Nine MIT-SHASS Research Fund recipients announced for 2017
 

 
The SHASS Research Fund supports MIT research in the humanities, arts, or social sciences that shows promise of making an important contribution to the proposed area of activity.
 



Congratulations to the 2017 Recipients

 


Ian Condry | Professor of Comparative Media Studies
Funding will support Ian Condry’s new book project, Reinventing the Gig Economy: Music, Value, and Livelihoods. With examples from the U.S., Japan, and Europe, this anthropological study of contemporary capitalism analyzes diverse approaches to making a living as a musician, as the value of music is radically transformed by technological and cultural shifts.
Ian Condry's website


David Deveau | Senior Lecturer in Music
Research funds will support support the cost of Deveau's next recording project, two classical period piano concerti in their unusual chamber-music versions (as opposed to the usual full orchestral versions commonly performed). These concerti are by Beethoven, his Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 in a version for piano and string sextet (two violins, two violas, cello and bass), and by Mozart, his Concerto in E-flat, Kv.449, in an arrangement for piano and string quartet.
David Deveau's website


Stephanie Frampton | Associate Professor of Literature
Funds will support organizing the MATERIA literary workshop in 2017. The MATERIA workshops bring together historians, papyrologists, philologists, and literary scholars as never before, and provide opportunities for scholars at all stages of their careers to share work in progress, learn from colleagues, and develop collaborative initiatives. The second of these annual meetings will be held at MIT.
Stephanie Frampton's website


Malick Ghachem | Associate Professor of History
Funding will support ongoing Haiti-related research. This includes travel to France related to Ghachem's second book on the rise of plantation capitalism in Haiti during the 1720s, the initial costs for translation of the book Old Regime and te Haitian Revolution, and an intensive course in Haitian Creole at the University of Massachusetts in summer 2017.
Malick Gachem's website


Wyn Kelly | Senior Lecturer in Literature
Funding will support the project, Melville's London Itinieraries which involves creating a digital map of Herman Melville's routes through London in 1849. The project draws from a wide range of scholarly, pedagogical, and digital tools to develop critical interactive maps of Melville’s travels across the globe. Kelly will present the project at the twelfth international Melville Society conference in London, in June, 2017. 
Wyn Kelly's website


Evan Lieberman | Professor of Political Science
Research funds will support the project Validated Participation in Tanzania, which studies active involvement of parents in the education of their children. In this novel intervention, parents are not only given opportunities to discuss and make decisions for the school, but positive feedback is structured from a teacher-facilitator who consistently "validates" the parents' views in a collective setting, in order to boost parental efficacy.
Evan Lieberman's website


Clapperton Mavhunga | Associate Professor, Program in Science, Technology, and Society
Funding is awarded to support archival research and ethnographic fieldwork in Zambia for the monograph African Chemistry, a multi-year study of plant- and animal-based, and synthetic poisons and medicines spread over seven southern African countries. 
Clapperton Mavhunga's website


Amy Moran Thomas | Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Funding will support research toward completion of a new book, Metabola: Planetary Health and the Global Diabetes Epidemic in Belize, charting experiences of the global diabetes epidemic and extending dialogue with project contributors. The research blends humanistic narratives with science writing to chart daily life with diabetes as seen from the country of Belize, where diabetes is the leading cause of death nationwide.
Amy Moran Thomas's website


Elizabeth A. Wood | Professor of History
Funds support the completion of Scenarios of Power: Vladimir Putin and the Spectacle of Russian Leadership, a monograph in progress that analyzes the creation of the conscious and extended image-making of Russian President Vladimir Putin, with an eye to showing the ways that this process has undermined genuine political discourse.
Elizabeth A. Wood's website

 

Suggested Links

MIT's Mission in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences 

About the SHASS Research Fund

The Power of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at MIT

 

MIT SHASS Research and Innovation 
Meeting the world's greatest challenges 

MIT SHASS is home to research that has a global impact, and to graduate programs recognized as among the finest in the world. With 13 academic fields, the School's research portfolio includies international studies, linguistics, economics, poverty alleviation, history, literature, anthropology, digital humanities, philosophy, global studies and languages, music and theater, writing, political science, security studies, women's and gender studies, and comparative media studies.
Research Portfolio