Franco Institute announces large grant winners
from spring 2026 application season
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The Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good recently awarded large grants to eleven faculty across eight departments in the College of Arts & Letters.
Large Creative and Performing Arts Grants:
David Bird, assistant professor of music, Hinterlands album release.
Roy Scranton, associate professor of English, Popeye: An American Odyssey.
Rodrigo Lara Zendejas, assistant professor of art, solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis.
Lida Zeitlin-Wu, assistant professor of Film, Television, and Theatre, “How Color Became a Technology: The Making of Chromatic Capitalism.”
Large Henkels Grants:
Kimberly Belcher, associate professor of theology, “The Work of Human Hands: Timely and Timeless” (April 15-17, 2027).
Jennie Grillo, associate professor of theology, “Embodiment and Affect in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity” (May 9-13, 2027).
Victoria Tin-Bor Hui, associate professor of political science, “The Rise and Fall–and Resilience–of Christian Churches and Civil Society in Hong Kong and in Exile” (May 2027).
Mary Celeste Kearney, professor of Film, Television, and Theatre, “100 Years Strong But Forever 16: Reclaiming and Expanding Teen Entertainment History” (April 2-3, 2027).
Gabriel Radvansky, professor of psychology, “Event Cognition Conference” (March 22-24, 2027).
Large Research Grants:
Muna Adem, assistant professor of sociology, “When Is Catastrophic Harm Publicly Recognized? Immigration Enforcement and (Non)Eventfulness.”
Kaylin Hill, assistant professor of psychology, “Neuroscience for the Public Good: Supporting First-Time Parents.”
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Register by April 6 for Templeton Foundation faculty workshop
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On Wednesday, April 22, 3:30pm-5:00pm in Jenkins Nanovic Halls 1030 A&B, the Foundation Relations team, in partnership with the Franco Institute, will host an informational session about the John Templeton Foundation. This session will be an opportunity to learn more about the Templeton Foundation’s funding priorities and how faculty can best position their projects for successful applications. It will also include small group discussions in order to encourage collaboration.
Faculty speakers will include Chris Baglow, Meghan Sullivan, and Nic Teh.
Please register by Monday, April 6th.
Contact Suzanne DeGuilio (sdeguili@nd.edu) with any questions.
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| Register today for faculty writing retreat
June 1-4
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The Franco Institute will host a writing retreat for faculty (Monday-Thursday) June 1-4 in Corbett Hall on campus. The retreat is designed to provide time, space, and structure to help faculty make significant progress on scholarly writing projects. The Franco Institute will provide breakfast, lunch, snacks, and basic office supplies for all participants.
Space for this retreat is limited. Registration is open to all regular faculty with a primary appointment in the College of Arts & Letters on a first-come, first-served basis.
Send questions to Matt Zyniewicz (mzyniewi@nd.edu), Franco Institute Associate Director for Operations and Strategic Initiatives.
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LOOK: 2026 Art, Art History, and Design Exhibition open until April 10 with closing reception on April 7
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Look responds to the Franco Institute's 2025-26 research theme: attention. This exhibition in O'Shaughnessy Gallery East features faculty from the Department of Art, Art History, and Design and received curatorial support from the Notre Dame Arts Initiative and Student Arts Fellows, Antonio Dominguez De Obaldia and Heaven Nartey.
Participating Artists: Justin Barfield, Emily Beck, Jason Lahr, Rodrigo Lara Zendejas, Martina Lopez, and James Rudolph.
Closing Reception:
Tuesday, April 7, 4 - 5pm
O'Shaughnessy Gallery East, O'Shaughnessy Hall
Join the Arts Initiative, Department of Art, Art History, and Design, and Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good for a closing reception to celebrate the 2026 Art, Art History, and Design Faculty Exhibition, Look. Welcome remarks at 4:15pm. Drinks and refreshments provided.
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Third Faculty Fellows workshop rounds out
successful first year
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The third workshop of the Franco Humanities Fellows for the 2025-2026 academic year took place on Thursday, March 19. This workshop culminated a year of interdisciplinary conversation and research among the fellows.
