Conversation between Mark Dimunation and Abby Smith Rumsey
A conversation on the history and legacy of the CLIR Mellon Dissertation Fellowship program with writer and historian Abby Smith Rumsey and Mark Dimunation, Chief, Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress. Rumsey was the original program coordinator who helped create the Mellon Dissertation Fellowship program back in 2001-2002. Dimunation is a longtime mentor for the program who has reviewed applications and worked with fellows for all 20 years of the program's history. They are interviewed by Stephanie Stillo, Curator of the Lessing J. Rosenwald Graphic Arts Collection at the Library of Congress. Stillo is an alumni of the dissertation fellowship program and in recent years has served as a program mentor. They will discuss why the program was created, how the program and archive-based scholarship has evolved over the past 20 years, and some of their favorite moments from the program.