(By Invitation)

Purpose

The Mellon Foundation's Sawyer Seminars program was established in 1994 to provide support for comparative research on the historical and cultural sources of contemporary developments.  The seminars, named in honor of the Foundation's long-serving third president, John E. Sawyer, have brought together faculty, foreign visitors, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students from a variety of fields mainly, but not exclusively, in the humanities and social sciences, for intensive study of subjects chosen by the participants.  This program aims to engage productive scholars in comparative inquiry that would (in ordinary university circumstances) be difficult to pursue, while at the same time avoiding the institutionalization of such work in new centers, departments, or programs.  Sawyer Seminars are, in effect, temporary research centers.

Each seminar normally meets for one year.  Faculty participants have largely come from the humanities and social sciences, although faculty members from professional schools have also been key participants in a number of seminars.  Seminar leaders are encouraged also to invite participants from nearby institutions.  As the Foundation reviews proposals, preference is given to those that include concrete plans for engaging participants with diverse affiliations.

Sawyer Seminar awards provide support for one postdoctoral fellow to be recruited through a national (or international) competition, and for the dissertation research of two graduate students.  It is expected that the graduate students will be active participants in the seminars, and the seminars' contributions to graduate education in the humanities and social sciences will be carefully considered even though they are not intended to be organized as official credit-bearing courses. 

There is no requirement that they produce a written product.

Selection and Award Process

Institutions are invited to submit proposals for a specified number of Sawyer Seminars (usually one or two depending on the number of institutions being invited to participate in a given round).  It is expected that university administrators and others will communicate the Foundation's invitation and the particulars of the program broadly to the faculty.  Institutions are to decide through an internal process which proposals they will submit to the Foundation for consideration.

Proposals should describe: (1) the scholarly importance of the subject to be examined; (2) the central questions to be addressed; (3) the cases to be compared (e.g., nations, regions, social aggregates, time periods) and the rationale for the comparisons that are selected; (4) the thematic "threads" that will run through the seminar; (5) the institution's resources and suitability for the proposed seminar; and (6) the procedures to be used in selecting graduate and postdoctoral fellows.  Additionally, proposals should include a budget and a well developed preliminary plan for the seminar that outlines the specific topics to be addressed in each session and provides the names and qualifications of the scholars who would ideally participate.

After they are submitted to the Foundation, proposals are reviewed by an advisory committee of distinguished scholars.  In recent competitions, approximately one-third of proposals have been recommended for funding with only minor revisions requested.  (In a very small number of cases the committee has recommended that a substantially revised proposal be resubmitted for later consideration, but with no guarantee that it will ultimately be approved.)  The committee's recommendations are then put before the Foundation's Board of Trustees for its approval.

Following approval by the Foundation's Trustees, funds are disbursed to the host institution.  Past experience suggests that it can take a year or more to organize the seminars.

Budget

Maximum awards are determined with each competition and are included in the letter of invitation.  (In the most recent competition requests could not exceed $150,000.)  It is expected that each seminar's budget will provide for a postdoctoral fellowship to be awarded for the year the seminar meets, and two dissertation fellowships for graduate students to be awarded for the seminar year or the year that follows.  The amount for postdoctoral fellowship awards and dissertation fellowship stipends should follow institutional practices.  Travel and living expenses for short stays by visiting scholars and the costs of coordinating the seminar, including those incurred for speakers and their travel, may be included.  The grants may not, however, be used for the costs of release time for regular faculty participants, or for indirect costs.

Funded Seminars

• Cornell University, "Social Movements and Regime Change in Latin America and Post-Communist Europe," Valerie Bunce, Holly Case, Ray Craib, Ken Roberts
• Stanford University, "The Dynamics of Inequality," David B. Grusky
• Stanford University, "The First Great Divergence: China and Europe, 500-800 CE," Ian Morris, Walter Scheidel, Mark Lewis
• University of California at Berkeley, "The Dilemmas of Judicial Power: Constitutional Courts, Politics, and Society," Gordon Silverstein, Robert Kagan, Malcolm Feeley, Martin Shapiro
  
• University of California at Los Angeles, "Disputation: Ways of Arguing In and Out of the University," Brian Copenhaver
• University of Minnesota, "Humanitarianisms and World Order," Michael Barnett, Raymond Duvall
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "The Changing Nature(s) of Land: Property, Peasants, and Agricultural Production in a Global World," Wendy Wolford, Meenu Tewari
• University of Pennsylvania, "Power-Sharing in Deeply Divided Places," Brendan O'Leary, Jonathan Steinberg, Rita Barnard, Clark McCauley (Bryn Mawr), Arancha Garcia del Soto, Monroe Price, William Burke-White

• Duke University, "Human Being, Human Diversity, and Human Welfare: A Cross-Disciplinary and Cross-Cultural Study in Culture, Science, and Medicine," Priscilla Wald, Timothy Lenoir
• Duke University, "Portents and Dilemmas: Public Health and the Environment in China and India, A Comparative Study," John Richards, Ralph Litzinger
  
