Melissa Otis, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture and a Course Instructor in the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies (2016) and History (2017), has been selected as an NEH Summer Scholar from a national applicant pool to attend one of 24 seminars and institutes supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Endowment is a federal agency that, each summer, supports these enrichment opportunities at colleges, universities, and cultural institutions, so that faculty can work in collaboration and study with experts in humanities disciplines.
Dr. Otis will participate in a summer institute entitled “American Material Culture: Nineteenth-Century New York, held at, July 3-28, 2017.” The 4-week program will be held at Bard Graduate Center in New York City and directed by Dr. Catherine Whalen (Bard Graduate Center) and Dr. Katherine C. Grier (University of Delaware). Those selected to participate in the program each receive a stipend to cover their travel, study, and living expenses.
Topics for the 24 seminars and institutes offered for college and university teachers this summer include Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia: The Voices of Women in Literature, Cinema, and Other Arts since Independence; American Material Culture: Nineteenth-Century New York; Beyond East and West: the Early Modern World, 1400-1800; Bridging National Borders in North America; City/Nature: Urban Environmental Humanities; Diverse Philosophical Approaches to Sexual Violence; Elizabeth Bishop and the Literary Archive; Emmanuel Levinas on Morality, Justice, and the Political; Exploring the 1977 International Women’s Year Conference in Houston; The Formation and Re-formation of the Book: 1450-1650; Islam in Asia: Traditions and Transformations; King Lear and Shakespeare Studies; Making Modernism: Literature and Culture in Twentieth-Century Chicago, 1893-1955; Migration and Empire: The Roman Experience From Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad; Mississippi in the National Civil Rights Narrative; On Native Grounds: Studies of Native American Histories and the Land; Recognizing an Imperfect Past: History, Memory and the American Public; Rethinking Area Studies Through the Modern Asia Novel; Space, Place, and the Humanities; Teaching the Religions of the World; Transcendentalism and Reform in the Age of Emerson, Thoreau, and Fuller; Will, Commandment, and Human Perfection in Medieval Jewish Philosophy; What Happened to the Civil Rights Movement?; What is Gained in Translation: Learning How to Read Translated Texts.
The approximately 537 NEH Summer Scholars who participate in these programs of study will teach over 93,975 American students the following year.