WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 26, 2018)
—
The United States Senate voted today by unanimous consent to confirm Jon
Parrish Peede as the 11th chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
Founded in 1965, NEH is an
independent grant-making institution of the United States government dedicated
to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the
humanities.
“It is a distinct honor to be
nominated by President Donald J. Trump and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to
serve as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities,” said Jon
Parrish Peede. “I particularly value this vote of bipartisan support and will
work with my NEH colleagues to ensure that all Americans have access to our
country’s cultural resources.”
Peede joined NEH in April
2017 and most recently served as the agency’s Senior Deputy Chairman. Under his
leadership NEH has created a new category of grants to support infrastructure and capacity-building at humanities
institutions, issued emergency grants for cultural
organizations affected by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, expanded its grant offerings for museum exhibitions, and formed new
partnerships with Blue Star Families and the First Nations Development Institute for reading and
discussion initiatives for military families and the revitalization of Native
American languages.
Peede’s previous positions
include Publisher of the Virginia Quarterly Review at
the University of Virginia, Literature Grants Director at the National
Endowment for the Arts, Counselor to NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, Director of the
NEA Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience program, Director of
the NEA Big Read program, Director of Communications at Millsaps College, and
Editor at Mercer University Press.
As Publisher of the Virginia Quarterly Review from 2011-2016, Peede acquired
numerous Pulitzer Prize-winning writers and edited interviews with Nobel
laureates Alice Munroe and Derek Walcott. Under his leadership the magazine increased
its annual online reach by more than 400,000 readers and expanded its paid
readership to 51 countries.
From 2003-2011 Peede was
appointed to senior leadership roles at the National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA), sister agency to NEH. In addition to serving as Counselor to NEA
Chairman Dana Gioia for four years, Peede oversaw the agency’s funding of
literary organizations and fellowships to creative writers and translators. He
also served as an editorial advisor for bilingual poetry anthologies published
in partnership with the governments of China, Mexico, Northern Ireland,
Pakistan, and Russia, and managed the literature pavilion at the Library of
Congress’ National Book Festival.
As Director of the NEA Operation
Homecoming program he led writing workshops for U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan,
Bahrain, England, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, the Persian Gulf, and on domestic bases. He
co-produced an accompanying educational CD for the program.
At Mercer University Press from
1994 to 1996 Peede acquired and edited more than 25 books on the humanities, literature,
and Southern culture. These included colonial Georgia histories, a study of
Benjamin Franklin’s London years, Civil War biographies, a photographic memoir
of the Civil Rights Movement, and critical works on William Faulkner, Flannery
O’Connor, and other Southern writers.
Peede holds a bachelor’s degree
in English from Vanderbilt University, and a master’s in Southern Studies from
the University of Mississippi.
Peede has lectured at the Marine
Corps Command and Staff College, the University of Virginia, and other
institutions, and taught community college courses in literature and history.
He has served on the national
council of the Margaret Walker Center for the Study of the African-American
Experience at Jackson State University; the advisory committee of the Virginia
Festival of the book, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities; and the poet
laureate selection committee, state of Mississippi, office of the governor.
He is the coeditor of Inside the Church of Flannery O’Connor: Sacrament, Sacramental, and the
Sacred in Her Fiction (Mercer, 2007) and editor of a bilingual
anthology of contemporary American fiction (Lo que cuenta el vecino:
cuentos contemporáneos de los Estados Unidos [UNUM: Mexico City,
2008].) He has published widely in newspapers, magazines, academic journals,
books, and encyclopedias. As a speechwriter, he has written for a U.S.
President, First Lady, Librarian of Congress, and military and corporate
leaders.
Jon Parrish Peede was born and
raised in Mississippi and lives in Virginia with his family.
National Endowment for the Humanities: Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov.
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