LACMA, Pomona, Harvey Mudd colleges awarded humanities grants

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and researchers from Pomona College and Harvey Mudd College received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, it was announced Tuesday.

The grants are part of $35.63 million distributed for 258 projects throughout the country.

“These 258 newly funded projects demonstrate the vitality of the humanities across our nation,” NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo) said. “NEH is proud to support exemplary education, preservation, media, research, and infrastructure projects that expand resources for Americans, support humanities programs and opportunities for underserved students and communities, and deepen our understanding of our history, culture, and society.”

The L.A. County Museum of Art received $400,000 for the implementation of a traveling exhibition on the role and practice of polychromy in Mesoamerican art from ancient cultures to contemporary Indigenous communities, including a catalog and online resources.

Joanne Nucho and Julie Tannenbaum, researchers with Pomona College, received $6,000 summer stipends for their projects. Nucho is researching and writing a book on how the rise of localized energy grids fueled by sustainable energy sources is disenfranchising rural communities in California.

Tannenbaum is researching and writing one chapter of a book in practical ethics on the moral responsibility of sexual interactions as part of a project rethinking consent and responsibility for unwanted sex.

Alfred Flores from Harvey Mudd College received a $6,000 summer stipend for researching for a book about the experiences of the Chamoru and the Marshallese who migrated to Southern California since the 1960s.

The grants awarded in this cycle include the first round of awards made under the NEH’s new Spotlight on Humanities in Higher Education program. The grants are intended to benefit underserved populations at small- to mid-sized colleges of universities.