A Digital Future for Black Poetry at JMU, Thanks to New $2 Million Grant

Contact Information

Ginny Cramer

Contact Details

cramervm@jmu.edu

Description

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded James Madison University $2 million over four and a half years to secure the digital future of the Furious Flower Poetry Center, the nation’s first academic center devoted to Black poetry. This generous grant will support the Center’s internationally recognized leadership and provide for archival description, digital preservation, and global access to an extensive archive of Furious Flower poetry and spoken word performance videos held by JMU Libraries Special Collections. The grant will help to strengthen and enhance the Center’s web and scholarly publishing infrastructure in partnership with open access and digital scholarship initiatives at the JMU Libraries. This work includes Furious Flower’s trailblazing literary journal The Fight & The Fiddle. Furious Flower and JMU Libraries staff have planned all aspects of the project together. The partners will implement a new model of integrated library support for a living, academic center for the arts with archival components. This model, developed as part of a prior planning grant, will be centered in the needs and insights of Black poets and their related scholarly and creative communities.

Web Presence

https://www.jmu.edu/news/2022/01/04-furious-flower-libraries-mellon-grant.shtml

Involvement

Involves Faculty, Involves Staff, Involves Students, Involves Participants External to JMU

Scope

JMU Campus Scope, Harrisonburg/Local/VA, Regional US Scope, National Scope

Date

January 2022

Frequency

One Time Only

Existing Center/Institute/Program

yes

Areas of Engagement

Civic Engagement, Community Engagement, Engaged Learning

Format

Program, Research, Department or Center