Announcing the 2020 Benenson Prize Winners

by Duke Arts
April 27, 2020

Announcements

Each year, Duke University awards approximately twenty Benenson Awards in the Arts, which provide summer funding for arts projects, research, and training. With the retirement of Melissa Malouf, Professor of the Practice of English, after fifteen years at the helm of the Benenson selection committee, Jules Odendahl-James took over as chair (she is a Theater Studies professor and the Academic Advising Center’s Director of Academic Engagement, Arts/Humanities). But the familiar call for applications went up early in a seemingly normal spring semester and a few dozen students responded, outlining their hopes to, among other things, shoot film at the Carolina coast or in North Africa, to record audio in Australia, or to study music in New York or Austria or Italy.

By the time the committee met to make its decisions, the prospects of any of that happening were growing dimmer by the hour. As Odendahl-James explains, business as usual was not an option.

“The faculty committee, representing the array of visual, performing, and creative arts departments at Duke, met in March and evaluated individual proposals just as we would have in a typical year. Then, given the restrictions on travel, the cancellations of programs and events and with the blessing of our donor, we revised the funding model to offer all selected awardees the same grant amount. The hope is that these funds will support and sustain their work over the summer months and, for the graduating seniors, into the immediate future.”

“We’ve asked this year’s awardees to share their stories about meeting this extraordinary moment with their artistry and look forward to sharing those stories with you next fall.”