AADHum, African American Digital and Experimental Humanities at the University of Maryland, is pleased to offer our 2024-25 AADHum Scholars Microgrant Program!
<aside> 📢 To apply, visit The Microgrants Program application.
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We encourage applications from students across all disciplines, provided that projects center humanistic study or expression of Black life through digital or experimental technologies. We are particularly interested in projects that dovetail with existing AADHum research areas, including but not limited to:
digital, analog, or hybrid bookmaking
electronic literature, computational poetics, and digital storytelling
explorations of artificial intelligence and natural language processing
AR / VR
speculative mapping
environmental sensing
Black technocultures
crafting and fiber arts
physical computing
critical video game study and development
sound studies
<aside> 💡 Recent AADHum-supported projects have included: a fiber arts project exploring place-based data through binary bead weaving; an interactive augmented reality filter illuminating the different kinds of particles and pollution in the air around us; and an interactive sonic web experience exploring approaches to Black community crisis-care.
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We accept applications on a rolling basis throughout the year, with deadlines on the first of each month. We welcome projects across a wide range of scopes and durations, from single-day sprints to projects spanning up to a semester. We ask that all projects have a clearly defined deliverable as their outcome: for instance, a virtual installation of media artworks, or a day-long crafting sprint to produce networked embroidery hoops, or a collection of research materials to be used for a sound tapestry.
<aside> ⚓ AADHum is committed to the critical and creative study of Black life and how such lifeworlds bear on the production, use, and critical humanistic potential of digital and experimental technologies. As such, we have designed these microgrants to seed exciting student-led projects in Black study broadly construed, particularly those pursued outside the traditional context of the classroom.
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Applicants may submit an entire project or apply to fund a particular deliverable within a larger project. Successful applicants are also welcome to re-apply for further microgrants provided that applications outline distinct stages or deliverables each time.
Applications will be evaluated on the excellence of the proposal and its appropriateness to AADHum's mission of expanding digital and experimental Black study.
Upon the completion of their microgrant period, award recipients will record a video interview with AADHum team members, which AADHum will use to highlight projects in our newsletter and social media.
Click here to apply. Be ready to:
Write a short description of your project. In your description, highlight how your project uses digital or experimental/ new media/ textile technologies to explore Black life and culture. (max 250 words)
Detail your proposed time period for this microgrant. In your timeline, explain how the microgrant will help you finish your project, and estimate how long this work will take. If the microgrant is helping you complete one piece of a larger project, focus your project timeline on the microgrant section.
Note: All microgrant work must be completed by May 12, 2025.
Tell us about a different project you have completed in the past and discuss how the arts or research project helped you develop skills for your microgrant project. Your previous project doesn’t have to be digital or experimental, but detail how it helped you prepare for your microgrant project. (max 150 words)
<aside> 💫 Eligibility ⇢ This program is available to undergraduate and graduate students in the University System of Maryland (USM) and Morgan State University. The USM includes UMD College Park, Bowie State, Coppin State, Frostburg State, Salisbury U., Towson U., U. Baltimore, UMD Baltimore, UMBC, UMD Center for Environmental Science, UMD Eastern Shore, UMD Global Campus, Universities at Shady Grove, USM at Hagerstown, & at Southern Maryland.
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