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MAIN | Reports | Partnership Grants | Announcement/Calls for Papers | International Initiative Directory | Contact
International Initiative
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Renews Support for ASA International Initiative
The ASA’s International Initiative, launched in 2004 by ASA President Shelley Fisher Fishkin, was a resounding success for everyone involved. A generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation helped some three dozen international program directors, journal editors, and American Studies scholars come to the conference and participate in events that included a networking breakfast for program directors, several journal editors’ meetings, and an International Partnership lunch, as well as the full array of sessions, receptions and opportunities for informal conversation that the annual meeting offers.
The ASA is truly delighted to announce that the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has decided to renew its support for the International Initiative for two more years. The grant of $86,000 is designed to foster informed serious scholarship about the U.S. in American Studies programs throughout the world by facilitating ongoing conversations between international scholars of American Studies and Americanists in the U.S. It will support the participation of scholars, program directors, and journal editors from abroad at the Association’s 2005 and 2006 annual meetings, and subsequent visits by some to American studies programs at U.S. campuses. The generous grant will allow us to sustain the positive energy that all of us witnessed in Atlanta.
International Initiative events and activities this year will differ somewhat from those scheduled in Atlanta, but will be similarly significant. Details will be announced online. The Executive Committee decided last spring that future funds designated to support the International Initiative would be administered by the International Committee, chaired by Michael Frisch, with Shelley Fisher Fishkin serving on it ex officio as Director of the International Initiative. The EC also decided to significantly expand the number of scholars on the committee, to better enable it to fulfill its increased responsibilities and obligations. The ASA is very pleased to announce that Kate Delaney, a long-time ASA member and former Foreign Service officer who helped coordinate the International Initiative last year, will be working us as the Coordinator of the Initiative for the next two years.
The International Committee will be awarding grants of varying amounts to help international scholars attend the 2005 annual meeting. Categories of people eligible to apply for aid include: (a) program directors of American Studies programs based outside the U.S. (or scholars endeavoring to develop such programs), (b) journal editors of American Studies journals based outside the U.S., and (c) American Studies scholars based outside the U.S. who are presenting papers on the program. In all categories, priorities will be given to scholars who do not have adequate support to attend the conference from their home institutions and other sources. The ASA hopes to collaborate, as we did last year, with the US-China Education Trust and the Asia Foundation to organize visits by scholars from China and Vietnam. We are also particularly interested in supporting individual scholars who fit the above criteria from regions that are underrepresented at the ASA, including the Middle East, South America, and Africa.
Instructions on how International Scholars may apply for support are posted on the ASA Website (www.theasa.net) under “International Initiative.” U.S. institutions interested in having scholars from China, Vietnam and elsewhere visit their campus after the conference should make Kate Delaney aware of their interest (Kate.Delaney@covad.net).
Discussions between U.S.-based and international scholars that took place at the 2004 annual meeting have resonated around the world during the past year, in scholarship, program development, curricular innovation, and journal editing. We are honored and gratified that the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has seen fit to help the ASA continue to nurture the kinds of transnational conversations that so enlivened the Atlanta meeting.
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