Subscribe to our newsletter by emailCritical Theory Consortium Grant
In summer of 2017, the UCI Libraries received a sub-award as part of its partnership with the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs (ICCTP) Andrew W. Mellon Foundation International Higher Education and Strategic Projects Grant. Based at UC Berkeley's Consortium for Interdisciplinary Research--the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs documents, connects and promotes new forms of critical theory that seek to respond to complex contemporary challenges across the globe.
According to Dr. Judith Butler, UC Berkeley's Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the consortium's principal investigator, the ICCTP project "will allow us to open new institutional links and to pursue collaborative forms of interdisciplinary knowledge on topics such as the role of populism in relation to democracy and authoritarianism, a contemporary critique of violence, and the critical tasks of the global university." For Dr. David Theo Goldberg, Professor of Comparative Literature and Criminology, Law & Society and Director of the UC Humanities Research Institute, the ICCTP's long term goal is "to contribute to renewing not only critical theory but an emerging generation of scholars and practitioners animated by its contributions."
Funding from this sub-award enabled the UCI Libraries to hire Jessica Ziegenfuss to contribute to the Critical Theory Archive Research Resources Development Project. A fifth year Ph.D. Candidate with UCI's Visual Studies doctoral program, Jessica is currently completing her dissertation, entitled The Synthetics of Eva Hesse, 1960-1973: Portraiture, Production, Process under the advisement of Dr. James Nisbet. As a Graduate Student Researcher, Jessica will collaborate with members of the UCI Libraries to design a new Critical Theory Archive website, which will serve as a research portal to direct visitors to resources, including bibliographic content, online finding aids and archival collections. The research to identify content for the new CTA website will be formatted into a data set that will contribute to international efforts to develop convenient, integrated discovery points for access to scholarly collections. According to Jessica, "I came to the ICCTP project with an array of visual methodologies that incorporate feminist studies, art history, material culture and the digital humanities. I see the website redesign portion of the initiative as an opportunity to turn the CTA's digital presence into a responsive finding aid and networking portal. The goal is to build a dynamic setting in better service of a continuously growing international community of scholars, research institutions and other archives working in critical theory." The project will therefore embolden the Critical Theory Archive's appeal to international scholars and make critical theory research easier to discover and share.
Grant Contributors: Matthew Roberts Ph.D., Research Librarian for English, Literature and Critical Theory, Kelly Spring, Archivist for Special Collections and Audra Eagle Yun, Head, Special Collections & Archives & University Archivist
Local UCI PI: Alison Regan, Associate University Librarian for Public Services
For more information about the ICCTP, please consult the UC Berkeley Press Release.
To learn more about the Critical Theory Archive Research Resources Development Project, please contact UCI Libraries' Special Collections and Archives at spcoll@uci.edu.