NEH offers tuition-free opportunities for K-12 educators and higher education faculty to study a variety of humanities topics. Stipends help cover expenses for these one- to four-week programs. Here is a selected roster of institutes, seminars, and Landmarks of American History and Culture workshops related to folklore, traditional culture, and oral history. Click on individual titles for institute websites. For all NEH institutes, see www.neh.gov/divisions/education/summer-programs. All have a March 1 application deadline.
All have a March 1 application deadline.
Privilege and Prejudice: Jewish History in the American South
Location: Charleston, SC
Dates: May 26 – June 7 (2 weeks)
Audience: College & University Teachers
Program Type: Institute
This institute aims to revise understandings of the entwined histories of the American South and its Jewish inhabitants. Our inquiry shifts Jews from the margins of the story to the center, demonstrating the region’s cosmopolitan past and its relationship to both diversity and discrimination. The institute will prepare college and university teachers of southern or American history to incorporate Jewish history into their courses, expose Jewish studies scholars to the geographic range of American Jewish history, and encourage public historians to showcase cultural, ethnic and religious groups in their local settings.
Project Director(s): Shari Rabin; Dale Rosengarten; Michael R. Cohen; Harlan Greene; Theodore Rosengarten; Bernard Powers
Visiting Faculty: Jonathan Sarna; Adam Mendelsohn; Jenna Weissman Joselit; Eric Goldstein; Marni Davis; Marcie Cohen Ferris. Presenters: Brent Morris; Billy Keyserling; Anita Rosenberg; Randi Serrins; Hannah Raskin
Grantee Institution: College of Charleston
The Most Southern Place on Earth: Music, Culture, and History in the Mississippi Delta
Location: Cleveland, MS
Dates: June 16-22 or July 7-13 (1 week)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Landmarks
Two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers on the history and culture of the Mississippi Delta will educate participants about the important role that the Mississippi Delta has played in American history, a role sometimes overlooked. Our approach is highly experiential and engages Delta residents and members of the Delta diaspora in telling heritage stories in the places where they happened. Major themes include rivers, cotton agriculture, the Blues, the Great Migration, the Civil Rights Movement, foodways, spirituality, and diverse ethnic influences on the region’s culture.
Project Director(s): Rolando Herts; Lee Aylward
Visiting Faculty: Bill Abel; Lee Aylward; Reggie Barnes; David Evans; Rolando Herts; Bill Lester; Charles McLaurin; Jerry Mitchell; Benjy Nelken; Wheeler Parker; Alvin Sykes; Charles Reagan Wilson; Edgar and Inez Smith; John Strait; Brian Wintory; Raymond Wong; Cathy Wong
Grantee Institution: Delta State University
New Orleans: Music, Culture and Civil Rights
Location: New Orleans, LA
Dates: June 24-28 or July 8-12 (1 week)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Landmarks
This immersive workshop will introduce participants to the evolution of New Orleans music and culture, from the city’s earliest beginnings to present day. This development will be situated within historical contexts in relation to the evolution of human and civil rights, visiting significant sites throughout the city. Built on an inquiry-driven practice and drawing from the knowledge and spirit of cutting-edge scholars, luminous performers, local civil rights leaders, and the workshop co-directors, these experiences promise to nourish, challenge, and inspire teachers, and in turn enrich their classrooms.
