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Division of Education Programs

NEH Summer Programs in the Humanities for School and College Educators

Each year, NEH offers tuition-free opportunities for school, college, and university educators to study a variety of humanities topics.

For more information and application instructions, please visit the websites for individual programs. Links are provided in the expanded listings, which can be viewed by clicking on the titles below.

View printable brochure.

Summer Seminars for School Teachers

Abolitionism and the Underground Railroad

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 8—19 (2 weeks)
Project Director(s): Graham Russell Hodges, Colgate University
Location: Hamilton, NY

Dante's Divine Comedy

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 28–August 2 (5 weeks)
Project Director(s): William A. Stephany, University of Vermont, and Ronald Herzman, SUNY Geneseo
Location: Siena, Italy

East-Central Europe, 1989: the History and Philosophy of the Peaceful Revolutions

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 23—July 20 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Christiane Olivo, University of Northern Colorado
Location: Berlin, Germany and Prague, Czech Republic

Eastern Europe in Modern European History

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 30—July 18 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Larry Wolff, New York University
Location: New York, NY

South Africa: Continuity and Change

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 20—July 28 (5 weeks)
Project Director(s): Richard Corby, University of Arkansas, Monticello
Location: Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Swaziland, Grahamstown, and Kimberly, South Africa

The Abolitionist Movement: Fighting Slavery and Racial Injustice from the American Revolution to the Civil War

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 30 —July 26 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Richard Newman, Rochester Institute of Technology
Location: Philadelphia, PA

The Dutch Republic and Britain: The Making of Modern Society and a European World Economy

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 30–August 2 (5 weeks)
Project Director(s): Gerard M. Koot, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Location: London, UK and Leiden, The Netherlands

The Irish Sea Cultural Province: Crossroads of Medieval Literature and Languages

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 30–July 28 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Charles MacQuarrie, California State University, Bakersfield
Location: Douglas, Isle of Man and Glasgow, Scotland

Voices from the Misty Mountains: Appalachian Writers and Mountain Culture

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 7—27 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Sylvia Shurbutt, Shepherd University
Location: Shepherdstown, WV

Summer Institutes for School Teachers

Africa in World History

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 14—August 9 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Nwando Achebe, Michigan State University
Location: East Lansing, MI

African-American Literature and Social History

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 8—26 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Wahneema Lubiano, Duke University
Location: Durham, NC

Bridging Cultures: Diversity and Unity in the Pueblo World

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 30 – July 20 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Margorie Connolly and Kathleen Stemmler, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
Location: Cortez, CO

China and India: Comparisons and Connections

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 1—19 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Kristin Stapleton and Roger Des Forges, State University of New York, Buffalo, and Ramya Sreenivasan, University of Pennsylvania
Location: Buffalo, NY

Epic Questions II: Mind, Meaning and Morality

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 8— August 2 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Mitchell Green, University of Virginia
Location: Charlottesville, VA

Istanbul Between East and West: Crossroads of History

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 23— July 14 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Matthew T. Herbst, University of California, San Diego
Location: Istanbul, Turkey

John Steinbeck: the Voice of a Region, a Voice for America

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 14— August 2 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Susan Shillinglaw, San Jose State University and William Gilly, Stanford University
Location: Monterey, CA

Native Americans of New England: A Historical Overview

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 8—26 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Neal Salisbury, Smith College and Alice Nash, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Location: Amherst, MA

Ottoman Cultures: Society, Politics and Trade in the Turkish Empire, 1299-1922

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 8—26 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Deborah Cunningham and Susan Zeiger, Primary Source, Watertown, MA
Location: Istanbul, Turkey

Political and Constitutional Theory for Citizens

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 6–27 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): William Harris II, University of Pennsylvania, and John Hale, Center for Civic Education
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Rethinking the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 1877 to 1920

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 8—August 2 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Robert Johnston, University of Illinois, Chicago, and Crystal Johnson, Chicago Metro History Education Center
Location: Chicago, IL

Roots of the Arab Spring

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 15—August 2 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Omnia El Shakry, and Pamela Tindall, University of California, Davis
Location: Davis, CA

