Focus on Research

From the Dean:

Congratulations to CLAHS faculty members selected to participate in the 2012 Proposal Development Institute:

Craig Brians, Political Science

David Cline, History

William (Bill) Glenn, Education

Benjamin Jantzen, Philosophy

Deborah Milly, Political Science

Kelly Parkes, Education

Susanna Rinehart, Theatre & Cinema

Gresilda (Kris) Tilley-Lubbs, Education

Anastasia (Stacy) Vogt Yuan, Sociology

Zhange (Nicole) Ni, Religion & Culture

Zac Zimmer, Foreign Languages

The Proposal Development Institute is organized by the Office of the Vice President for Research, with  additional funding from CLAHS. Participants receive instruction on seeking funding, preparing applications, meeting with program officers, and managing grants.

Meet the Program Officers:
Program officers from the National Endowment for the Humanities Office of Digital Humanities will participate in the “Meet the Program Officers” event organized by the Virginia Tech Research Center in Arlington. On March 29, program officers Jennifer Serventi and Perry Collins will visit the VT Research Center to provide information about their funding opportunities and take questions. Faculty at the Blacksburg campus can participate remotely from Norris 209, starting at 10 am. The Office of Digital Humanities sponsors a number of programs directly relevant to the liberal arts and human sciences:

• Digging into Data Challenge: For a list of funded projects, including the Virginia Tech collaboration, “An Epidemiology of Information: Data Mining the 1918 Influenza Pandemic,” visit the DID Challenge website.
•  Digital Humanities Implementation Grants: This program supports the implementation of digital projects that have successfully completed an initial start-up phase and are ready to move forward.
• Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants: This program supports the early research and planning stages for innovative digital projects in the humanities.
• Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities: This program supports major training institutes or workshops to teach advanced topics in the digital humanities.

For NEH funding  opportunities related to the digital humanities, see the complete listing on the ODH Grant Programs of Interest.

Tips on Grant Writing:

•  Approach grant writing as a form of creative writing
•  Apply, apply, and apply again
•  Applicants who have won grants are more likely to secure additional funding
•  Introduce yourself and your project on the first page of the proposal
•  Think grandly about the project so the enthusiasm is obvious
• Organize a schedule to complete applications by the deadline
• Ask for reviews and discuss unsuccessful applications,  even if the process is uncomfortable, humiliating, and depressing
• Read other grant applications and serve on review panels
• Ask successful applicants for copies of their proposals

Adapted from Rachel Herrmann, “Grand Applications,” Chronicle of Higher Education, February 5, 2012.

Upcoming Deadline:

CLAHS Faculty Research Grants. The Call for Proposals is available from the Faculty Research page on the college website. Deadline: March 1, at 5 pm.

Publishing Articles:

An Information Session with Editors in Humanities,
Social Sciences,
and Human Sciences
April 26, 3 pm, GLC F

 Foundation Funding for Research Projects

An Information Session for Faculty and Graduate Students
Presented by VT Corporate and Foundation Relations
April 4, 3:30-5:00 pm, GLC Room B

Featured Grants:

National Endowment for the Arts Art Works encourages these outcomes: Creation: The creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence; Engagement: Public engagement with diverse and excellent art; Learning: Lifelong learning in the arts; and Livability: The strengthening of communities through the arts. Deadlines: Community Based Projects, March 8, 2012. School Based projects, August 1, 2012. More information.

Digitizing Historical Records. National Archives and Records Administration and National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Deadline: April 2, 2012. More information.

National Science Foundation CREATIV (Creative Research Awards for Transformative Interdisciplinary Ventures): a pilot grant mechanism under the Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education (INSPIRE) initiative, to support bold interdisciplinary projects in all NSF-supported areas of science, engineering, and education research. Only internal merit review is required; proposals must be interdisciplinary and potentially transformative; requests up to $1 million for 5 years. Rolling deadline. More information.

HHS / CDC Research Grants for Preventing Violence and Violence Related Injury, deadline February 16, 2012 (letter of intent), March 16, 2012 (application), More information.

My Research

 Charlene Eska, Department of English

My research is primarily concerned with the editing and translating of early Irish law codes from the period 650–800 ce. Law codes regulate matters of every-day life, and thus, for early Ireland, are a unique witness to the technology, material culture, and social norms from a period when few written records survive. Although the legal texts themselves can be dated narrowly based on linguistic evidence, the texts mainly survive in manuscripts of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. Like their continental counterparts, medieval Irish legal scholars created a vast apparatus of gloss and commentary surrounding each text. The act of editing such a work involves the ability to peel back successive layers of linguistic and legal change to arrive at a relative chronology of textual construction. This area of research is largely untouched and lags decades behind, for example, the study of the Anglo-Saxon laws due to the lack of reliable editions and translations. This is in part due to the difficulty of the Old Irish language; it has, by far, the most difficult verbal system of all of the Indo-European languages. Many scholars do not know that the largest amount of pre-twelfth century European vernacular literature is written in Old Irish. At present, I am working on a variety of projects. My primary focus this semester is on my second book, an edition and translation of two Irish law codes concerned with faulty contracts. I am also working on an article that uses legal evidence from Celtic and Germanic to solve a problem in Hittite divorce law.

Institue for Society, Culture, and Environment

Karen A. Roberto, Director

As one of Virginia Tech's three research investment institutes, ISCE provides financial, technical, and educational support for faculty pursing external funding.  If seeking funds from the National Science Foundation is in your future, plan to attend a brown-bag discussion on Monday, April 23, 2012 from 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm  at the Graduate Life Center, Room B.  Dr. Kusum Singh, Professor of Educational Research and Evaluation, will share her experiences as a successful NSF investigator and insights she garnered about award winning proposals from serving as a NSF program officer. This event is sponsored by ISCE and CLAHS, and is open to faculty and graduated students. Visit the ISCE homepage for more information, or contact the ISCE director, Karen A. Roberto.