About
The Arts and Humanities Grant Studio (AHGS) is an engagement and support initiative in the Fine Arts and Humanities of the College of Arts and Sciences at UNC Chapel Hill. Initiated by Senior Associate Dean Elizabeth Engelhardt, the AHGS aims to reinforce the work of the university’s leading faculty, staff, student humanists and collaborative artists, assisting with the workload of and cultivating growth for grant-funded projects.
The AHGS seeks, simply, a culture shift in project-based work on campus which prioritizes both practical operations management and relationship building as central to success. Guided by a director and facilitated by a team of postdoctoral fellows, this dynamic support model offers a welcome new era for the many talented humanists who face capacity issues when spinning up new projects or considering next phases of work.
Director
Ashley Melzer is a producer, writer and media-maker living in Durham, NC. Born in North Florida, she received her Bachelors in Cinematic Arts from the University of Southern California and then a Masters in Folklore from UNC-Chapel Hill. Her writing and photography has been featured in Paste Magazine, the Southern Foodways Alliance, and Indy Week to name a few. She’s worked with Hopscotch, Moogfest, The Southern Oral History Program, Southern Cultures Journal and more. Ashley produced the award winning feature documentary You Gave Me A Song: The Life and Music of Alice Gerrard, which premiered at the Full Frame Film Festival in 2019 and on PBS Reel South in 2020. She is director and producer of Zara, a one person show about an anxious, asthmatic Muslim kid’s search for meaning and the chance encounters that impacted him. Ashley is the founder of Mettlesome, a creative, project based collective, for which she performs, directs, writes and teaches comedy. Ashley most recently led UNC’s Mellon funded initiative Humanities for the Public Good.
Contact Ashley Melzer with any inquiries.
Postdoctoral Fellows
Sara Katz received her Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan in 2019. Her research concerns the Nigerian hajj—the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca—from the period of British colonial rule through the first two decades of independence. By examining government files alongside print culture and interviews conducted with pilgrims and Muslim leaders, she shows how the hajj is defined by a constant crossing of scales (local, national, global) and in this way contests the pernicious colonial fiction of Nigeria being divided by a “Muslim North” and “Christian South.” This attention to scale also serves to trace how in the postcolonial era the hajj–as a national Islamic project in a country with split religious demographics–engendered both pan-Nigerian Muslim collaboration as well as the first national stereotype against Nigerian Muslims. Thus, her work addresses broader questions of the relationship between religion and democracy in postcolonial Nigeria. She is also currently a host for the New Books Network – African Studies podcast.
Boyie Kim is an accomplished arts professional with a passion for music and a drive to make the arts accessible to all. Originally from South Korea, Boyie earned her undergraduate degree in music and worked as an assistant director for an opera production company. After moving to the US for her MFA degree in Arts Leadership, she gained valuable experience in various positions in arts organizations. Recognizing the importance of research-based practice in arts administration, Boyie pursued and earned a PhD in Arts Administration from Florida State University. Her research interests lie in audience development and management, with a focus on leveraging new technologies to strengthen connections between arts organizations and their communities.
Mariah E. Marsden is a writer and folklorist who has found her way to North Carolina after growing up in the Missouri Ozarks. She received her PhD in English and Folklore Studies from The Ohio State Unviersity and her MFA in Creative Writing & Media Arts from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She’s worked in archives, editorial departments, and in the field on ethnographic projects ranging from the digitization of Ohio farm books to the imagined geographies of tabletop gaming spaces. As a 2022 Library of Congress Junior Fellow, Mariah curated an online exhibit on diverse agricultural histories in public media for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. Mariah is also the co-author of two graphic novel adaptations, Anne of Green Gables: A Graphic Novel and The Secret Garden: A Graphic Novel, with plans for more collaborations on the way.