News
Professor Larson awarded $262K Grant for Prison Writing Archives
By Cesar Renero ’17
March 30, 2017
Tags news
Doran Larson, the Walcott-Bartlett Professor of Ethics and Christian Evidences, was awarded a $262,000 grant by the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) for his work on the American Prison Writing Archive (APWA). The NEH funds innovative projects and research through peer-reviewed proposals that expand and preserve the humanities nationwide. The APWA is the largest database of non-fiction work by current inmates in the United States, for which Larson serves as the Principal Investigator.
Professor Larson’s interest in the field started in 2006, when he began organizing writing workshops at the Attica Correctional Facility. Once given a voice, incarcerated writers began sharing a plethora of experiences and stories that illustrated the reality of confinement. In 2008, Larson began offering a seminar class to Hamilton students that incorporated the Attica workshops, and in 2014 he published Fourth City: Essays from the Prison in America, which is to date the largest printed collection of prison writing.
Through these experiences, Larson realized that the sheer output produced by confined writers could not possibly be contained in workshops, seminars or books. To that end, the APWA seeks to identify, catalogue and preserve prison writing, with a fully searchable archive, in order to “replace speculation on and misrepresentation of prisons and imprisoned people with first-person witness by those on the receiving end of American criminal justice.” Larson highlights the importance of hearing first-hand the histories that make up the largest incarcerated population in the world, one which is often silenced and ignored by the rest of our society.
This is the largest single NEH grant received by a Hamilton faculty member in 17 years, exemplifying nationwide recognition of Larson’s efforts. One of the biggest challenges the APWA faces when soliciting, collecting and digitizing content is a lack of resources and human capital. The grant will provide useful funding for the next three years to double the size of the collection, as well as help improve its interface and improve its search capabilities.
Hamilton’s Digital-Humanities Initiative (DHi) currently maintains the project and is designing and building its website interface. This is one of the various research activities housed by the DHi, which works to support faculty in developing digital research tools to advance the understanding and application of the humanities.