• Stanford University, "Visualizing Knowledge: From Alberti's Window to Digital Arrays," John Bender, Michael Marrinan
• University of California at Berkeley, "Private Wealth and Public Power: Oligarchs, Tycoons, and Magnates in Comparative Perspective," Yuri Slezkine
  
• University of Cambridge, "Debt, Sovereignty and Power," David Runciman, Helen Thompson
• University of Chicago, "The Problem of Non-Discursive Thought from Goethe to Wittgenstein: Inquiries in Aesthetic Theory, Forms of Representation, and the Logic of the Humanities," James Conant, David Wellbery
  
• University of Oxford, "Violence and Empire," Chase F. Robinson, Petra M. Sijpesteijn
• University of Toronto, "Globalizing the Americas: World Economies and Local Communities," Rick Halpern, Daniel Bender, Kenneth Mills, Derek Wiliams
  

• New School for Social Research, "Constitutional Design and the Politics of Difference in Mexico, Canada, and the United States," Courtney Jung
• Northwestern University, "Comparing Truth and Reconciliation Processes in their Historical and Cultural Contexts," Douglass W. Cassell, Jr.
• University of Aberdeen, "Citizens Within Subjects: Political Rights and Participation in Historical and Contemporary Perspective," Howard Hoston
  
• University of California at Irvine, "Redress: Social Thought, Law, and Literature," David Theo Goldberg
  
• University of Oxford, "The Theory and Politics of Civil Society," John Gardner, Jane Lewis, David Marquand, Alan Ryan
  
• University of Virginia, "World English and Global Culture," Michael Levenson
  

• Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, "Mass Violence & Genocide in the Twentieth Century," Neil Smelser, Norman Naimark (Stanford)
• Cornell University, "Towards a Transcultural and Transnational Europe," Davydd Greenwood
• Graduate School, CUNY, "Universal Human Rights and State Sovereignty: Towards More Effective International and Domestic Compliance," David Nasaw, Thomas G. Weiss
• Pennsylvania State University, "Early Evidence for Contact and Cultural Transmission in the 'Axial Age' Mediterranean," Baruch Halpern, Raymond Lombra
• Stanford University, "Settlement, Race, and Sovereignty in North America, South Africa, and Israel/Palestine," Joel Beinin, George Fredrickson, Hilton Obenzinger, Richard Roberts, Richard White
• Tulane University, "The Microfoundations of the Neoliberal Turn in Latin America," Anthony Pereira, Brian Potter
• University of California at Los Angeles, "The Ethics of the Neighbor," Kenneth Reinhard
• University of Virginia, "It's Not Your Dad's Welfare State Anymore: Institutions, Norms, and the Transformation of Welfare as We Know It," Herman Schwartz

• Columbia University, "Democracy and Inequality," Anthony W. Marx
  
• Columbia University, "Globalizing City Cultures," Andreas Huyssen
  
• Emory University, "Contending with Conflict," Don Donham
  
• Graduate School, CUNY, "New Immigrants and American Society," John Mollenkopf
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "Rural Places, Modern Times," Harriet Ritvo, Deborah Fitzgerald
• New York University, "Cold War and Its Legacy," Marilyn B. Young, Allen Hunter
• University of Chicago, "Circulation of Poetry," Robert Von Hallberg
  
• University of Chicago, "Medieval to Modern in the Islamic World," Cornell Fleischer
• University of Washington, "Ethno-Political Conflicts in the Modern World," Daniel Chirot, Resat Kasaba
  

• Columbia University, "Heterarchies: Public and Private Networks of Accountability," David Stark
• Columbia University, "The Production of the Past: History in the Making," Nicholas Dirks, Mahmood Mamdani (U Cape Town)
• Duke University, "Globalization and Equity: Voices from the Periphery," Robert Keohane, Peter Lange
• National Humanities Center, "Liberal Cultures and Their Critics," W. Robert Connor, Anthony La Vopa (North Carolina State)
• Princeton University, "Civil Wars: Roots and Reconciliation," Michael Doyle
  
• Princeton University, "Migration and Citizenship in the Americas," Jeremy Adelman, Marta Tienda
• University of California at Berkeley, "Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurialism, and Democracy in Communist and Post-Communist Societies," Victoria Bonnell, Thomas Gold
• University of Chicago, "Computer Science as a Human Science," Karen Landahl, Barbara Stafford
• University of Michigan, "Archives, Documentation and the Institutions of Social Memory," Francis X. Blouin, William Rosenberg
• University of Michigan, "Contested Childhoods in a Changing Global Order," Sharon Stephens, Lawrence Hirschfield, Elizabeth Goodenough
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "The Concept and Consequences of Race: Cross-National and Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives," William Darity, Jr.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "Reading Regions Globally: History, Place, and Power," James Peacock, Gerald Horne, David Moltke Hanson
  

• Emory University, "Defining the Public Health," Randall Packard, Peter Brown, Marcia Inhorn, Sharon Strocchia, Robert Hahn (Center for Disease Control), Howard Frumkin, Ruth Berkelman (Center for Disease Control)
• Emory University, "Healthcare: Let the Market Handle It?" James Fowler, Deborah McFarland, Richard Saltman, James Gustafson
  
