Grants and Calls

California Humanities for All Quick Grants
Locally initiated, small scale, public humanities projects are desired for California Humanities’ Humanities For All Grant. The grant will award between $1,000 to $5,000 to projects that seek to involve underrepresented underserved demographics in California.
Deadline: October 2nd
California Documentary Project Grants California Arts Council is seeking documentary filmmakers whose work “reveal[s] the breadth and range of California’s cultures, peoples, and histories.” Applicants have the opportunity to receive Research and Development Grants totaling up up to $15,000 and Production Grants up to $50,000. Deadline: November 1st
Dan David Prize
Nine scholars and practitioners in the historical discipline will be awarded $300,000 each through the Dan David Prize. Nominees should be within 15 years of either receiving their PHD or producing a major work. Deadline: October 11th

Deadline: August 28th

From the Alliance Blog:

Hip-Hop’s 50th: Activist Martha Diaz’s Journey Through the Artform

by Sayou Cooper

Martha Diaz is a very busy hip-hop head. Whether it’s her MacArthur Civic Media Fellowship at the USC Annenberg Lab, her role as Executive Director for the Hip Hop Education Center or archival and advisory duties for the Universal Hip Hop Museum—hip-hop is always on her mind.

In 2023, hip-hop celebrates its semicentennial birthday. The stylized rhythmic genre and culture have moved beyond its Bronx block parties to the ears of millions around the world. In a male-dominated industry and culture, female trailblazers like Martha Diaz are often excluded from art form’s history.

“I grew up in Paterson, New Jersey. I was what you call a latchkey kid. My mom worked all the time.” Diaz spoke during our hour-long phone call. Paterson, now the third most populated city in New Jersey, has always been a nest for the immigrant movement. Diaz and her family were part of that enclave, immigrants from Columbia.

At home and caring for herself most of the time, she came across hip-hop at an early age. In the 1970s and 80s, hip-hop was a burgeoning art form commonly misunderstood. “Before it was like, oh, it’s just noise…they thought it was just a trend and they thought it would disappear.”

Diaz plunged further into the culture as a student at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Night clubs she frequented always had hip-hop, and from there she met artists and important figures in the industry. At Dickinson she studied Communications,Television and Film Production. This interest in television and hip-hop, landed her an internship on Yo! MTV Raps.

 read more at thealliance.media

Storytelling Mattersfeatures original and curated writing and photography about global story culture and innovation in order to facilitate conversation about the ethical and responsible use of creative technologies in community. If you have a story to share, let us know! wendy@thealliance.media

Workshops, Festivals, Convenings

Media Policy Watch

by Priscilla Genet  

Yesterday, September 27th, the Writers Guild of America announced the end of an historically long writers’ strike, with leadership voting unanimously to end the strike. The strike lasted 148 days, just a week short of their longest strike in 1988, according to Deadline. That same day, SAG-AFTRA and the Studios set a date to resume strike negations: Monday, October 1st. The deal terms of the WGA’s agreement cover a wide range of issues including rate increases, employment guarantees, and restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence. “These are essential protections that the companies told us, to our faces, that they would NEVER give us,” said member of the WGA’s strike negotiation team Adam Coever on X (formerly Twitter).

Newspaper company Gannett, who offers news coverage for around 20 High Schools nationally, recently came under fire for their readily apparent AI-penned coverage of school sports. The articles included a story for The Columbus Dispatch titled “Go WINNING_TEAM_MASCOTS!” In an interview with NPR’s On the Media, Jay Allred, CEO of Gannett’s parent company Source Media Property, explained the process and reasons for Gannett automating Sports Reporting. Allred describes his company’s technology as “information, not journalism,” and speaks to users’ desires for real reporting, as well as pointing self-critically to the concern of similar technological glitches effecting more serious reporting such as arrest records. This is all the more concerning with serious budgetary issues affecting dwindling local news sources, and a concern that smaller sources might seek to automate reporting to avoid having to pay writers.

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