The Murphy Away Projects (MAP) program supports off-campus student-faculty projects that focus on literature and language around the globe, including the United States. The program also offers faculty development support and a unique chance to mentor student research in ways previously available only in the hard sciences. Each project trip may include one or two faculty members and up to eight students. Proposals for projects ranging in cost from $200 to $20,000 are welcome.
This year's (2009-2010) Murphy Away Proposal Form is available here. The deadlines are April 20 and September 8, 2009.
Documents for MAP Faculty Coordinators are available here:
Murphy Away Projects this year include plans to:
- visit Salem, Massachusetts, the historic birthplace of Nathaniel Hawthorne, to experience the environment that influenced the author’s work, as well as recreations of life in “Old Salem”;
- explore the history and diversity of Hispanic culture in New York City, partly through attending a number of Spanish language theatre productions at various Latino venues throughout the Big Apple;
- see and hear a presentation by Nobel Prize winning African author, Wole Soyinka, the subject of a senior seminar class at Hendrix, as well as attend lectures and readings by other major writers of Africa and the diaspora at the annual conference of the African Literature Association;
- nearly two weeks of exploration and cultural exposure in Germany, including a home stay and daily site-seeing excursions;
- tour Chicago’s historic Chinatown and have the opportunity apply what they have learned in the classroom in restaurants, on the street, and even the Chinese-American Museum;
- travel to Oxford, England, to examine the work of eminent author C.S. Lewis and participate in a week-long seminar, as well as study and board at the writer's own home, The Kilns;
Last year, projects included the following:
- travel to Tibetan exile communities in north India for nearly a month to pursue cultural understanding and Tibetan language skills and develop undergraduate research papers;
- a presentation of a theatrical re-telling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth at the International Edinburgh Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland;
- research conducted at Washington D.C.’s Library of Congress on Dion Boucicault’s controversial 19th century play, The Octoroon;
- participation in the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUSPI) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to compete against the best slam poets in the country;
- attendance at the Jane Austen Society of North America’s (JASNA) Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Vancouver, Canada.