Quadrant: Publication and Research Collaboratives
About Quadrant
With funding support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the University of Minnesota Press and the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota have joined together to develop Quadrant, a program to promote interdisciplinary publication and research. Quadrant is a new model for Press-University partnerships that brings scholars in the humanities and social sciences into dialogue with those in the sciences and professional schools. In doing so, Quadrant also addresses rising concerns about the distance of university presses from the goals and priorities of their parent institutions.
In parallel with the University’s strategic goals as articulated in Transforming the U: Commitment to Excellence, Quadrant provides research residencies or other opportunities for collaborative interaction to scholars at the Institute for Advanced Study and supports publication of the resulting work by the University of Minnesota Press.
The Quadrant Books series launched in fall 2010 with the publication of Rebecca R. Scott’s Removing Mountains: Extracting Nature and Identity in the Appalachian Coalfields and Rebirth of the Clinic: Places and Agents in Contemporary Health Care, edited by Cindy Patton. In spring 2011 two more Quadrant books were published: Laura Ogden’s Swamplife: People, Gators, and Mangroves Entangled in the Everglades and Lisa Anna Richey and Stefano Ponte’s Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World. For more information, visit the University of Minnesota Press's Quadrant Books page.
Focusing on emerging areas of groundbreaking interdisciplinary scholarship, Quadrant has created four groups: Design, Architecture, and Culture; Environment, Culture, and Sustainability; Global Cultures; and Health and Society. The Quadrant program also includes opportunities for external scholars to spend a semester in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study to work with a collaborative group.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has been a significant supporter of Quadrant’s growth and development. Mellon provided an initial grant of $672,000 for Quadrant in 2007, and awarded a second grant of $483,000 in 2010.
Quadrant Groups
Each of the four Quadrant Publication and Research Groups reflects an area of current or emerging excellence at the University of Minnesota, in which innovative, interdisciplinary work has begun to appear.
Design, Architecture, and Culture
With emphases on sustainable development, design practices, uses of public space, and historic preservation, the Design, Architecture, and Culture Group fosters the research, development, publication, and dissemination of critical work on the built environment to examine how architectural and design practices are inscribed with cultural and social meaning. Such work is drawn from a broad range of scholars in such fields as architecture and design, cultural studies, communications, art and visual culture, geography, history, and political science.
Members of the advisory board for the Design, Architecture, and Culture group are John Archer, Ritu Bhatt, Marilyn Delong, and Katherine Solomonson. The contact person is Professor Solomonson.
Environment, Culture, and Sustainability
The Environment, Culture, and Sustainability Group promotes the research, development, publication, and dissemination of critical works on the social and cultural aspects of environmental policy, land use, and ecological sustainability as well as theoretical projects dealing with their visual and textual representations. As such the group encourages interdisciplinary projects from scholars in such fields as art history and criticism, environmental studies, literature, theory and philosophy, anthropology, rhetoric, sociology, geography, and communications, as well as scholars located in the newly formed Institute on the Environment.
Members of the advisory board for the Environment, Culture, and Sustainability group are Bruce Braun, Stuart McLean, and Christine Marran. The contact person for this group is Anne Carter, the Quadrant Coordinator.
Global Cultures
Focusing on the historical roots, current processes, and cultural impact of globalization, the Global Cultures Group advances the research, development, publication and dissemination of interdisciplinary projects examining such issues as human rights, economic development, immigration, displacement, and migration. The group encourages and cultivates critical engagement between scholars working in, for example, anthropology, comparative literature, cultural studies, economics, geography, law, political science, and gender and sexuality studies.
The group connects visiting scholars and Quadrant Fellows to intellectual communities on campus, such as the Institute for Global Studies , the Center for the Study of Global Change , the Office of International Programs , and the IAS collaborative groups The Human/Nonhuman Research Collaborative, The Making of Global Cities, Intersecting Performance and Social Justice , and Transnational Film and Media Studies.
For the 2012-2013 Quadrant fellowship competition, the Global Cultures selection committee is particularly interested in research projects that bridge the divide between the humanities and social sciences and are concerned with one or more of the following issues:
- difference and coexistence in the global city, especially in terms of violence, immigration, migration, and indigeneity
- social movements, cultural resistance, everyday resistance, or other forms of resistance to a homogenizing culture
- studies of (and critiques of) green culture
- global climate change, especially studies of sustainability or of migration spurred by climate change.
The research statement should present an explicit argument concerning how and why the project makes an interdisciplinary innovation and is global, rather than simply local.
Members of the advisory board for the Global Cultures group are Evelyn Davidheiser, Michael Goldman, Helga Leitner, and Margaret Werry. The contact person for this group is Professor Davidheiser.
Health and Society
Focusing on the social impact of infection, disease and medicine, the Health and Society Group promotes the research, development, and publication of works dealing broadly with medical ethics, genetics, disability, illness, treatment issues and the end of life. Currently, much of this work is conducted outside of and across traditional disciplinary boundaries. The group gives institutional and professional support to scholars working from such diverse areas as anthropology, sociology, history, geography, science studies, psychology, literature, and philosophy.
Members of the advisory board for the Health and Society group are Susan Craddock, Jennifer Gunn, Alex Rothman, and Karen-Sue Taussig. The contact person for this group is Anne Carter, the Quadrant Coordinator.
External Fellowships
As part of this initiative the Mellon Foundation funds external fellowships of up to one semester to individuals who participate in a Quadrant group. Stipends are up to $30,000, including benefits, for one semester. Quadrant Fellows are in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study during the tenure of their fellowship and have the opportunity to work directly with university press editors in developing their work. Work completed while on this fellowship may be submitted to the University of Minnesota Press for publication through its standard peer review and faculty committee approval processes. The fellowship may not be used for work toward a degree. Applications for 2012-12 Quadrant Fellowships are due November 17, 2011.
Three Quadrant fellows are in residence in 2011-12. Quadrant has also hosted fellows in academic years 2010-11, 2009-10 and 2008-09 academic years.
For further information, contact Ann Waltner.