The Society of Dilettanti: Archaeology and Identity in the British Enlightenment

Jason M. Kelly is Director of the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute and Chair and Professor of History in the Indiana University School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Africana Studies and American Studies. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Dr. Kelly received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara and is the author of The Society of Dilettanti: Archaeology and Identity in the British Enlightenment (Yale University Press and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2010), lead editor of Rivers of the Anthropocene (University of California Press, 2017), and co-editor of An Anthropocene Primer (2017).

As Director of the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute, Dr. Kelly supports IUPUI’s research mission by directing the IAHI grant programs, identifying and fostering transdisciplinary research collaborations, and organizing research workshops and symposia. Additionally, he facilitates public arts and humanities partnerships, including research projects, performances, lectures, and exhibitions.

Dr. Kelly’s current research projects focus on the histories of the environment, sciences, and art and architecture . He is currently writing A History of the Anthropocene, a deep history of human-nature relations. He leads The Anthropocenes Network, an international, transdisciplinary, collaborative network committed to developing innovative interventions in environmental research, pedagogy, and policy. 

The Anthropocenes Network is home to several projects including 1) Rivers of the Anthropocene, a research project focused on global freshwater systems and policy; 2) Voices from the Waterways, an oral history project; 3) The Anthropocene Household, a community-based research project that uses the household as a way to understand the lived experiences, knowledges, and practices associated with environmental change; and 4) Museum of the Anthropocene, an experimental platform to develop multi-sited, synchronous, interactive, networked environmental installations.

Dr. Kelly directs The Cultural Ecologies Project, a research program and PhD track that works with community stakeholders to study and design cultural interventions across multiple scales — from the personal to the neighborhood to the city level. Most recently, he founded The Covid-19 Oral History Project, a rapid-response research collaboration that archives the lived experience of the Covid-19 pandemic.  

Dr. Kelly has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Lilly Endowment, and the Clowes Foundation. He is the recipient of the IUPUI Research Trailblazers Award (2013), two IU Trustees Teaching Awards (2011, 2008), the IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI Student Council Outstanding Academic Adviser Award (2010), and the IU Bicentennial Medal (2021).  

Source: JasonMKelly.com