UCLA professors win humanities awards
National endowment gives grants of more than $300,000 total to
campus scholars
By Donna Wong
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
When science and technology raced for the moon in 1965,
humanists decided there were moral and ethical elements that could
no longer be ignored.
So they created the National Endowment for the Humanities, a
federal grant organization which awards grants four times a year,
and recently gave five UCLA faculty members their own chance to
touch the moon.
This quarter, five UCLA scholars received a total of more than
$300,000 in grants  for such humanities areas as language,
the arts and aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic
content and interest.
Among those awarded at UCLA were English Professor N. Katherine
Hayles, Spanish and Portuguese Professor Emeritus Jose
Pascual-Buxo, history Professor Geoffrey Symcox, sociology
Professor Roger Waldiner and English and comparative literature
Professor Samuel Weber.
"Each of these projects will make an important contribution to
the humanities and to our society," said Sheldon Hackney, National
Endowment for the Humanities chairman.
The monies go toward book publishing, and even summer seminars
for instructors. Waldinger’s seminar about contemporary
immigration, Hayles’ seminar on the impact of information
technologies on literature and Weber’s class on literature and
philosophy’s relationship with the modern media will be funded by
the grants.
One conference at UCLA next year by Jose Pascual-Buxo will be
about the works of a colonial Mexican nun and author, Sor Juana
Ines de la Cruz.
Although a product of her time, de la Cruz is an exceptional
woman who fought against a difficult environment and gives insight
into the colonial period with her prose and poetry, said Carmela
Zanelli, a UCLA doctoral student who once was advised by
Pascual-Buxo.
Other grants were also given to secondary school faculty
development programs, documentary projects and scholarly book
publications in other areas.
At UCLA, Geoffrey Symcox received $7000 toward publication of a
new translation of documents issued to Christopher Columbus
detailing his rights over the native populations and the evolution
of Spanish colonial policy in the new world.
"I’m very pleased, because these documents are central to
understanding the European arrival in the new world," Symcox
said.
Last year, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded
nearly $160 million in competitive grants to museums, libraries,
universities and individual scholars and teachers.
This quarter, grants totalled $29.7 million.
"Each of these grants strengthens an important aspect of our
nation’s cultural life … and reflects the richness and the
diversity of the humanities," Hackney said.