Home Articles & Buzz
NEH Logo (square)

Call for Applicants, NEH Summer Institute, Visual Culture of the American Civil War and Its Aftermath

Deadline: Friday, March 3, 2023

The American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at the City University of New York Graduate Center will host a two-week NEH Summer Institute for 25 college and university faculty to study the visual culture of the American Civil War and Its aftermath.

The institute will focus on the era’s array of visual media–including paintings, sculpture, prints, photographs, cartoons, illustrated newspapers, maps, ephemera and monuments–to examine how information and opinion about the war and its aftermath was recorded and disseminated, and the ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ views on both sides of and before and after the conflict.

Participants will hear lectures by noted historians, art historians, and archivists and attend hands-on sessions in major museums and archives.  A team of three institute faculty that represents the range of work in the field will introduce participants to the rich body of new scholarship that addresses or incorporates Civil War and postwar visual culture, prompt them to do further research, and help them to use visual evidence to enhance their scholarship and teaching about the war and its short-and long-term effects.
Faculty and visiting speakers include:  Louise Bernard,  Michele Bogart, Joshua Brown, Sarah Burns, Gregory Downs, Matthew Fox-Amato, Aston Gonzalez, Hilary N. Green, Lauren Hewes, Dominique Jean-Louis,  Turkiya Lowe,  Amy Mooney, Susan Schulten, Scott Manning Stevens, and Heather Andrea Williams.

While scholars and teachers specializing in U.S. history, American studies, and art history will find the institute especially attractive, we encourage applicants from any field who are interested in the Civil War and Reconstruction era and its visual culture, regardless of your disciplinary interests. Independent scholars, scholars engaged in museum work or full-time graduate studies are also urged to apply.

Full details and application information are available on the ASHP/CML Institute website.

The Visual Culture of the American Civil War and Its Aftermath has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.
VERTCMYK

CCBC and JHU awarded $3.88 million from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

CCBC and JHU awarded $3.88 million from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

to support the schools’ Humanities for All 2.0 initiative

Collaborative efforts between the two schools help enrich students’ experience

 

Baltimore County, Md. – (Jan. 7, 2020), The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a combined $3.88 million to the Community College of Baltimore County and Johns Hopkins University to support collaborations between the two institutions on Humanities curriculum and pedagogy.

Continue reading CCBC and JHU awarded $3.88 million from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation →

NEH

Announcing Another Great NEH Summer Institute Opportunity

The following is posted on behalf of NEH and CUNY:

The American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at the City University of New York Graduate Center will host a two-week NEH Summer Institute for college and university faculty in July 2020 on the Visual Culture of the American Civil War and Its Aftermath.  Applications to participate will be accepted via mail, e-mail, and our online application system until March 1, 2020.

The Institute will focus on the era’s array of visual media–including the fine arts, ephemera, and photography–to examine how information and opinion about the war were recorded and disseminated, and the ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ understanding on both sides of the conflict.  Guided by a team of three faculty that represents the range of work in the field, Institute participants will hear daily lectures and presentations by noted historians, art historians, and archivists; and take part in hands-on sessions in significant museums and archival collections. These Institute activities will introduce participants to the rich body of scholarship that addresses or incorporates Civil War era visual culture, encourage them to explore avenues for further research in the field, and assist them in developing their own research and/or teaching projects. Reading assignments preceding and during the Institute will prepare participants for full engagement in the Institute¹s discussions and activities. And time will be provided to prepare individual projects, undertake research at local archives, and meet with the three principal institute faculty members as well as guest speakers.

The institute will meet from July 6 to July 17, 2020 at the CUNY Graduate Center (34th Street and Fifth Avenue) and other archival and museum sites around the city, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New-York Historical Society, and New York Public Library. Faculty and visiting speakers include: Jermaine Archer, Amanda Bellows, Louise Bernard, Michele Bogart, Joshua Brown, Sarah Burns, Gregory Downs, Matthew Fox-Amato, Amanda Frisken, Lauren Hewes, Dominique Jean-Louis, Barbara Krauthamer, Turkiya Lowe, Maurie McInnis, Megan Kate Nelson,  Susan Schulten, Scott Manning Stevens, and Dell Upton.

While scholars and teachers specializing in U.S. history, American Studies, and art history will find the Institute especially attractive, we encourage applicants from any field who are interested in the Civil War era and its visual culture, regardless of your disciplinary interests.  Independent scholars, scholars engaged in museum work or full-time graduate studies are also urged to apply.  You need not have extensive prior knowledge of the Civil War or visual culture or have previously incorporated their study in any of your courses or research. However, your application essay should identify concrete ways in which two weeks of concentration on the topics will enhance your teaching and/or research. In addition, please describe a research or teaching project you will develop during the institute. The ideal institute participant will bring to the group a fresh understanding of the relevance of the topic to their teaching and research.