Project Director(s): Rebecca Snedeker; Sonya Robinson; Bruce Sunpie Barnes
Visiting Faculty: Laura Rosanne Adderley; Shannon Blady; Rachel Breunlin; Nikki Brown; Courtney Bryan; Freddi Evans; Brooke Grant; Luther Gray; Fred Johnson; Wendi Moore O’Neal; Jamilah Peters-Muhammad; Matt Sakakeeny; Preservation Hall; Doratha Smith-Simmons; Jerome Smit
Grantee Institution: Tulane University
Discovering Native Histories along the Lewis and Clark Trail
Location: Billings, MT to Bismarck, ND
Dates: June 30 – July 21 (3 weeks)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Institute
In this immersive experience on the Lewis and Clark Trail (a National Park), 25 K-12 teachers will explore this and other parks, museums, tribal colleges, and indigenous communities as part of a hands-on educational journey to discover Native histories and indigenous viewpoints about the coming of Europeans. Participants will interact with Native elders and educators along the way, as well as in seminars led by university professors in Billings and Bismarck, bracketing the journey. At the final stop, the North Dakota Heritage Center, teachers will collaborate in the creation of interdisciplinary lessons that draw from their experiences.
Project Director(s): Stephanie Wood
Visiting Faculty: Shane Doyle (Apsáalooke), Joseph McGeshick (Sokaogon Chippewa), Rose Williamson (Apsáalooke), Calvin Grinnell (Hidatsa), Loren Yellow Bird (Arikara), Carmelita Lamb (Lipan Band of Apache), Michael Taylor, Dakota Goodhouse (Lakota), among others
Grantee Institution: University of Oregon
Museums: Humanities in the Public Sphere
Location: Washington, DC
Dates: June 30 – July 28 (4 weeks)
Audience: College & University Teachers
Program Type: Institute
This in-depth exploration of museums and curated cultural collections around DC approaches museums as sites for interdisciplinary inquiry into advances in humanistic and scientific research. These explorations are guided by weekly lectures and seminars led by six visiting faculty and a visiting artist, working together with local museum specialists. Complemented by excellent library resources, and targeted museum visits as case studies, the Institute is guided by the principle that museums offer windows on the educational, ethical, and cultural debates that define the humanities today.
Project Director(s): Karen Bassi; Gretchen Henderson
Visiting Faculty: Kurt Fendt; Barbara Kirsenblatt-Ginsburg; Steven Lubar; Elaine Gurian; Amanda Cobb-Greetham; Amelia Wong; Darren Waterston; Lee Glazer
Grantee Institution: University of California at Santa Cruz
From Mesa Verde to Santa Fe: Continuity and Change in the Pueblo World
Location: Cortez, CO
Dates: June 30 – July 20 (3 weeks)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Institute
This institute examines continuity and change over 1,000 years of Pueblo Indian history from the perspectives of two cultures (Euroamerican and Pueblo) and three academic disciplines (archaeology, ethnohistory, and oral history). The program begins in the late 13th century A.D., with the depopulation of the Mesa Verde region, the ancestral homeland of many present-day Pueblo peoples whose communities are now in New Mexico and Arizona. Scholars will spend time at Mesa Verde National Park and in historic Pueblo and Spanish colonial communities in northern New Mexico.
Project Director(s): Sharon Milholland; Kathleen Stemmler
Visiting Faculty: Shirley Powell; Susan Ryan; Kari Schleher; Dan Simplicio; Mark Varien; Kyle Bocinsky; Tessie Naranjo; Theresa Pasqual; Robert Preucel; Joseph Suina; Porter Swetzell
Grantee Institution: Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
Re-Enchanting Nature: Humanities Perspectives
Location: Helena, MT
Dates: July 1 – July 19 (3 weeks)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Seminar
This seminar is an interdisciplinary examination of our relationship to nature, hosted amid the beauty of the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone National Park. We draw upon religious, literary, historical, philosophical, and cultural perspectives to explore and evaluate how we think about the natural world. We examine whether the humanities provide distinctive opportunities to deepen our relationship with nature in ways that complement scientific study.
Project Director(s): Chris Fuller; Ed Glowienka
Visiting Faculty: Mike Jetty; Shane Doyle; Melissa Kwasny; Grant Hokit
Grantee Institution: Carroll College
Teaching Native American Histories
Location: Hyannis, Aquinnah, and Bridgewater, MA
Dates: July 5 – July 26 (3 weeks)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Institute
This institute offers a rigorous, humanities-based approach to Native American history that emphasizes key concepts rather than dates, events, or famous people while maintaining a focus on primary sources and historical content. Scholars will have an immersive experience in the Wampanoag homeland (Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard) with field trips to other communities. The key concepts, which have broad application, are place, identity, land, historical trauma, and how to find and evaluate classroom resources.
