Morris Fromkin Memorial Lecture

2023 Fromkin Research Grant and Lecture

The UWM Libraries invite proposals for the 2023 Fromkin Research Grant and Lecture. The grant encourages and assists UWM scholars in all fields of study to conduct research on individuals, groups, movements, and ideas, in the Americas and elsewhere, which have influenced the quest for social justice and human rights in the United States.

Who May Apply: All full-time UWM faculty and academic staff are encouraged to apply, individually or as a group.

Amount: A $5,000 award which is intended to cover costs of research such as support for travel, research assistance, or other appropriate expenses. The award may not be used for salary.

Basis of Award: The award is based upon the importance of the topic to the history of the quest for social justice, the strength of the proposal, and the applicant’s qualifications for research on the topic. Applicants are encouraged to use the Fromkin Memorial Collection in some way toward their research.

Requirements: The grant recipient delivers the Morris Fromkin Memorial Lecture during the Fall 2023 semester.

Application: The application needs to include the following elements:

• Applicant’s name.
• Department.
• Title of Proposed Project.
• A description of the proposed project, indicating the primary and secondary source materials to be used, and location of the sources (please limit to 4 pages).
• A budget itemizing proposed expenses, such as supplies, travel, or other appropriate expenses.
• Other financial support received for this project.
• Other pending applications for financial support for this project.
• Applicant’s curriculum vitae, including a bibliography of all the applicant’s scholarship that is related to the proposed project.

Deadline: Applications must be received by email (libadmin@uwm.edu) by Friday, January 13, 2023.

Following the receipt of all applications, the Fromkin Research Grant Committee will schedule interviews at which individual applicants can make a virtual presentation further describing the project and answer questions from the Committee.

The Fromkin Research Grant Committee notifies applicants of its decision during the early part of the Spring 2023 semester.

Additional Information: Applicants may review winning Fromkin Grant proposals from previous years. For more information, email libspecial@uwm.edu or call (414) 229-4345.

Click here to view the list of previous lectures in this series.

2022 Morris Fromkin Memorial Lecture

About the Research:

“Many Americans profess to learning a great deal about history and heritage through travel to sites of cultural significance. While tourism offers enjoyable encounters with history, these experiences can be problematic when that history involves uncomfortable truths about our shared past, especially in relation to slavery, the Civil War and systemic racism. Heritage tourism of the American South, with its contested memorial landscapes, and its millions of visitors of each year, draws our attention to the complex and unsuspecting ways that leisure travel shapes people’s understandings of race and racism in the United States.

My research, which is focused on Charleston, South Carolina, explores how tourists are invited to remember the South and its role in history in strategic ways through the built environment, heritage displays, guided tours, and other tourist experiences. I find that comfort—physical and psychological ease—functions as a powerful common denominator connecting tourism, heritage, race, and memory. Heritage tourism in the South is an especially salient lens for considering contemporary issues of antiracism and social justice because it compels us to ask how comfort can at once draw so many people into the fraught spaces of the historical roots of racial injustice, yet also undercut the collective will for social and political change.”

Established by Morris Fromkin’s family and supported by an endowment from Fromkin’s grandson, Daniel Soyer, the lecture series, which is dedicated to social justice, is the longest running lecture series on campus.

The 2022 Fromkin Research Grant selection committee included Rachel Baum, Anne Bonds, Rick Popp, Amanda Seligman, Max Yela, and Michael Doylen.