• New School for Social Research, "Mass Media and the Public Sphere," Andrew Arato, Jeffrey C. Goldfarb
• New York University, "The City, Modernism, and the Problem of National Culture," Harry D. Harootunian
• Princeton University, "European Monetary Union: Dawn or Debacle?" Kenneth Rogoff
• Princeton University, "Western Economic Values and Alternative Models," Harold James
• University of Pennsylvania, "Globalization and Inequality," Douglas S. Massey
• Yale University, "The Millennium and Millennialism: Paradigms and Prospects," Abbas Amanat, Gustav Ranis

• Columbia University, "Retroactive Justice," Jon Elster, Anthony W. Marx, Stephen Skolnick
  
• Cornell University, "Democratic Detours," John Borneman, John Weiss, Hector Shamis, Valerie Bunce
• Johns Hopkins University, "National Cultures and the Construction of the Modern World," Anthony Pagden, Richard Kagan, Jack Greene, A. J. R. Russell-Wood, Franklin Knight, Michael Johnson
  
• New School for Social Research, "Role of the Military in Political and Social Change," Diane Davis, Anthony Pereira, Louise Tilly
• Yale University, "Genocide Studies," Benedict Kiernan, Gustav Ranis

• Columbia University, "Democratization, Norms and Institutions (Philosophical and literary discourse on democratization and liberalism)," Lisa Anderson, Gayatri Spivak, David Johnston
• National Humanities Center, "Comparative Studies of Identity Formation in Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia," W. Robert Connor, Lloyd S. Kramer (UNC Chapel Hill)
• National Humanities Center, "Public and Personal Identities," W. Robert Connor, Lloyd S. Kramer (UNC Chapel Hill)
• University of California at Los Angeles, "Comparative and Historical Study of the 'Triple Transition'," Robert Brenner, Rogers Brubaker, Ivan Szelenyi
  
• Yale University, "International Migration and Human Rights," Patricia Pessar, Gaddis Smith 
  

• Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, "Comparative Study of Cycles of Revolutionary Politics," Charles Tilly (New School), Doug McAdam (U Arizona), Sidney Tarrow (Cornell)
• Duke University, "Collective Actors in Transnational Societies," Herbert Kitschelt, James Leitzel
  
• Duke University, "New Nationalism, New Identities, New Perspectives," Edward A. Tiryakian, John F. Richards
• Duke University, "Public Culture and Transnationalism," Katherine Ewing
  
• Duke University, "Think Globally, Act Locally: Women's Leadership and Grassroots Activism," Nancy Hewitt
  
• Harvard University, "North America: Languages, Nationhood, and the Future," Marc Shell, Werner Sollors, Doris Sommer
  
• Harvard University, "The Performance of Existing Democracies," Samuel Huntington, Susan Pharr, Robert Putnam, Michael Sandel, Theda Skocpol
• Harvard University, "Societies in Transition," John Womack, Richard Freeman
• Northwestern University, "Contending 'Cultures' of Human Rights and Democracy," Jeff Winters, Meredith Woo-Cumings, Bruce Cumings
• Northwestern University, "Islamic Fundamentalism in Comparative Context: Historical Antecedents, Contemporary Debates," Jacob Lassner, Robert Launay, Carl Petry
• Stanford University, "Cultural and Historical Context of Industrialization in East Asia," Peter Duus, James Raphael, Arthur Wolf, Tom Rohlen
• Stanford University, "Race and Ethnicity in Comparative Perspective," Al Camarillo, Luis Fraga, George Fredrickson, Susan Olzak, Ramon Saldivar, Sharon Holland, Claude Steele
  
• University of California at Berkeley, "The Moral Economy of Islam," Kiren Aziz Chaudry, Richard Buxbaum
  
• University of California at Berkeley, "The Politics of Identity in Societies in Transition from Authoritarian Regimes," Robert Price
  
• University of Chicago, "Religion, Law and  the Construction of Identities," Frank Reynolds, Richard Helmholz, Martha Nussbaum, John Comaroff
  
• University of Chicago, "Sexual Identities, Identity Politics: Cross-Cultural Investigations," Beth Povinelli, George Chauncey, Michael Camille, Deborah Nelson, William Sibley
• University of Chicago, "Toleration, Repression, and Authority in Early Modern Europe," Richard Strier, Martha Feldman, Cornell Fleischer, Daniel Garber, Steven Pincus
• University of Michigan, "Demographic Regimes and Economies in Transition: Increases in Adult Mortality in Eastern Europe and Implications for the Developing World," Barbara Anderson
  
• University of Michigan, "Nation, Community and Culture in the Aftermath of Empire," Ann L. Stoler
  
• University of Michigan, "Social Movements and Social Change in a Globalizing World," Mayer N. Zald
  
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "Ethnic and Racial Economic Disparity: Cross National Perspectives," William Darity, Jr.