Department of English

Dr. Sara Rutkowski, professor of English at Kingsborough Community College, has been awarded a $200,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to co-direct a three-week national institute for college faculty focused on the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) with Long Island University Professor Deborah Mutnick. The NEH grant is one of 10 awarded to institutions in New York State this cycle. 

The program, titled “The Federal Writers’ Project: New Directions for Research, Teaching, and Public Engagement,” will bring together 25 faculty and graduate students from across the country in summer 2026. Participants will study the methods and materials of the FWP, a New Deal initiative that employed thousands of writers during the Great Depression to document American life. 

The institute will focus on developing curricula that engage students in a multidisciplinary study of the FWP, cultivating their research skills and digital and print literacies, and inspiring contemporary approaches to oral history and documentary fieldwork. Rutkowski is also the editor of “Rewriting America: New Essays on the Federal Writers’ Project,” the first multidisciplinary volume focused on the FWP. She has been a leading voice in the growing field of FWP scholarship. 

Learn more about this project.