The Power of Place: Land and Peoples in Appalachia

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 7—July 26 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Jamie S. Ross, James Agee Film Project, and Daniel Pierce, University of North Carolina, Asheville
Location: Asheville, NC

Thomas Jefferson: Personality, Character, and Public Life

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 7—26 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Peter Gibbon, Boston University
Location: Boston, MA

Voices Across Time: Teaching American History through Song

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 24—July 26 (5 weeks)
Project Director(s): Deane L. Root and Mariana E. Whitmer, University of Pittsburgh
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Summer Seminars for College and University Teachers

Brazilian Literature: Twentieth-Century Urban Fiction

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 17—July 12 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): David W. Foster
Location: Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Curitiba, and Porto Alegre, Brazil

Italy in the Age of the Risorgimento: New Perspectives on Unification

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 1-July 31 (5 weeks)
Project Director(s): John A. Davis, University of Connecticut, and David Kertzer, Brown University
Location: Rome, Italy

Metaphysics and Mind

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June10—July 12 (5 weeks)
Project Director(s): John F. Heil
Location: St. Louis, MO

Persecution, Toleration, Co-Existence: Early Modern Responses to Religious Pluralism

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 15—August 9 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Karin Maag, Calvin College, and Amy Nelson Burnette, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Location: Grand Rapids, MI

Reassessing British Romanticism

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 10 —July 12 (5 weeks)
Project Director(s): Stephen C. Behrendt
Location: Lincoln, NE

Researching Early Modern Manuscripts and Printed Books

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 15—July 11 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Clare Lois Carroll, City University of New York, and Marc Caball, University College Dublin
Location: New York, NY

Understanding Buddhism through its Classic Texts

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 8—August 2 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Luis O. Gómez, El Colegio de México, and Parimal G. Patil, Harvard University
Location: Berkeley, CA

Summer Institutes for College and University Teachers

African-American History and Culture in the Georgia Lowcountry

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 9—21 (2 weeks)
Project Director(s): Stan Deaton
Location: Savannah and Georgia’s costal islands

African-American Struggles for Freedom and Civil Rights

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 1–26 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University; Waldo Martin, University of California, Berkeley; and Patricia Sullivan, University of South Carolina
Location: Cambridge, MA

America's Russian-Speaking Immigrants and Refugees: Twentieth Century Migration and Memory

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 9—29 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Timothy Frye, Columbia University, Robert Davis, Columbia University, and Edward Kasinec, The New York Public Library
Location: New York, NY

American Material Culture: Nineteenth-Century New York

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 1—26 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): David Jaffee
Location: New York, NY

Development Ethics: Questions, Challenges, and Responsibilities

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 22—August 16 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Fred Gifford, Michigan State University; and Eric Palmer, Allegheny College
Location: East Lansing, MI

Don't Deny My Voice: Reading and Teaching African-American Poetry

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 14–August 3 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Maryemma Graham, University of Kansas
Location: Lawrence, KS

Empires and Interactions across the Early Modern World, 1400–1800

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 3—28 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Ahmet Karamustafa, University of Maryland, College Park, and Charles H. Parker, Saint Louis University
Location: St. Louis, MO

India’s Past and the Making of the Present

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 1–26 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Beverly Blois, Northern Virginia Community College and Daniel Ehnbom, University of Virginia
Location: New Delhi, Varanasi, and Agra, India

Making Modernism: Literature and Culture in Twentieth-Century Chicago, 1893-1955

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 17—July 12 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Liesl Olson, Newberry Library
Location: Chicago, IL

Music and Travel in Europe and the Americas, 1500–1800

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 15—August 9 (4 weeks)
Project Director(s): Carla Zecher, Newberry Library
Location: Chicago, IL

The Centrality of Translation to the Humanities: New Interdisciplinary Scholarship

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 6—27 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Elizabeth Lowe and Chris Higgins, University of Illinois Center for Translation Studies
Location: Urbana-Champaign, IL

The History of Political Economy

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 2–21 (3 weeks)
Project Director(s): Bruce Caldwell, Duke University
Location: Durham, NC

