Mellon Democracy and Landscape Initiative

Dumbarton Oaks, a research institute of Harvard University, has been awarded a “Humanities in Place” grant renewal by the Mellon Foundation. The grant will support research and scholarly programming on Democracy and Landscape with particular attention to questions of race, identity, and difference. To this end, the Foundation has awarded Dumbarton Oaks $2 million over five years.

Over the past three years, the second installment of the Mellon Initiative in Urban Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks turned attention to the interrogation of Democracy and the Urban Landscape through questions of race, identity, and difference. By cultivating partnerships, supporting scholarly activity, and connecting with youth in the community, the initiative contributed to the inclusive dialogues required to nurture a dynamic democracy and address legacies of neglect and marginalization. The first phase produced publications on such topics as the resilience of river cities and the physical, social, and political relations between the production of food and urban settlements.

In this third phase, the Initiative focuses on “Democracy and Landscapes: Race, Identity, and Difference” as a part of the Mellon’s “Humanities in Place” program. Grants in this area “support a fuller, more complex telling of American histories and lived experiences by deepening the range of how and where our stories are told and by bringing a wider variety of voices into the public dialogue.”Mellon Foundation website At Dumbarton Oaks, we are building scholarship in landscape, environmental, and place histories that recenter cultural points of view historically un-heard, shared, and/or honored. This work broadens the contributions of Dumbarton Oaks to scholarship that promotes and strengthens the essential role of humanities and history in the landscape and in place.

Learn more about the Mellon Democracy and Landscape Initiative at Dumbarton Oaks in short videos featuring members of the advisory board.

Image courtesy the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, fsa 8d28925.