, writing, and travel throughout the year. These grants are intended to foster the excellence in humanities research and writing for which Cornell faculty and graduate students are known. The Society places particular emphasis on innovative, interdisciplinary projects that involve Cornell colleagues from across the various disciplines of the humanities. In addition, the Society is proud to provide funding for humanities events organized by Cornell’s distinguished faculty as well as sponsor six-eight Visiting Fellows each year.

Rural Humanities

Rural Humanities is an Andrew W. Mellon supported initiative in public and engaged humanities that uses the tools of the humanities to critically approach, learn from, make visible, and support the realities of rural America, particularly in Central-Western New York: its histories, cultures, challenges, and futures.

Society’s Rural Humanities initiative, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will focus on Rural Black Lives in the academic year 2020-21, collaborating with the #DoBetterCornell student group, Cornell faculty, and local community partners to host a series of events addressing the past, present, and future of rural Black lives in Central New York and beyond. Funding for students in the form of microgrants will be available as will faculty collaboratory grants of up to $10,000 per year. For the duration of the Rural Humanities initiative, we commit to intersectional research in public and engaged humanities, equally addressing the Rural Latinx and Rural Indigenous Lives who are also all-too-often effaced, exploited, and expropriated in what is a rich, diverse, and colorful rural landscape.