CLAS Faculty Awarded National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships
Professors Elizabeth Dale and Matthieu Felt receive support for their humanities projects
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced Tuesday that Elizabeth Dale and Matthieu Felt of the University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences have received fellowships to support their “advanced research in the humanities.”
Dale, professor in the Department of History and affiliate professor in the Fredric G. Levin College of Law, was awarded $55,000 by the NEH to complete a book detailing the significance of reform in criminal law and process between 1925 and 1975. Felt, assistant professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, received $40,000 to produce a modern translation of “The Chronicles of Japan,” the first official history of the Japanese state, originally compiled in the year 720. Both projects will become published books with the support of the NEH fellowship.
Dale’s work, tentatively titled “Marking the Borders of Citizenship,” will illustrate the dramatic changes within the criminal justice system pushed by the U.S. Supreme Court and activists in the mid-20th century. Her book also intends to outline the violence that continued under criminal law despite these reforms, especially to low-income communities and people with disabilities.
“This book looks at why those reforms were needed, and why they fell short,” Dale said. “In a period when Covid has made access to archives difficult, this extra time is even more valuable and I’m very grateful.”
Dale has previously published several books and journal articles focused on legal history in the U.S. and served as editor of Law and History Review from 2013 to 2017.
Felt’s new scholarly translation of “The Chronicles of Japan” will supplement the classical text with notes, maps and other critical materials, offering a more expansive alternative to the only current translation. The book will be published in two volumes by the Oxford University Press as part of the new Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature.
Felt, who arrived at UF in 2018, was thrilled to hear he was selected by the NEH. “Receiving the NEH means having the dedicated time to finish this project with the level of quality and attention to detail that it deserves,” Felt said.
The fellowships were among $24.7 million in grants awarded by the NEH to 208 projects across the country.
