Interseminars Initiative
The Humanities Research Institute invites tenure-stream faculty to submit proposals for team-taught interdisciplinary graduate seminars in the arts and humanities for the 2026–27 academic year.
Over the past six years, with support from the Mellon Foundation, the Interseminars Initiative at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has provided funding and administrative infrastructure for collaborative graduate teaching, extended interdisciplinary inquiry, and public- and community-facing research in the humanities and arts.
In this new fourth round of funding, Interseminars will fund three interdisciplinary graduate courses in the arts and humanities, each co-taught by two faculty instructors. Each team will receive programming funds for course-related guest speakers and events. We invite proposals for courses that will be taught in either fall 2026 or spring 2027.
Read the full Interseminars Co-Teaching Grant call for proposals
Ready to apply? Visit the application form
About Interseminars
Responding to the challenges of sustaining interdisciplinary research and teaching in the arts and humanities, the Interseminars initiative began by providing funding and administrative infrastructure for collaborative teaching, sustained interdisciplinary inquiry, and public- and community-facing research in the humanities and arts. Funded by a $2,000,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation, Interseminars makes it possible for faculty and graduate students to undertake significant interdisciplinary research collaborations that will make a lasting impact in their long-term research trajectories and on the development of new research and curricular areas for the campus as a whole.
From 2022 to 2025, the Interseminars initiative supported three 18-month interdisciplinary projects by providing:
- course releases and summer research funds for 2–3 faculty coordinators;
- up to eight graduate fellowships per project (including summer funding);
- and programming funds for a public- or community-facing culminating event (such as a conference, exhibit, or performance).
Now, in the fourth round of funding, the Interseminars initiative will be supporting co-teaching grants for interdisciplinary graduate courses.
Cohort Information
First Interseminars project (2022–23), “Imagining Otherwise: Speculation in the Americas”:
Second Interseminars project (2023–24), “Improvise and Intervene”:
Third Interseminars project (2024–25), “Collisions Across Color Lines”:
Contact
For general questions regarding Interseminars, please email the Interseminars account. You may also contact members of the steering committee to consult on proposals.
Steering Committee Members
Antoinette Burton - Chair (History, Director of HRI)
Toby Beauchamp (Gender and Women’s Studies)
J. David Cisneros (Communication)
Patrick Hammie (Studio Arts)
Anke Pinkert (Germanic Literatures and Languages)