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Proposal to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for Transformational
Support in the Humanities
Executive Summary With this proposal to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation UCLA seeks to effect a fundamental transformation in the way the humanities at UCLA shapes its current and future disciplinary identities. Recognizing that humanistic disciplines develop distinctive elements and shed others in their local communities, we propose a set of programs intended to take advantage of UCLA’s existing achievements and to overcome the daunting challenges of three departments whose futures are uncertain, in spite of present strengths.
In response to the challenge from the Mellon Foundation issued early this year, diverse groups of UCLA faculty began discussing what it would take to both renew and transform the humanities at our university. Something extraordinary happened in these discussions as we moved from the particular consideration of programs to the general discussion of theoretical and methodological orientations; as we moved from disciplinary divergences to collaborative thematic convergences; as we lifted our sights from our immediate environment and needs to the horizon of a shared intellectual cohesiveness. We began to see how the very discussion itself highlighted similarities and opened vistas of possible collaborations.
The humanities at UCLA are on the cusp of a new era. At UCLA and around the world, traditional approaches to exploring the human condition continue to be challenged as the boundaries of cultures, ethnicities, and identities are redefined in this age of accelerating global interaction and interdependence. To address this challenge UCLA must develop scholarly and educational resources that blend the dimensions of our past with the reality of our present and the challenge of the future. Achieving this balance is no small feat. Without a strategic process that provides the catalyst for transformation, we risk diluting the existing strength of our humanities programs by replacing retiring faculty rather than using the opportunities presented by retirements to reinvigorate resources. Various disciplines have added courses that begin to explore this new era but only on an ad hoc basis. As a result, many of our strongest programs are struggling to find an identity that successfully combines established strengths with fresh perspectives.
In this struggle for identity, three programs in particular emerge at UCLA as grappling with transformational issues: History, English and Comparative Literature. Although each department has its own unique needs, all three share a common bond in the challenges they face as they strive to redefine their programs in accordance with the shifting priorities of each discipline. All three departments seek a broadened and distinctive profile that utilizes emergent trends in the humanities that suit their particular strengths, characteristics and intellectual values. The English Department has been approaching the traditional canon from new perspectives, and supplementing it with new and diverse voices in Anglophone literature from around the world; the History Department has been interrogating the story of the nation-state in new ways and moving beyond it; while Comparative Literature has been moving beyond the limits of a traditional Eurocentric perspective.
Together, these departments possess a significant potential for impact throughout the rest of the division and, therefore, provide a great opportunity to establish a model for transformation. For UCLA such a transformation requires strategies to address new communities in the humanities within and outside of the university. The overarching goal of this project is to develop a program that incorporates a range of perspectives across departments to explore the complexity of global and societal relations throughout the humanities.
The key questions guiding the activities of this project are:
i) Can we achieve a more effective climate of collaboration by promoting cross- disciplinary ventures that are rooted in departmental structure rather than by individual initiatives? ii) What are the most effective ways to connect with our local humanities community including local institutions (such as the Getty Research Center, the Clark Library, and the Huntington Library) as well as local professionals such as writers and artists in order to increase scholarly resource and promote the value of the humanities to a wider public? iii) How can we achieve an intellectual cohesiveness that reflects the ethnic, cultural and national diversity of UCLA? iv) How do we integrate emerging fields such as disability studies, transnational approaches, and translation studies in such diverse contexts as narrative and historical representations, social and cultural arrangements, publishing practices, academic policies and hiring practices without fragmenting or overspecializing? v) How do these various concerns and approaches converge in a distinctive identity for the humanities at UCLA?
The proposed project will link the three departments through a multi-tiered set of programs that will center on overlapping themes and focus on addressing the above questions. To transform the humanities at UCLA to a division of distinction we are requesting funding in the amount of $2.5 million to be expended over a period of five years.