Full details and application information are available on the ASHP/CML Institute website at http://ashp.cuny.edu/nehinstitute/.  For further information, please contact Institute Director Donna Thompson Ray at dthompson@gc.cuny.edu or 212-817-1963.

Completed applications must be submitted via our online application system or e-mail or postal mail no later than March 1, 2020 (postal mail must be postmarked by March 1).

bdT5s8Pz_400x400

Congrats to San Diego Community College District on Mellon Grant

The San Diego Community College District (SDCCD) and UC San Diego (UCSD) have been awarded a total of $2.7M in grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation! The innovative program creates a pathway for students to major in the humanities and then transfer from SDCCD to UCSD to further their education. Read the full article from Newswire here. Congratulations to all of our friends and colleagues at SDCCD!

Deans Blog

CCHA Deans’ Committee: “Innovative Practices in the Humanities” MCCIH

Innovative Practices in the Humanities

In the first of an ongoing series highlighting innovative practices in the humanities, the CCHA Deans’ Committee would like to highlight the work of Monroe Community College (MCC) in Rochester, NY.
Continue reading CCHA Deans’ Committee: “Innovative Practices in the Humanities” MCCIH →

Teagle Logo

CCHA Awarded Teagle Planning Grant for High School Outreach

We are pleased to announce that CCHA has been awarded funding to begin planning a project aimed at outreach to high school students. The project, “What Does It Mean to be Human Today?”, will see a series of two-week seminars held at five colleges across the country. The five colleges are the Community College of Baltimore County in Baltimore, Maryland; Monroe Community College in Rochester, New York; Collin Community College in McKinney, Texas; San Diego Mesa College in San Diego, California; and Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Michigan.

The Teagle grant funds the planning of the seminars, which will take place in October of 2019. More information on the seminars will be posted as we have it. For now, we would like to congratulate those involved in the planning process and the five schools that will be participating in the project.

ACLS Logo

ACLS Names Inaugural Community College Faculty Fellows

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is pleased to announce the 2019 Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellows. This is the first year of this program, which supports research projects from humanities and social science faculty who teach at two-year colleges. The program is made possible by a generous grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Continue reading ACLS Names Inaugural Community College Faculty Fellows →

CCHA Logo with border

SPECIAL REPORT: From AAA&S: Humanities in the Community College

SPECIAL REPORT

Dear CCHA Members:
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has just released its “Humanities Education in Community Colleges Pilot Study” and the results are very encouraging as we compare the relationships between humanities education, numbers of students, and two-year colleges. Here are some major highlights and talking points:
  • About 2.8 million students took a humanities course for credit at a community college in the fall of 2015 (the year for which data were collected). They accounted for approximately 40 percent of all community college students taking courses for credit that term.
  • Over 1.7 million students took at least one course in English, and approximately 700,000 students took a history course. About 300,000 enrolled in courses in languages other than English. More than 255,000 community college students took a philosophy course. Additionally, between 400,000 and 450,000 students took a course in another humanities discipline or a survey course in the humanities.
  • About 70,000 faculty members taught at least one college-level humanities course for credit at community colleges, accounting for approximately 20 percent of all community college faculty.
  • The student-faculty ratio in the humanities is “substantially higher” than the ratio for community colleges generally. The student-faculty ratio for courses in the humanities was 40 to one, compared to 20 to one for all community college courses. Philosophy has the highest student-faculty ratio among the humanities disciplines examined, with about 50 students for each faculty member. The lowest ratio among the humanities disciplines, at 26 students per faculty member, was in foreign languages.
  • High school students in dual enrollment programs made up about 10 percent of humanities students at community colleges.
  • The study found regional differences in humanities course taking. About 35 percent of community college students are in the South, but they make up only 24 percent of those taking foreign languages. But they make up 45 percent of community college students studying history. Community college students in the West are less likely to be studying the humanities than are other community college students, but they are more likely to be studying languages other than English.
We like to think that everyone in CCHA is an ambassador for the humanities. I hope you will take the time to study the information in the report and make every effort to reach out to your administrators and local media to help create a clearer picture of the humanities in community colleges.
Thanks,
Andrew Rusnak
CCHA Executive Director
*A copy of this report is available for download HERE.