Shannon Cram is an Associate Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell. She was the recipient of the Simpson Center’s First Books Summer Faculty Fellowship in 2021.

During the summer of 2024, twenty undergraduate students at the University of Washington explored the poetics and politics of life in an intensive introduction to research methods in the arts and humanities.

Since its founding in 2019, the Translation Studies Hub (TS Hub), through the support of the Simpson Center for the Humanities, has served as a platform for discussion about the theories, histories, and practices of translation at the University of Washington and the broader Seattle community.

The Simpson Center for the Humanities announces our Collaborative Project, Faculty Summer Reading, and Graduate Research Cluster awards for 2024-2025 after receiving many strong proposals from University of Washington faculty and graduate students during our most recent funding round.

In the summer of 2024, the Simpson Center for the Humanities will support faculty fellowships with a thematic emphasis, convening a cohort of faculty actively working on research projects on religious cultures, sacred practices, and spiritual teachings. By gathering scholars together who are working on projects in potentially different disciplinary capacities, historical periods, and languages—to take just these examples—but who share a demonstrated interest in the designated theme, we hope to open new possibilities for deep and sustained crossdisciplinary discussion.

The Henry Luce Foundation has granted $50,000 for the planning phase of a transformational initiative on Global Asias at the University of Washington.

The initiative, led by Rick Bonus (American Ethnic Studies) and Ted Mack (Asian Languages & Literature), will map out the current landscape of Asia-related research and community-engaged scholarship within and outside the University of Washington.

Every year, a coalition of humanities advocates gather in D.C. for Humanities Advocacy Day, organized by the National Humanities Alliance. Meeting with members of congress and their staff, the goal of the day is to advocate for continued federal support and funding for the humanities. This year, Habiba Ibrahim (English) and Michelle Liu (English) joined deans Todd Butler and Courtney Meehan of Washington State University as the delegates for Washington State.

The Simpson Center for the Humanities will begin accepting proposals for its Spring Funding Round on Tuesday, March 5, 2024. Applications are due Friday, April 5, 2024.

The Simpson Center provides financial and administrative support for crossdisciplinary research, teaching, and engagement projects in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. We support a wide range of activities, including fellowships, cross-departmental research groups, scholarly conferences and symposia, community-engaged collaborations, and other projects.

Applications to the 2024 LA Review of Books Publishing Workshop will be accepted from January 1-April 1. The Simpson Center will cover the application fees of all UW doctoral students in the arts, humanities, and social sciences who apply to the LA Review of Books Publishing Workshop and the tuition costs of a small number of UW doctoral students accepted into the program, which will be held entirely online from June 24-July 26, 2024.