The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has approved a grant of $225,000 to the University of California, Riverside to support a Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Cultures titled "Unarchiving Blackness.” Jody Benjamin, an Assistant Professor in History, is the Principal Investigator of the project. Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi, also an Assistant Professor in History is a Co-PI. Other Co-PIs include CHASS faculty: Jade Sasser, Associate Professor in Gender and Sexuality, Ayana Omilade Flewellen, Assistant Professor in Anthropology and andré carrington, Associate Professor in English. In addition to funding a series of interdisciplinary humanities seminars in the 2022-2023 academic year, “Unarchiving Blackness” will also fund one post-doctoral fellow and two dissertation writing fellowships. The Mellon Foundation's Sawyer Seminars were established in 1994 to provide support for comparative research on the historical and cultural sources of contemporary developments.