Wayne State University's Humanities Center offers mini-grants

Creative responses to the covid-19 pandemic: mini-grants

Deadline: October 15, 2020

Wayne State University's Humanities Center is sponsoring a one-time mini-grant program to invite students and part-time faculty in the humanities, arts, and social science to reflect in creative and ways, via humanistic expressions, on the COVID 19 pandemic and its outcomes.

COVID 19 has killed, sickened, and frightened hundreds of thousands of people, disrupting human societies and cultures worldwide. The virus has also disproportionally impacted populations already suffering from the effects of systematic racism, ageism and poverty. However, this pandemic has also revealed our intrinsic humanity and our resilience, generosity, compassion, and courage in the face of the catastrophe. The mini-grant program is intended to provide an outlet for human emotions, observations, art, behaviors, innovations, and other sharable responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

We invite submissions of a wide range of projects which might portray but are not limited to the pandemic's impact on and responses from disproportionately affected people and vulnerable groups, including racial and ethnic minorities; the elderly; essential workers; and socioeconomically disadvantaged members of our community. Projects may include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Film
  • Photography
  • Drawings
  • Paintings
  • Diaries
  • Poetry
  • Plays
  • Performances
  • Musical compositions
  • Short essays
  • Short stories
  • Observations of the natural world
  • The Center will fund up to 10 proposals at $400 each. All WSU graduate and undergraduate students, as well as part-time and contingent faculty are eligible to apply.

    Applicants should submit a one to two-page proposal, which includes a brief project narrative, justification, timeline, budget (if applicable), and the description of outcomes. Proposals must be submitted electronically to the Center's Director at walter.edwards@wayne.edu and will be reviewed by a panel from the Center's Advisory Board.

    The proposals are due by October 15, 2020. Decisions will be made by November 15, 2020, and the recipients will be expected to talk briefly about their projects at a virtual meeting to be organized by the Center early in the Winter 2021 semester.

    Successful projects will be posted on the Center's website and could possibly be published in booklet form.

    Special thanks to our co-sponsors:

  • College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
  • Irvin D. Reid Honors College
  • College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts
  • School of Social Work
  • Law School
  • College of Education
  • For more information about the Humanities Center, call 313-577-5471 or visit the center's website.

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