Beginning in 2009, the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere has used funds from the Rothman Endowment to sponsor a grant competition among University of Florida faculty and graduate students to expand the existing University of Florida library collections in areas in and related to the humanities that are currently underserved. Resources may include print, digital, or audio-visual media that enhance scholarly research and teaching in the humanities as well as affiliated disciplines. Requests that address the needs of broader constituencies of the University beyond the immediate applicants are judged especially favorably.
2023 – 2024
James Gerien-Chen (Professor, History)
Strengthening Library Holdings in Asian Studies
Over the past several years, Asian Studies has been growing at the University of Florida. New junior faculty in Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (LLC) and History bring teaching and research strengths that expand learning opportunities for students. This grant would provide funding for library acquisition of secondary scholarship in Asian studies in English published in the past decade. These titles represent the newest and most innovative research across conventional regional, temporal, and disciplinary divides. Their acquisition will invigorate our existing holdings of rare materials, graphic novels, and the visual arts, and introduce students from diverse backgrounds to the discipline.
Terry Harpold (Professor, English)
Environmental Humanities and Climate Catastrophe: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Crisis in the 21st Century
The contemporary Environmental Humanities (EH) take as a founding premise that we live in a time of accelerating planetary transformation: ecological instability, multispecies extinction, forced migration, and social and political unrest fostered by climate change. EH marshals the disciplines of literature, philosophy, history, communications, anthropology, and sociology to understand and propose constructive responses to these dangers. EH embraces diverse ways of knowing from humanities traditions of the Global North and South, values Indigenous voices, and addresses multispecies welfare. It brings to the foreground the imperative need for environmental consciousness, equity, and justice. This proposal seeks to extend and enhance collections of the Smathers Libraries in this field.
Jinxiu “Serena” Liu (Ph.D. Student, Education)
Bilingual Children’s Books: Bridging Cultural Gaps with Literature
With a growing number of immigrants in the United States, bilingual children’s literature has become a key intercultural mediator. These books provide audiences with a knowledge of languages as well as cultural practices and traditions associated with languages. Additionally, these books can contribute to understanding how humans impact the natural and cultural world, and shape each other. Unfortunately, in the UF Education Library, only about 1% of the children’s books are bilingual books. Hence, this Library Enhancement Grant will facilitate the study and use of bilingual children’s books by expanding the holdings of the Education Library
Hina Shaikh (Professor, Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies)
Developing a Diverse, Inclusive, and Ethical Artificial Intelligence Library Collection in the Humanities
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Academic Initiative Center was recently established at UF. Its goals are to position the university as a leader in AI research and development, and ensure every student develops a basic competency in AI regardless of their field of study. Recent AI faculty hires and the creation of new curricula outside of the traditional STEM fields of study translate to a critical need for AI-related library materials in the areas of humanities to support this initiative. Additionally, in the process of developing a diverse and inclusive collection, it is vital to recognize the existing gender gap and implicit biases in the field of AI and counter this by including sources specifically addressing ethics and fairness, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and other underrepresented groups, as well as privacy concerns.