Inspiring schoolchildren through Indigenous Maya culture and storytelling. Creating a music and culture exchange that connects Emory faculty and students with artists in Eastern Europe. Developing a bus tour program to highlight Atlanta’s complex history and ongoing transformation through public art. These are just a few of the latest faculty projects supported through the Emory Initiative for Arts and Humanistic Inquiry to bring together scholars, students, artists and local communities through creative expression.
Launched by the Office of the Provost in fall 2023, the Arts and Humanistic Inquiry initiative funds creative programming developed by faculty from all of Emory’s schools and colleges and has awarded grants to dozens of programs. Faculty proposals are accepted on a rolling basis and funded programs can span from performances and workshops to conferences and residencies.
"The Emory Initiative for Arts and Humanistic Inquiry directly nurtures scholarship and builds community around the arts and humanities,” says Kevin Karnes, chair of the Arts and Humanistic Inquiry faculty advisory committee, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Music, divisional dean of arts and senior associate dean of faculty in Emory College. "The latest funded programs reflect core Emory beliefs of understanding and facing the challenges around us while engaging with communities both local and global.”
Emil’ Keme, professor of English and indigenous studies, received funding for “Advancing Understanding of the Human Experience Through Indigenous Maya-Centered Workshops,” a project that fostered cultural pride through storytelling, poetry and dance.
The program centered on a series of workshops in February for K-12 teachers and students in Atlanta, which is home to a significant number of Indigenous Maya families. The workshops, held in partnership with local and international organizations including Escuelitas, Maya Moon Cacao and the International Mayan League, drew on Indigenous Maya oral tradition, visual culture and texts like the Popol Vuh to help students explore questions of identity, history and social belonging.
"We’re living in a moment where indigenous families need spaces where they feel dignity and pride in their culture and history,” says Keme. “We used the example of the Popol Vuh, written by pre-colonial Maya youth to preserve their people's story under colonialism, to show kids how important it is to reflect on your identity and society as a whole through writing, storytelling and the arts."
During a poetry workshop led by Jericho Brown, Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing and director of the creative writing program, students strengthened their creative voice by exploring imagination and word choice.
“We brought about 20 teachers and 25 kids from Sequoyah Middle School in DeKalb County to Emory, where they participated in educational workshops,” says Keme. “The teachers learned how to develop Indigenous Maya studies curriculum for their subject areas while the kids participated in interactive workshops on dance, poetry and creative writing with Julio, Jericho and Tiphanie. I think that collaboration was extremely significant in helping the students learn about the richness of our culture and how to share it with others.”
Additional funded programs include “Resounding Europe: Borders, Boundaries, Belonging," a multi-year program connecting Emory with scholars and artists from Eastern Europe. The program, organized by Laura Emmery, associate professor of music theory, responds to the conflicts that have reshaped Eastern European identity, from World War II and the Yugoslav Wars to the ongoing war in Ukraine, and asks how music and culture reflect and rebuild collective belonging.
In April 2025, Emmery organized a conference in connection with Music Biennale Zagreba, a music festival in Zagreb, Croatia. In summer 2026, she will lead Emory faculty and students to Belgrade, Serbia for a conference, concerts, exhibition and workshops centered on the year 1991, signifying the disintegration of European communism. The students will study and work alongside scholars and artists from the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Faculty of Music of the University of Arts in Belgrade and the Academy of Arts of the University of Novi Sad, and will receive internship credit through Emory’s Pathways Center. The program will culminate in the fall of 2026, with a symposium hosted at Emory featuring installations, concerts and lectures with scholars and artists from Eastern Europe.
Another program funded through the initiative will launch a twice-yearly bus tour program that brings Emory students, faculty and community members face to face with the murals and public art that define Atlanta's neighborhoods. Building off a similar tour led by muralist Yehimi Cambrón during the 2025 IDEAS Week, Julia Tulke, assistant teaching professor in the Institute for the Liberal Arts, will oversee "The Painted City: Understanding Atlanta Through its Public Art.”
A local artist and an Emory faculty member will guide up to 50 student, faculty and community participants through the tours, which will be organized around themes like civil rights, gentrification and public health and are designed to connect classroom learning to the creative and civic life of the city.
To learn more about the Emory Initiative for Arts & Humanistic Inquiry and see additional funded programs, visit the initiative website.
Submit a Proposal
Proposals for Arts and Humanistic Inquiry creative program grants are accepted on a rolling basis. All full-time Emory faculty in any college or school may request support for programs focused on the arts and humanities
Information about proposal submission, evaluation and a link to the request for funding is available in the request for proposals.
Questions can be directed to Kevin Karnes, chair of the Arts & Humanistic Inquiry faculty advisory committee, senior associate dean of faculty and divisional dean of arts in Emory College, by emailing kkarnes@emory.edu.