Douglas Northrop (l) and Gabriel Mendlow

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded two grant fellowships to University of Michigan faculty members for their respective work in humanities-based advanced research programs—one on the history of natural disasters in central Euraasia, the other on the criminalization of thought in Ango-American law.

Douglas Northrop, professor of Middle East studies and history, and Gabriel Mendlow, professor of law and philosophy, were among university faculty and independent scholars who received the awards. The NEH recently announced $30.9 million in grants to support 188 humanities projects nationwide.

The grant that was awarded to Northrop will support the project titled Four Days That Shook the World: Earthquakes and Empire Along the Eurasian Frontier. Mendlow's grant is for his project Thought Crime in Anglo-American Law and Legal Philosophy. 

The NEH, an independent federal agency created in 1965, supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation.