SIUE Awarded $1.6M Mellon Foundation Grant to Support Public Knowledge Digital Project on African American Literary Studies

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville has been awarded a $1.6 million grant from the Mellon Foundation through its Public Knowledge program. The award will support the expansion of the Black Lit Network, a digital resource dedicated to African American literary studies. The project includes a podcast series, data visualizations, a literature search tool, and additional public-facing resources.

A lead researcher on the project is SIUE Distinguished Research Professor of Literature Howard Rambsy II, PhD. “I’m thrilled to have received this grant and opportunity,” said Rambsy. “I’m especially pleased that the grant will be based at SIUE. It’s rare for an African American literary studies initiative at a regional university like ours to receive a grant of this scale.”

According to the Mellon Foundation, the grant enables a team of humanities scholars to “support further development of a network for digital humanities teaching, research and learning.”

Rambsy previously served as a co-principal investigator on the first phase of the Black Lit Network, which the Mellon Foundation funded from 2021-24 with an $800,000 grant. While the project was housed at the University of Kansas, Rambsy was one of the lead writers of the proposal.

“During the first phase, I worked with my SIUE colleagues Dr. Elizabeth Cali, a scholar in African American literary studies, and Dr. Margaret Smith, of the IRIS Center at SIUE, to make significant contributions to the project,” explained Rambsy. “Mellon officials took notice of our work and recognized SIUE as a strong home for the next phase.”

Rambsy again led the writing of the grant proposal, and in July, the Mellon Foundation officially confirmed the award. Ayesha Hardison (Indiana University) and Kenton Rambsy (Howard University) will serve as co-principal investigators and national partners on the project.

The grant will support the continued development of several digital tools and platforms, including:

• The Literary Navigator Device (formerly The Novel Generator Machine), which enables users to search across hundreds of novels, poems, short stories, essays and comic books by Black writers.

• Remarkable Receptions, a podcast created and produced by Howard Rambsy and Cali, which explores popular and critical responses to African American literary works.

• The Literary Data Gallery, a platform for digital storytelling and data visualizations, co-created by Howard Rambsy and Kenton Rambsy.

“Having the opportunity to collect and share significant content and pathways for engaging with African American literature with a large-scale audience is a gift,” said Cali, who serves as SIUE co-director of the grant project alongside Rambsy. “This kind of knowledge about Black literary creativity and history grows through years of study and conversation. The grant makes it possible for us to bring these conversations and ideas to various reading publics in ways that are both accessible and sustainable.”

“The Black Lit Network is a stellar example of how digital humanities projects can be powerful scholarly tools and vehicles for sparking curiosity in newcomers to the field,” said Smith, interim director of the IRIS Center, who will oversee implementation of the project’s technological components. “It’s exciting for us in the IRIS Center to support projects that bring innovative approaches to content and really leverage digital tools to open up new questions about such rich texts.” Smith will collaborate with Dan Schreiber, IT technical associate at the IRIS Center.

This major grant situates SIUE as a leading institution for collaborative, digital approaches to African American literary studies. While large-scale projects in the humanities are often associated with elite or research-intensive universities, the Mellon Foundation’s investment highlights the vital contributions being made by scholars at a regional public institution. The award acknowledges SIUE’s distinctive combination of research, teaching, and public outreach related to Black literary and cultural studies, noted Howard Rambsy.

The Black Lit Network will also expand opportunities for public engagement. The varied digital tools and platforms associated with the project, such as the podcast, visualizations and searchable literature database, are designed to make African American literary studies more accessible to a wide range of audiences. The project invites educators, students, and general readers to explore and contribute to conversations about authors, artistic compositions and literary history.

“My younger brother Kenton and I have been collaborating for more than a decade on projects that merge African American literary studies and digital humanities,” said Rambsy. “One major difference this time is that we now have significant funding to support our ideas. We’re extremely grateful to Mellon, and we see the best way to show our appreciation is by working with our partners and contributors to produce a high-quality, far-reaching project.”

This phase of the grant will run from August 2025 – July 2028.