George Mason University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences is pleased to announce that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded Mills Kelly, professor of history and a Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM) senior scholar, and RRCHNM two separate awards: "Worlds Turned Upside Down" for the Media Projects: Development and Production Grants, which supports the preparation of media programs, including podcasts for distribution; and, “Off the Wall: Digital Preservation of Civil War Graffiti Houses” for the Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grants, which allow institutions to preserve and provide access to collections essential to scholarship, education, and public programming in the humanities.
Kelly, Jim Ambuske, senior producer at R2 Studios, the podcast division of RRCHNM, Jeanette Patrick, head of R2 Studios, and RRCHNM were awarded a $272,000 grant from NEH Media Projects: Development and Production. The grant will support the production of 10 45-to-60-minute episodes of Worlds Turned Upside Down, a narrative documentary podcast series about the history of the American Revolution. The generous grant will support the podcast’s second season, “The War of Reconciliation.” The series will draw on contributions from an international cast of leading experts to explore the conflict through the lives of British Americans, Indigenous nations, enslaved Africans and African Americans, Europeans, and other peoples who experienced it as a transatlantic crisis and imperial civil war. Episodes of Worlds Turned Upside Down are available for free on all major podcast apps, including Apple, Spotify, and Goodpods, as well as YouTube.
Kelly and RRCHNM, in collaboration with seven local partners, were awarded a $350,000 grant from the NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources program for the “Off the Wall: Digital Preservation of Civil War Graffiti Houses" implementation grant. The funding will support the building and publishing of a digital archive focused on soldiers’ graffiti found in Civil War-era structures located in the greater Northern Virginia region operated by local project partners. The digital archive will provide scholars, students, and the public access to the graffiti left behind by Union and Confederate soldiers at historical sites in Northern Virginia, containing individuals’ names, hometowns, regimental units, jokes, political statements, Bible verses, and pleas for help, offering a unique window into Civil War military service.
April 16, 2024