Project Director(s): Alice Nash; Linda Coombs
Visiting Faculty: Jessie Little Doe Baird; Lisa Brooks; Peter d’Errico; Cheryll Toney Holley; Barbara C. Landis; Natalie Martinez; Paula Peters; Harlan Pruden; Lorén M. Spears; Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel
Grantee Institution: Five Colleges, Inc.
“Stony the Road We Trod . . .” Exploring Alabama’s Civil Rights Legacy
Location: Birmingham, AL
Dates: July 7 – July 27 (3 weeks)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Institute
The institute connects the Modern Civil Rights Movement to key events in U.S. history and examines how the nation was forced to wrestle with how it dealt with issues of race and citizenship in a Jim Crow society. It starts and ends in Birmingham, “Ground Zero” of the Modern Civil Rights Movement. With support of renowned scholars, presentations by “Foot Soldiers” of the Movement, and travel to key sites of memory, teachers will undertake an epic journey across Alabama designed to help them reconcile what they thought they knew about this era of history with knowledge, facts, and the truth.
Project Director(s): Martha V. Bouyer
Visiting Faculty: Glenn Eskew; Robert Corley; Dan Carter; Hassan Jeffries; Tondra Loder-Jackson; Janice Kelsey; Carolyn McKinstry; Tara White
Grantee Institution: Alabama Humanities Foundation
Muslim American History and Life
Location: Indianapolis, IN
Dates: July 7 – July 26 (3 weeks)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Seminar
What does it mean to be both Muslim and American? School teachers are invited to explore this fascinating and important question this coming summer. Scholars will read compelling texts and conduct engaging field trips as they study the diverse facets of Muslim American identity, both as grounded in the past and as experienced in the present. Participants will reflect on and discuss thirty primary source documents and two major academic monographs; visit two mosques; and make a final presentation about how they will integrate teaching about Muslim Americans into their classroom. The seminar does not promote any one religious or political perspective, its purpose is educational.
Project Director(s): Edward Curtis
Visiting Faculty: Edward Curtis
Grantee Institution: Indiana University
African Americans in the Making of Early New England
Location: Deerfield, MA
Dates: July 7-12 or July 21-26 (1 week)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Landmarks
This workshop in Old Deerfield focuses on its 23 African American historic sites, the Royall House & Slave Quarters in Medford, MA, Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, NH, and sites along the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire. The workshop brings a wide range of primary sources along with secondary interpretations and lectures by specialists providing tools for K-12 educators to engage their students in learning about African Americans’ life experiences in early New England. Knowing this history is an important tool for building cross-racial and cross-cultural understanding in the classroom.
Project Director(s): Lynne Manring
Visiting Faculty: Joanne Melish; Barbara Mathews; Harvey Amani Whitfield; Thomas Doughton; Richard Bailey; Alexandra Chan; Tammy Denease; Eshu Bumpus
Grantee Institution: Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association
From Immigrant to Citizen: Asian Pacific Americans in the Northwest
Location: Seattle, WA
Dates: July 7-13 or July 21-27 (1 week)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Landmarks
The long history of Asian Pacific Americans (APAs) in the Northwest provides a wealth of landmark sites and historical materials on which to base K-12 professional development training to engage students in learning APA immigrant histories and the many cultures that shaped our nation. Incorporating Seattle local landmarks and others in the Puget Sound region of Washington State; teachers will explore the stories of multiple Asian and Pacific Islander groups who shaped this region and our nation.
