The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded the St. Croix Landmarks Society Inc. a $200,000 Planning Grant to establish a Provisional U.S. Virgin Islands Humanities Council. Landmarks responded to an NEH Request for Proposals last October and was awarded the planning grant in April.
“We are extremely excited to have received this opportunity, and, over the next several months, we are scheduling a series of listening sessions with stakeholders across the Virgin Islands to get input on the development of a humanities agenda that is reflective of the history, culture and diversity of the people of the U.S. Virgin Islands,” said Executive Director Sonia Jacobs Dow. “Our application received support from a broad cross section of humanities-based groups, scholars and government officials from across the Virgin Islands; this support contributed to our application’s success.”
The NEH defines the humanities as “the study and interpretation of language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting diverse heritage, traditions and history and …the current conditions of national life.”
According to NEH, the main goal of the provisional organization is to develop a plan to support and publicize humanities programming throughout the territory.
“In addition to the listening sessions, we will also be conducting a survey to garner input from the public,” Jacobs Dow said. “We will also be required to conduct at least one public humanities event in the first year.”
“We are inviting all humanities, arts, education and cultural preservation organizations and other interested persons to attend the listening sessions so that we can conduct an inventory of current programming and find out what people want to do in the future,” she said.
The first series of Listening Sessions are scheduled for:
- Tuesday, Aug. 1, on St. Thomas at Victor’s Hideout from 7-9 p.m.
- Wednesday, Au. 2, on St. John at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church from 5-7 p.m.
- Wednesday, Aug. 9, on St. Croix at Estate Whim Museum from 5-7 p.m.
For more information on the Provisional Humanities Council, contact Sonia Jacobs Dow at the St. Croix Landmarks Society at sjacobsdow@stcroixlandmarks.org or 772-0598.
