Pitt Professor Awarded $1 Million From British Research Council

PITTSBURGH- Colin MacCabe, University of Pittsburgh Distinguished Professor of English and Film, has recently been awarded a grant of $1,060,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) of the United Kingdom.

The grant will fund MacCabe's research project, "Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire." With the award, MacCabe will categorize a collection of more than 4,000 British films from pre-1900 productions to television-era programming. Currently the films are poorly catalogued and lack contextual and interpretative information.

According to MacCabe, the goal of the project is to make the films available to a broad audience. A Web site will be established for scholars, researchers, and the public to access these historical films. The award will fund the production of a new catalogue of colonial films for the National Film and Television Archive at the British Film Institute and a new film catalogue at the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. It also will enhance the existing catalogue of colonial films at the Imperial War Museum.

Established in April 2005, the AHRC is a research council that works to support innovative study of the arts and humanities. It is a nondepartmental public body sponsored by the U.K.'s Office of Science and Innovation.

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