Philosophy professor Michael Rea presented work from his book Love, Beauty, and Objectification. English professor Chris Abram shared writing from Inventing Beowulf: Innovation and Tradition in the Post-Medieval Poem.
Faculty fellows and guest reviewers from Oxford, Bethel, and the University of Utah responded to Rea and Abram.
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| Writer N. K. Jemisin visits South Bend for Franco Institute event
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On Tuesday, March 3, an audience of book-lovers from the Michiana community and Notre Dame joined Jemisin at Stockroom East across from Howard Park in downtown South Bend.
The event consisted of a fireside-style chat with the author, joined by Franco Director Kate Marshall and Cham Moore, an assistant professor of English at Butler University and 2021 Notre Dame Ph.D. A warm reception and book signing followed the discussion.
The conversation with Jemisin showcased how speculation and genre are among the best tools we have to understand our most difficult present-day dilemmas.
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Nineteen scholars research “Attention”
through the Franco Institute’s 2025-2026
Annual Research Theme Grants
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Over the past year, the Institute awarded nineteen Annual Research Theme grants to faculty and graduate students in the College of Arts & Letters. With the Franco Institute’s support, scholars in anthropology; art, art history, and design; English; peace studies; political science; psychology; Romance Languages and Literatures; sociology; the Technology and Digital Studies Program; and theology are researching diverse locales—including Kenya, Brazil, the Philippines, Mexico, Turkey, and Nepal—as well as South Bend.
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Four ND students participate in a2ru's creative summit at Michigan State University
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Two undergraduates and two graduate students from Notre Dame attended this year's a2ru (Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities) Emerging Creatives Summit on the theme "Rewilding: New Stories of Collective Wellbeing" March 5-8, 2026. The Arts Initiative and the Franco Institute provided support for the students.
Emerging Creatives is a three-day collaborative experience in which students form small cross-disciplinary teams to explore a specific area of the Summit’s theme. Over the course of the event, teams make something that represents their exploration: a syllabus, cookbook, podcast, app, opera, pair of shoes, urban blueprint, pop-up store, musical score, website, and more.
The following students attended the Summit based on Arts & Letters affiliation or faculty nomination:
Youngju (Anna) Jang, '26 (Art History
Minor)
Kali Spalding, '26 (English and
Anthropology)
Ondrea Amandhi Mathews, PhD
candidate in the Cody Smith Lab, College of Science
Brandon Rushton, PhD candidate in the
Department of English
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NEH Fellowship applications open until April 22
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NEH Fellowships are grants to individual scholars pursuing projects that embody exceptional humanistic research, rigorous analysis, and clear writing. Applications must clearly articulate a project’s value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both. These awards provide recipients with time to write, to travel, and to conduct research and other project-related activities. Projects are eligible at any stage.
Please note: this year's fellowships have new topical restrictions:
“The 2026 Fellowships competition will accept only projects for research in American history and culture and Western civilization. Competitive applications must focus on topics in the history, culture, and government of the United States in any period from the Colonial Era to the present, or topics in Western civilization from antiquity to the present.”
Interested faculty can contact Kevin Gallin, the Franco Institute's assistant director for research development, at kgallin@nd.edu for support or questions on eligibility.
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Day | Merton Symposium WAIT LIST
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*If you have previously registered and are unable to attend, please release your ticket so that someone may claim it off the wait list.*
The Franco Institute will host its inaugural Dorothy Day & Thomas Merton Culture and the Public Good Symposium on April 10, 2026. Named for two of the foremost socially engaged Catholic thinkers of the 20th century, the signature annual event will culminate a year of themed research support at the institute. It gathers speakers across a range of backgrounds — public figures, artists, and scholars — to consider an urgent yet enduring question and engage in a dialogue that can guide public conversation on the topic.
To coincide with this year's research theme of attention, our speakers will respond to the question "How should we hold attention?"
This is a free but ticketed event. Space is limited.
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Upcoming Franco Funding Deadlines
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