Background: The Humanities at UCLA UCLA, like the city of Los Angeles, is marked by great ethnic, cultural and socio-economic diversity. The students at UCLA—both undergraduate and graduate—benefit from this dynamic urban environment. Los Angeles, one of the most diverse cities in the nation, provides a compelling focus as an incubator for academic transformations that reflect the increasingly global nature of our society. Many of the emerging areas of study find strength in the institution’s demographic composition as well as its resources and expertise. For example, the recently funded Mellon Postdoctoral Program that focuses on transnational studies noted the unique demographic profile of UCLA as a programmatic asset. Although the program is still in its beginning stage, the response has been strong: more than two hundred candidates applied for fellowships. The appeal of this program indicates that the humanities at UCLA are well positioned to address the emerging shift of focus throughout the disciplines, but this is only a small step towards achieving the intellectual cohesion that truly reflects the diversity of our students and the new dynamics of the humanities.
promoted scholarly exchange regarding the future of the humanities. Although these departments are attempting to address such challenges, without a comprehensive strategy in place they run the risk of missed opportunities by conducting business as usual and by defaulting to serial replacements in recruiting rather than building the critical mass necessary to transform itself into a distinctively renewed department. Each department is also exploring related themes and will benefit from the opportunity to make collaborative decisions regarding new resources in emerging areas of interest. The presence of joint appointments between English and Comparative Literature and English and History emphasize the logic and benefit of bringing these departments together in a shared dialogue about renewal. Additionally, a relationship between Comparative Literature and History is emerging due to the fact that historians have become more receptive to a) the idea of literature as history; b) the notion of historical narrative as a form of representation; c) reliance on more sophisticated approaches to textual analysis which have been developed by literary scholars; and d) a shared recognition of thematic approaches in global and transnational perspectives.
The Department of History is arguably the largest programs of its kind in the nation, with 1, majors in 2004-2005. During that same year the department taught a total of 19, undergraduates and granted 576 baccalaureate degrees. The three-quarter average enrollment for graduate students was 193, plus 42 non-registered students. Average time to earn a doctorate according to data averages from fall 1998 to fall 2002, was eight years.
Since 1998, a partial examination of faculty curricula vitae (including emeriti who are still very active in the Department) reveals that the department has published co-published, edited, and/or co-edited more than 200 books, and over 1,000 articles. During this period faculty have also received numerous fellowships and distinguished awards including substantial NSF, Mellon, NEH, ACLS and NIH grants, Fulbrights, Burkhardt, and Guggenheim Awards. Professor Emerita Nikki Keddie was selected as the winner of the Balzan Prize last year and was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2001 received an award for scholarly distinction from the American Historical Association, and two history colleagues -- Naomi Lamoreaux and David Sabean -- have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Lynn Hunt served as president of the American Historical Association in 2002-03, and Teofilo Ruiz currently serves as Vice President for Research of the AHA. Ivan Berend presided over the International Commission of Historians and received a German K. Jiricek “Gold Medal,” as well. Professor Emerita Joyce Appleby was President of the AHA in 1997 and before that of the Organization of American Historians in 1991. Emeritus Professor Gary B. Nash was President of the Organization of American Historians (1994) and is currently Director of the National Center for History in the Schools and Emeritus Professor Daniel Howe was President of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, 2000-01.
A significant number of faculty is associated with at least one other department, research center, or interdepartmental program at UCLA, including but not limited to Asian-American Studies, the Asia Institute, the Center for African Studies, the Center for Jewish Studies, the Center for Indian and Southeast Asian Studies, the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Center for Modern and Contemporary Studies, Israel Studies, Latin American Studies Center, Center for Chicano Studies, Center for the Study of Religion, Center for 17th^ and 18 th^ Century Studies, Latin American Center, Center for Comparative and Global Research Center for Russian and
European Studies, The Japan Center, the Center for the Study of Women, The Korea Center, the Economics Department, the Anthropology Department, the Statistics Department, the Political Science Department, the Art History, the Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences Department, and the Von Grunbaum Center for Near Eastern Studies.