Transcendentalism and Social Action in the Age of Emerson, Thoreau, and Fuller

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 7—20 (2 weeks)
Project Director(s): Sterling F. Delano, Villanova University
Location: Concord, MA

Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops for School Teachers

Clinton's Ditch: The Erie Canal in Western New York

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 21-28 or August 4-11
Project Director(s): Pierson Bell
Location: Sanborn, NY

But for Birmingham...The Rise of the Magic City and the Evolution of the Civil Rights Movement

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 7–13 or July 21–28
Project Director(s): Martha Bouyer
Location: Birmingham, AL

Crafting Freedom: Black Artisans, Entrepreneurs, and Abolitionists in the Antebellum Upper South

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 20–25 or June 27-July 2
Project Director(s): Laurel Sneed
Location: Chapel Hill, NC

Empires of the Wind: Exploration of the United States Pacific West Coast

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 16–21 or July 28–August 2
Project Director(s): Raymond Ashley
Location: San Diego, CA

Forever Wild: The Adirondacks in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 7–13 or July 14–20
Project Director(s): Kevin Sheets and Randi Storch
Location: Camp Huntington, Raquette Lake, NY

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School in the Midwest

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 14-19 or August 4-9
Project Director(s): Patricia Schultz and Paula Mohr
Location: Mason City, IA

Gullah Voices: Traditions and Transformations

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 8–12 or July 15–19
Project Director(s): Robert Stephens and Mary Ellen Junda
Location: Savannah, GA

Heaven on Earth: Shakers, Religious Revival, and Social Reform in America

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 7–13 or July 14–20
Project Director(s): Jennifer Dorsey
Location: Loudonville, NY

Inventing America: Lowell and the Industrial Revolution

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 23–28 or July 14–19
Project Director(s): Sheila Kirschbaum
Location: Lowell, MA

Jump at the Sun: Zora Neale Hurston and Her Eatonville Roots

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 7–13 or July 14–20
Project Director(s): Ann Schoenacher
Location: Winter Park, FL

Living on the Edge of Empire: Alliance, Conflict, and Captivity in Colonial New England

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 7–12 or July 28–August 2
Project Director(s): Barbara Mathews
Location: Deerfield, MA

One Place, One Time: Jackson, Mississippi, 1963

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 14–19 or July 21–26
Project Director(s): Suzanne Marrs and Stephanie Rolph
Location: Jackson, MS

Sailing to Freedom: New Bedford and the Underground Railroad

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 14–19 or July 21–26
Project Director(s): Timothy Walker
Location: New Bedford, MA

The American Skyscraper: Transforming Chicago and the Nation

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 7-13 or July 21-27
Project Director(s): Jennifer Masengarb
Location: Chicago, IL

The Fourteenth Colony: Native Californians, Missions, Presidios, and Colonists on the Spanish Frontier, 1769–1848

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 7–13 or July 13–19
Project Director(s): Ruben Mendoza
Location: Monterey, CA

The Hudson River in the 19th Century and the Modernization of America

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 7–12 or July 14–19
Project Director(s): Meredith Davis and Stephen Rice
Location: Mahwah, NJ

The Most Southern Place on Earth: Music, History, and Culture of the Mississippi Delta

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 16–22 or July 7–13
Project Director(s): Luther Brown and Lee Aylward
Location: Cleveland, MS

The Richest Hills: Mining in the Far West, 1862–1920

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 14–20 or July 28–August 3
Project Director(s): Kirby Lambert, Montana Historical Society, and Paula Petrik, George Mason University
Location: Bannack, Virginia City, Butte, and Helena, MT

The Transcontinental Railroad: Transforming California and the Nation

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 23-28 or July 7-12
Project Director(s): Ari Kelman and Eric Rauchway
Location: Sacramento, CA

The USS Constitution and the War of 1812

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: July 22–26 or August 5–9
Project Director(s): Sarah Watkins and Rebecca Crawford
Location: Boston, MA

Torn Within, Threatened Without: Kentucky and the Border States in the Civil War

Deadline: March 4, 2013
Dates: June 23–29 or July 14–20
Project Director(s): Tim Talbott
Location: Frankfort, KY

View printable brochure.