Original Call for Faculty Proposals

CAST Grants for Scholarly or Creative Projects related to Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation

Proposal Deadline: Monday, October 27, 2014

Questions can be directed to Cynthia Cohen, co-chair of the advisory committee.

Please submit completed proposals to Lisette Anzoategui.

I. Award Description

The advisory committee of the new minor in Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation is pleased to announce that awards of $2,000 for research and creative projects related to the new minor will be available to members of the Brandeis faculty during the next two academic years. The stipends are designed to:

  • Support creative and scholarly inquiry into theory and practice at the nexus of arts, culture, and social change.
  • Enhance teaching and advising related to the educational objectives of the new minor.
  • Animate an interdisciplinary conversation about creativity, social justice, and peacebuilding through the arts.

The undergraduate CAST minor offers a coherent academic sequence through which to explore theory and practice at the nexus of the arts (i.e., music, literature, theater, visual arts, storytelling, digital art and broadcast media, architecture, conceptual art and folk expressions of all kinds); creativity; and social change. It challenges students to engage in, and reflect on, various modes of knowledge creation, introduces them to a range of creative social change practices and the theories of change that are implicit in them, and encourages them to grapple with the ethical dilemmas inherent in the field.

Up to four CAST Grants of $2,000 each will be awarded for work to be undertaken between December 2014 and August 2015.

II. Eligibility

We welcome proposals for new research and creative projects as well as for activities that deepen or broaden ongoing inquiries. We encourage projects that are interdisciplinary and/or multi-modal, and projects that might involve students as research assistants or creative partners, although these are not requirements.

III. Application Process and Requirements

We will ask recipients of the stipends to

• Meet informally with other stipend recipients once during the spring semester

• Share the results of their work with colleagues and students during fall 2015.

We ask for a proposal of 2-3 pages that:

• Describes the scholarly or creative work you wish to pursue, including the questions you plan to address, the modes of inquiry you will employ, and the anticipated outcomes;

• Indicates the significance of the project, for your research or creative work, for your teaching, for relevant communities, and/or for the field of social transformation through the arts;

• Notes previous research, teaching, activist or creative work that prepares you for the project you propose.

Proposals will be evaluated for the significance and feasibility of the project and its potential to contribute to the community of inquiry surrounding the new minor.

These stipends are possible through generous funding from the Max and Sunny Howard Memorial Foundation with gratitude to Naomi Sinnreich, P'13, for her vision and support.

Please submit completed proposals to Lisette Anzoategui.