In the past, the department’s overarching regional, national, and chronological coverage, which featured a balance among United States, European, and non-Western histories, was viewed as a distinguishing characteristic. To address shifting interests in the discipline, faculty are starting to develop additional transnational offerings, some of which have been stimulated by a new general education survey in world history, others by re-conceptualization of what graduate students need to become leaders in their fields. At the same time, the department is building strength along several major thematic lines in gender history and economic history.
Furthermore, over the last decade, the History Department enhanced its programs with a series of important appointments at both the junior and senior levels. At the same time, however, retirements and separations of distinguished faculty caused vulnerability in several key areas. A generation of doyens of the profession have retired, about to be followed by a new wave of retirements of faculty who have helped give this department its identity. The department began designing a vigorous faculty renewal plan this year to anticipate retirements in key fields, as well as to develop emerging thematic and transnational areas of research and teaching. To implement such a plan successfully, it needs to incorporate strategies that support faculty, especially at the junior level, in pursuing areas of focus relevant to new directions in historical research and to provide postdoctoral fellows and graduate students with opportunities relevant to the professional landscape of the discipline.
During the 2004-2005 academic year the Department of English taught a total of 11, undergraduates in literature classes (this does not include composition and practical writing courses which are taught by a separate faculty in Writing Programs); 1476 students listed English as their majors (the largest literature program in the country), of which 479 were awarded baccalaureate degrees. Enrollment for graduate students was 110 and the department granted 11 Doctoral Degrees in English Literature. The average time to a Ph.D. in the English Department is 8 years according to campus records.
Almost every faculty member beyond the junior level has won more than one distinguished fellowship or professional honor, including the Guggenheim, NEH, ACLS, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, honorary societies and the recognition of foreign governments.
The highest award given by UCLA to one of its own is the Gold Shield Faculty Prize, given every other year in a campus wide competition to one faculty member who has demonstrated extraordinary accomplishment in undergraduate teaching and in research or creative activity, together with evidence of public service within the University. Two of the eleven winners since this prize was established in 1986 have been members of the department of English, A. R. Braunmuller and Robert Watson. During the past decade or so, faculty members in the department have published between 7 and 10 books each year, as well as scores of articles and reviews in scholarly journals. More than two of every three faculty serve either as editors or members of the editorial boards of virtually every leading scholarly journal in the varied fields
During the 2004-2005 year, the Department of Comparative Literature taught a total of 1, undergraduates, granted 33 baccalaureate degrees, and had 44 majors. The three-quarter average enrollment for graduate students was 35. The average time to earn a doctorate, according to data averages from fall 1998 to fall 2004, was seven years. The department holds 14 faculty positions: nine professors, three associate professors, and two assistant professors.
The role of Comparative Literature as a resource for inspiring change based on the inquisitive nature of the discipline is an essential component to this initiative’s overall vision for transformation. Given its cross disciplinary nature it will share a leadership role in identifying, planning, and defining themes and topic areas for the collaborative elements of the project. The department’s established links to both the English and History departments will operate as an effective catalyst for exploring themes across disciplines.
Fluent in several languages and trained in a broad range of literary traditions, faculty have published in numerous languages including Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish. Every member of the department has demonstrated professional productivity, publishing on average two articles per year in national and prestigious international journals and a book every six years. Many have received awards for their published work, including the Dean’s Marshall Award for exceptional scholarship (Shu-mei Shih), the MLA Women’s Caucus Florence Howe Award for Feminist Scholarship (Françoise Lionnet), an International Poetry Prize (Stathis Gourgouris), and Choice’s Outstanding Academic Book of the Year Award (Efrain Kristal for his book Temptation of the Word ).
Several faculty have received awards and fellowships in the past decade from such prestigious institutions as Fulbright-Hays, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council.
