The National Endowment for the Humanities announces a 2007 on-site
Summer Institute for college faculty:
"Oaxaca: Crossroads of a Continent": July 1 – August 1, 2007
The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded funding to The Community College Humanities Association to conduct a 2007 Summer Institute on the topic of "Oaxaca: Crossroads of a Continent." This four-week Institute, held on-site in locations in Oaxaca, Mexico, is an in-depth study of the history and culture of the area, with a focus on the indigenous cultures of the Zapotec and Mixtec peoples, in pre-Columbian, colonial, and contemporary contexts. Twenty-four faculty selected from community and four-year colleges and universities throughout the United States will have the opportunity to study Zapotec and Mixtec culture in the field with nine internationally known scholars and writers from a variety of humanities and social sciences disciplines. [We are well aware of the current situation of civic unrest in Oaxaca initiated by a teachers' strike; we anticipate that the situation will be resolved well before our Institute begins.]
Program:
The four-week Institute will begin in the city of Oaxaca with a keynote address by Selma Holo, (Director of the USC Fisher Gallery and author of the recent book on Oaxaca as a cultural crossroads) and a study tour of the historic city. The next two weeks participants will engage in morning seminars and museum and field visits in the Oaxaca vicinity. We begin with morning seminars given by archaeologist Marcus Winter, followed by field study with Winter at San Josˇ Mogote, Monte Alb‡n and Mitla, and a study visit to the Regional Museum and the Centro Cultural of Santo Domingo, including the Ethnobotanical Museum. Anthropologist Ben Feinberg will give seminars on Oaxacan shamanism. Week two ends with seminars focusing on the origins of Zapotec and Mixtec writing systems and on the Mixtec Codices, given by John M. D. Pohl and John Monaghan, who will then jointly conduct a three-day excursion to the Mixteca Alta region, including study visits both to Mixtec archaeological sites as well as to contemporary Mixtec villages. We return to the city of Oaxaca for a final roundtable discussion of the Mixteca Alta experience.
The emphasis of the final weeks of the Institute shifts to contemporary Zapotec cultural and social issues. Guest scholar Lynn Stephen will conduct a seminar and two field trips examining the role of Zapotec women in weaving communities in the environs of the city of Oaxaca; Howard Campbell will conduct a four-day field study to Juchit‡n, in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a center of Zapotec cultural revival. Back in Oaxaca, Jeffrey Cohen will address contemporary social and economic issues in seminars on the impact of globalization in Oaxaca in the 21st century, including the phenomenon of Oaxaque–a diaspora. We conclude with a visit to the communitarian museum in the village of Santa Ana, where the themes of cultural continuity and contemporary cultural renaissance are being addressed by the local population.
Visiting Faculty: Howard Campbell (University of Texas at El Paso); Jeffrey H. Cohen (The Ohio State University); Ben Feinberg (Warren Wilson College); Selma Holo (University of Southern California); John Monaghan (University of Illinois at Chicago); John M. D. Pohl (Princeton University Art Museum); Lynn Stephen (University of Oregon); Marcus Winter (Centro INAH Oaxaca).
Project Directors:
Laraine Fletcher, Anthropology, Adelphi University
George Scheper, Humanities, Community College of Baltimore County-Essex
Project Manager:
David A. Berry, Executive Director, Community College Humanities Association
For Application and Information Packet:
Applicants may download the Institute Application Packet directly from our website at
< www.ccha-assoc.org/oaxaca07/index.html >
Application Deadline: March 1, 2007
NEH Summer Institute:
"Oaxaca: Crossroads of a Continent": July 1 –August 1, 2007
STIPEND
Because "Oaxaca: Crossroads of a Continent" is being held on site in Mexico, with a full program of field-study visits, the grant monies usually allocated as stipends have been pooled to cover participant travel and lodging expenses within the Institute, all of which will be covered directly by CCHA (these costs per participant are equal in value to the current $3,000 stipend for a four-week Institute). Participants will receive all lodging, internal travel and site-visit costs for all scheduled activities during the Institute, as is specified in the detailed Daily Schedule. Participants are responsible for meal expenses, for personal expenses and for their own round trip travel arrangements to and from Oaxaca, Mexico, arriving by Sunday July 1, 2007.
For additional program information feel free to contact one of the project co-Directors:
Dr. George L. Scheper
Humanities
Community College of Baltimore
County-Essex
Baltimore, MD 21237
Tel: (410) 780-6539
Fax: (410) 523-1341
Email: shepbklyn@aol.comDr. Laraine Fletcher
Anthropology Dept.
Adelphi University
Garden City, N.Y.Tel: (516) 877-4114
Fax: (516) 877-4717
Email: fletcher@adelphi.edu or
lorarainefletcher@aol.com
HOW TO APPLY:
Faculty from both four-year and community colleges interested in applying for the "Oaxaca: Crossroads of a Continent" Institute can download Institute information and the Application Packet directly from our website at
http://www.ccha-assoc.org/oaxaca07/index.html
Or, if preferred, hard copy of the Application Packet can be mailed upon request, by writing or calling project manager David A. Berry at the address or phone number below:
David A. Berry, Executive Director
Community College Humanities Association
c/o Essex County College
303 University Ave., Newark, NJ 07102-1798
Tel: (973) 877-3577, Fax: (973) 877-3578
Email: berry@essex.edu
Application Deadline: March 1, 2007