Project Director(s): Charlene Mano-Shen; Rahul Gupta
Visiting Faculty: Julie Kang; Chevi Chung; Zhi Lin; Dorothy Cordova; Gary Okihiro; Madeline Hsu; Moon-Ho Jung; Ken Mochizuki; Jasmit Singh
Grantee Institution: Wing Luke Museum
Religious Worlds of New York: Teaching the Everyday Life of American Religious Diversity
Location: New York, NY
Dates: July 8 – July 26 (3 weeks)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Institute
The institute will bring 25 teachers from throughout the U.S. to New York City, where they will work with leading scholars of religion, meet with diverse religious leaders, visit local houses of worship, explore the religious life of the city, and develop their own religious diversity curriculum projects. This combination of classroom and community-based education will introduce teachers to American religious diversity, help them distinguish between academic and devotional approaches to the study of religion, and give them the pedagogic tools they need to teach about contemporary lived religion.
Project Director(s): Henry Goldschmidt
Visiting Faculty: Ali Asani; Eva Abbamonte; Morris Davis; Hasia Diner; Jonathon Gold; Christina Grasso; Jack Hawley; Charles Haynes; Elizabeth McAlister; Jacqueline Richard; Lexi Salomone; Josef Sorett; Marnie Weir; Kathy Wildman Zinger
Grantee Institution: Interfaith Center of New York
Gullah Voices: Traditions and Transformations
Location: Savannah, GA
Dates: July 8-12 or July 15-19 (1 week)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Landmarks
The University of Connecticut, in collaboration with the Penn Center, The Georgia Historical Society and other sites in the coastal invite K-12 teachers, librarians, administrators, substitute teachers, and classroom professionals to join us for these sessions. We will examine the artistic expressions of the Gullah, direct descendants of the enslaved who worked rice plantations on the coastal islands off the shores of South Carolina and Georgia. Their history, stories, beliefs are critical antecedents to African-American culture and the broader American mosaic.
Project Director(s): Robert Stephens
Visiting Faculty: Melissa Cooper; Najees Khan; Emory Campbell; Ron Dais; Al Williams; Victoria Smalls; Gail Smith and William Doc Banks
Grantee Institution: University of Connecticut
Tales from the Chihuahuan Desert: Borderlands Narratives about Identity and Binationalism
Location: El Paso, TX
Dates: July 14 – July 28 (2 weeks)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Institute
Borderland narratives have historically been seen as peripheral to the development of American history and identity. In middle and high school textbooks, borderland populations receive minimal attention. The binational spaces border people occupy have been portrayed as dangerous, illegitimate, and as part of a distinct counter-culture. During this institute we aim to place these forgotten regions and their populations at the center of the debate about American history and identity by focusing on the multicultural region and narratives from the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez metroplex.
Project Director(s): Ignacio Martinez; Joseph Rodriguez
Visiting Faculty: Jeffery Shepherd; Adriana Dominguez; Cynthia Bejarno; José Antonio Rodríguez; Erika L. Sánchez
Grantee Institution: University of Texas at El Paso
The Problem of the Color Line: Atlanta Landmarks and Civil Rights History
Location: Atlanta, GA
Dates: July 14-19 or July 20-25 (1 week)
Audience: School Teachers
Program Type: Landmarks
Atlanta is a fitting locale to consider the weighty issues of race reform in American history. It is home to Atlanta University, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Martin Luther King Jr., the site of the 1895 Cotton States Exposition and the 1960 Atlanta Student Movement. Within a national context, the workshop will focus on the creation and maintenance of a color line in Atlanta in the decades after emancipation as well as the resistance by African Americans that ultimately led to the dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the aftermath of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Project Director(s): Tim Crimmins; Glenn Eskew
Visiting Faculty: Tim Crimmins; Glenn Eskew; Maurice Hobson; Wendy Venet; Akinyele Umoja; Beverly Sheftall; Gwen Middlebrooks; Lonnie King; Martha Battle; Lizz Etter
Grantee Institution: Georgia State University