Every faculty member is associated with at least one other department, research center, or interdepartmental program at UCLA, including Asian Literatures and Cultures, Asian-American Studies, the Asian Institute, the Center for African Studies, the Center for Jewish Studies, the Center for Indian and Southeast Asian Studies, the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Center for Modern and Contemporary Studies, the Center for Pacific Rim Studies, the Classics Department, the English Department, the French and Francophone Department, the German Department, the Global Studies IDP, the Italian Department, the Scandinavian Program, the Spanish and Portuguese Department, and the Von Grunbaum Center for Near Eastern Studies.
As well, several colleagues are affiliated with national and international institutions and learned societies such as the Renaissance Society of America, the Medieval Academy of America, the American Association of Italian Studies, the Modern Language of America, the National Science Council in Taiwan, the University of Göttingen in Germany, the Center for Philosophy and Literature at the University of Warwick, England, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Italy, the Institute for Advanced Study at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, the Center for American Studies at the University of Tehran, Iran, the International Association for Philosophy and Literature, Association for Asian American Studies.
Faculty member Professor Kathleen Komar is currently the President of the American Comparative Literature Association, and two other members of faculty are elected board members of this association.
Almost every member of the faculty belongs to the editorial boards of scholarly journals in the United States and abroad, including Boundary 2, Antipodas, Cultural Critique, Evisage, Hofstra Hispanic Review, Journal of Cultural and Religious Theory, Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, Contemporary French Civilization, Polygraph, Praxis, and Quaderni di’italianistica.
Comparative Literature has historically been structured as an area of research and teaching that explores the tension between two seemingly opposing forces: (1) a desire to overcome the barriers of national culture and literature as well as a reliance on the nineteenth-century notion of world literature as a concert of the world’s literary traditions, and (2) an effort to consolidate the idea of Europe in literary and cultural terms, to be formally distinguished from all other societies and their literary and cultural creativity.
Because of recent shifts in the focus of literary and cultural studies away from an exclusive concentration on European literatures, as well as the fact that UCLA students commonly engage in comparative studies that cross chronological, cultural, disciplinary, linguistic, and national boundaries, establishment of a common understanding of the role and responsibility of Comparative Literature as a discipline has proven difficult in recent years. A major challenge is the need to overcome the Eurocentrism that has traditionally defined the field.
These difficulties supplied the motivation for the department’s organization, during the 2005- 2006 year, of a lecture series entitled “What Is Comparative Literature?” which brought to campus a distinguished group of comparativists to address such questions as the place of theory, the future of national literatures in the age of globalization, and the relationship between “minor” and “major” literary traditions. (Attachment) The series drew large audiences of faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates from across the humanities and social sciences, producing lively, wide-ranging, and enduring discussions about the nature of disciplinarity in the humanities today.
It is clear that the Comparative Literature department at UCLA is emerging as an important site for the exploration of new paradigms and directions in literary studies. Some examples of recent explorations include studies of the relationship between translation and transnationalism, literary theory and emerging media, and the future of national literatures in this new era of humanities. Staging this type of academic inquiry within a broader disciplinary paradigm at UCLA is particularly appropriate and satisfying, given our culturally diverse student body whose multiple perspectives and multiple native languages inspire and enable new directions in comparative literary studies. As a participant in this project the department will continue to explore new literary canons and interpretive styles that might contribute to the evolution of curriculum and scholarship in traditionally Eurocentric disciplines in a more in-depth manner.
All three departments are struggling to re-conceptualize their mission by weaving together their traditionally defined fields at the levels of theory, method, and practice to develop a more
senior level. The request to the Mellon Foundation will cover the costs associated with salary and benefits for the appointments. UCLA will support the set-up costs at $850,000.
Six senior visiting scholars will be selected to engage in the activities of the project and will be tasked with bringing new perspectives and fresh ideas to the program that are not currently fully integrated into UCLA’s vision. Minimal teaching in their area of expertise will be expected. Selection will be based on established interest, expertise, and background in the research theme/topic as well as demonstrated academic leadership. If the field of exploration does not possess a senior level scholar available for participation junior level scholars may be considered. Visiting scholars will serve two quarter appointments.
