March 21, 2018

Dawn Odell awarded Franklin Research Grant

Associate Professor of Art, Dawn Odell is a recipient of a Franklin Research Grant. 

The American Philosophical Society (APS) has awarded Dr. Dawn Odell, Associate Professor of Art History, a Franklin Research Grant. This competitive $6,000 grant will enable Dr. Odell to spend time in the Netherlands conducting research for her book project, “Chinese Art in Eighteenth-Century Europe and America”. Dr. Odell’s forthcoming manuscript focuses on the extraordinary history of Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest (1739-1801), who was, among many other things, a patron and collector of Chinese art. Van Braam lived in the Netherlands, China, and the United States; he presented the first public display of Chinese art in the United States in 1796, in Philadelphia. With the support of an NEH Fellowship, Dr. Odell previously conducted research on Van Braam and his art collections in Guangzhou, China and a number of cities in the United States. This new award from the APS will support Dr. Odell spending time in the city archives in Zutphen, Gelderland; the National Archives in The Hague; and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Dr. Odell envisions each book chapter will focus on a single object owned by van Braam to construct “an image of the built environments, and social and cultural contexts from which the works emerged”. Moreover, it will argue that van Braam’s life “continues to inform present day conversations about ethnicity, diplomacy, global art markets, and trade wars.”  More about Dr. Odell’s research and teaching is available here.

The Franklin Research Grant program accepts proposals in all areas of knowledge from scholars with a doctorate or equivalent who need funds for travel to objects of research. The program typically receives more than 400 applications over their two annual deadlines of October 1 and December 1, with a funding rate of approximately 20%. The Society also engages in joint fellowship programs with the British Academy in London and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities in Edinburgh. 

It is noteworthy that this is Dr. Odell’s second competitive grant from the American Philosophical Society; she received her first in 2011.