| 20 June 2010 | to | 16 July 2010 |
NEH Summer Seminar for School Teachers and Graduate Students in Summer 2010: “The Abolitionist Movement: Fighting Slavery and Racial Injustice From the Revolution to the Civil War”
June 20-July 16, 2010 at The Library Company of Philadelphia; Director, Richard S. Newman, Rochester Institute of Technology.
“A reminder that there’s still plenty of time to apply for “The Abolitionist Movement,” a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for K-12 school teachers and two graduate students. The seminar will meet at the Library Company of Philadelphia between June 20th and July 16th, 2010. I am delighted to be directing the four-week event, which has already had two very successful runs in 2006 and 2008. Many of the people who have attended in previous years still keep in touch with each other and we all share stories of teaching triumphs, new career paths, and future plans. I very much look forward to working with a new set of teaching professionals and graduate students in 2010 and hope that you will consider applying to the seminar. Please feel free to contact me for more information (including getting continuing education credits for attending). You can also read about the seminar at our website: http://www.librarycompany.org/abolitionseminar/
“Needless to say, this is a wonderful moment to re-examine the abolitionist movement. Not only are there more terrific books coming out on the subject than ever before but there are now many new collections of primary sources available for classroom use — and many good Web sites too. Moreover, slavery and abolitionism continue to make headlines in papers around the country, as museums open new exhibits on the institution of slavery, local communities re-examine their role in the Underground Railroad, and television documentaries focus on the importance of slavery and abolitionist movements in early America. This seminar seeks to bring abolitionism alive by surveying an exciting range of scholarly literature and primary source documents on the subject. We’ll discuss key themes in the study of abolitionism, including slave rebellions, the rise of black abolitionism, the prospects for inter-racial activism, women’s key role as abolitionists, the Underground Railroad, Lincoln and emancipation struggles during the Civil War era., and a range of other concerns. We’ll also talk about teaching strategies and examine films and websites that deal with abolitionism as a historical topic. To gain further insight on abolitionism, we’ll welcome several terrific guest scholars to our seminar — including Richard Blackett, Douglas Egerton, Scott Hancock, and Stacey Robertson – each of whom will discuss cutting edge research in the field.
“Finally, because Philadelphia was an abolitionist hotbed, we’ve planned several field trips to some famous abolitionist sites in the area, including black abolitionist Richard Allen’s Mother Bethel AME Church, underground railroad stations, and Gettysburg. I hope that the seminar will be both engaging and rewarding. Indeed, I look forward to another great summer of reading, discussion and intellectual camaraderie.”
With Best Wishes,
Richard Newman (RSNGSM AT RIT.E)
Seminar Director and Professor of History, Rochester Institute of Technology
Author, Freedom’s Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, The AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers, and The Transformation of American Abolitionism http://www.nyupress.org/books/Freedom_s_Prophet-products_id-7704.html