Six post-doctoral fellows will be integrated into the program to allow for experimentation and innovation in the three departments in fields not currently represented or in fields desirable but not fully integrated into the department’s own vision and hiring plans. These post-doctoral fellows will enhance the curriculum and help cement new communities of research and scholarship on campus that are inherently discipline-based in the departments. UCLA will support these fellows as a component of this project. Fellows from existing programs at UCLA, including the Mellon Transnational Postdoctoral Fellows, will also be invited to participate in activities. UCLA will support these fellows at a cost of $60,000 each for a total of $360,000. Fellows from existing programs at UCLA will also be invited to participate in activities.
A resident research program will serve as a hub to inspire forward thinking research in the humanities that benefits programmatic objectives and engages faculty on a regular basis in strategic planning for their field of interest. Faculty at all levels will work as intellectual partners and the programs will be led by the participating departments and open to the humanities. Limited in-house leave for junior faculty will be provided with the aim of better preparing junior faculty for productive and fulfilling careers. Each cohort will consist of a group of senior and junior faculty joined by visiting faculty mentors and postdoctoral fellows across the humanities who will attend a weekly seminar to explore emergent trends in the humanities. UCLA faculty including those hired through this project as well as visiting scholars on leave from other institutions will serve as mentors. The overarching goal of this program will be to promote and sustain collaborative research and form new research cohorts.
Several lecture series based on the model used in the Comparative Literature Department in 2005-2006, featuring distinguished and emerging scholars in both the humanities and social sciences will be held throughout the project. Lectures will focus on promoting scholarly dialogues and debates with the aim of devising new paradigms for specific disciplines. A seminar series that allows for thematic discussions in cross disciplinary forums will complement the lectures. In addition to academic scholars we will also use this program as a tool to integrate potential partners in Los Angeles, such as the Getty Research Center, the Clark Library, the Huntington Library, and others. By integrating humanities professionals, including local writers and artists, this program aims to demonstrate the value of the humanities to the wider public. Most departments in the humanities have been unable to involve non-academic professionals in promoting new and emerging interests.
These programmatic elements will be the responsibility of an advisory board that will evaluate progress and promote change not only for the purposes of this project but for reinvigorating the humanities at UCLA. We are currently envisioning this board to consist of one faculty member from each participating department; visiting senior scholars affiliated with the 3 key departments; 3 additional UCLA faculty from adjacent disciplines. The Executive Dean, as Principal Investigator, will chair this advisory board. The board will be charged with overseeing program selection; developing a common vocabulary about faculty renewal and strategic planning in the disciplines; and developing a set of principles and values that transcend disciplinary boundaries.
Investing in critical synergies and resources will provide new directions and develop a replicable model to reinvigorate the humanities. These programs are designed to shape a new era for the humanities at UCLA that excites and engages the next generation of humanists. Mellon support will allow History, English, and Comparative Literature at UCLA to lead the way in establishing their own distinctive contributions to disciplinary vitality and humanistic transformation.
We fully recognize that we are asking for a significant commitment from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to transform the humanities at UCLA. This support will make possible a level of dialogue and effective collaboration not now possible. In turn, UCLA pledges to sustain key elements of the proposed program on the successful completion of the grant. The programs outlined here will inform the College vision and strategy to develop permanent sustainable solutions that transform the humanities at UCLA. Specifically, we will seek private donor support in the form of endowment to perpetuate the senior visiting scholars program, and we will use discretionary funds to sustain an ongoing dialogue through a lecture and seminar series in the humanities. The new and renewed faculty personnel that will assume leadership of the humanities in this decade will define new bases for disciplinary identities distinctive to UCLA, its students and faculty, and its mission in a global community.
